Mother Tongue Media
A performer at the 1992 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
The Language and Archives Mentorship Program (LAMP), managed by the Center’s Language Vitality Initiative, aims to support members of existing Indigenous or minoritized language efforts in their reclamation work. The program provides direct mentorship to assist practitioners in navigating collection databases, understanding rights agreements, and fostering the relationships involved in accessing collections.
Update: As of March 2024, the mentorship program is paused, and we are no longer accepting applications.
The three- to four-month unpaid virtual internship program is designed to fit within individuals’ existing obligations. The goals of the mentorship are collaboratively established and can vary based on applicant interest and goals. Mentees can learn about Smithsonian archival protocols and gain experience with virtual collections access systems. In many cases, the mentorship includes discussions on intellectual property, copyright, archival access policies, and shared stewardship.
“I really appreciated all this support I received from the Smithsonian Institution. It was nice to be able to email different archivists throughout the institution and have them email me back with information… I had a terrific time and came back with a lot of resources. I felt like I was genuinely supported.”
—Survey feedback from a LAMP participant
Mentorship Overview
- Two to four months, five hours per week time commitment
- Fully remote, unpaid
- Must be an active individual or working group in an existing Indigenous or minoritized language project
- Must propose how Smithsonian resources could support your language project
- Rolling application deadline
Support for Ongoing Language Work
The Language and Archives Mentorship program helps people find and use collections, and it explores how the Smithsonian can best support existing language work. Past mentees have used our team’s assistance to search through Smithsonian archives to locate records of a specific baskets, songs, and other materials in connection with a community; hold design meetings and research sessions to create a community archive; and draft effective emails to archivists to request information.
We encourage applicants to propose ideas about how our mentoring can serve their work. Below are a few ways this program can support ongoing language revitalization.
- One-on-one search support: personal support in searching Smithsonian virtual archives to find and access materials
- Language documentation kits: access to recording equipment to enhance the quality of existing documentation projects
- Introductions and networking: assistance in drafting introduction emails and meeting requests to connect you to technical experts, archivists, and other groups facing similar challenges
- Project management: support with setting goals, scheduling meetings, and planning
- Organization and design: facilitating design meetings and research sessions to help develop solutions to roadblocks
LAMP intern Maija (Chumash) holds up a basket from her grandmother which was on her desk at the moment she found her grandmother’s basket in the Smithsonian online archives.
What We Learn
We encourage LAMP participants share feedback and observations about their experiences. This helps us to be better mentors for other language practitioners and to advocate for better systems within the Smithsonian.
Participants are given the option to share feedback through their personal statement within their application, pre- and post-program surveys, and stories and photos they consent to share. All feedback is anonymized to ensure both the individual and community are not identifiable unless otherwise indicated by the participant.
This information also helps us advocate for better infrastructure and user design at the Smithsonian. In this way, we can improve how the institution supports Indigenous and minoritized language communities. We present LAMP feedback to archivists and administrators to give experience-based suggestions on how systems can be updated or improved to better serve community needs.
We invite you to reach out to our team if you have questions about data privacy, protection, and opting out of participating in feedback.
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