This post is part of our Internship Spotlight series. For this installment, Sand King (’26) tells us about her internship experience at Densho.
Can you provide a brief introduction of yourself, what you did, and what you were looking to accomplish with this specific internship opportunity? Additionally, what did you bring to the table that your host site was looking for?
My name is Sandy and I am a first-year student in the Museology program. I am a photography professional who was looking to make a career change into digitizing and archiving for museums. My internship was with Densho, a local non-profit organization dedicated to archiving the history of Japanese American incarceration during WWII. I actually sought out Densho before I began the Museology program because I knew the work they do was along the lines of what I wanted to be doing in my future. I knew that my skills in photography would be transferable to digital archiving and I was excited to learn new skills in archiving, cataloging and database management. Working to preserve truthful American history feels especially important now as we are seeing politically charged efforts to erase the wrongdoings of the government.
In interning with your host site, did you feel like your contributions led to a tangible, sustainable, or positive impact?
I believe in the work that Densho does, and I was grateful to have been able to play a part. I was also glad to be able to contribute my skill set in post-production image editing to help them build a more efficient workflow.
In what ways did your internship unexpectedly challenge you? How did you overcome that?
Even though I knew that Densho is culturally focused on Japanese Americans, I was not prepared for how much Japanese language and history I needed to know in order to correctly identify dates, names, locations etc. of the objects I worked with. I had to adapt quickly and do a fair amount of background research to aid my work. Many of the objects I worked with were personal artifacts like letters, postcards and journals. The items tell a story of an individual’s life and understanding the cultural context is key to seeing them for who they were and how they fit into history. I have learned so much in a short period of time about the history of Japanese immigrants in the US and about Japan itself.
How did this internship help you narrow down what you would like to do in your career?
I knew coming into the program that I wanted to shift my career to archiving within a museum setting. After doing this internship with Densho I feel that I have built a good foundational understanding of how a small historical archive operates. I have recognized where my skill set fits into the profession and the areas I would like to continue building knowledge.
In what ways did your classes prepare you for your internship?
All of the classes I’ve taken in collections management have been useful in some way with this internship. Learning how to handle, organize and store objects is critical when working with old, delicate and very voluminous collections.