Cultural Curriculum Chat with Jebeh Edmunds

Season 7 Episode #10 Illuminating the Archives: A Conversation with Storyteller and Archivist Dominique Luster

• Jebeh Edmunds

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What decides which stories survive the test of time? Who determines which voices echo through history's halls? These questions lie at the heart of our fascinating conversation with Dominique Luster, a master storyteller and dedicated archivist who's revolutionizing how we preserve Black narratives.

Describing her work as "Harriet Tubman meets Indiana Jones," Dominique shares her remarkable journey from theater major to founder of The Luster Company, a groundbreaking archival firm named after her fifth great-grandmother Charity—born enslaved in 1825 and later became an entrepreneur against extraordinary odds. This ancestral connection drives Dominique's mission to uncover, preserve, and celebrate the rich tapestry of Black history that traditional institutions have often overlooked.

Dominique offers profound insights into the power dynamics underlying historical preservation. "History doesn't repeat itself. Humans do," she explains, challenging us to recognize how the mere 1% of documents preserved in archives represents deliberate choices made by those with the power to decide which stories matter. Every preserved photograph, letter, or record reflects not just its creator's perspective but also the values of those who deemed it worthy of saving.

What resonates most powerfully is Dominique's celebration of everyday Black life. Beyond focusing solely on extraordinary achievements or devastating tragedies, she illuminates the meaningful middle—the beauty salon owner who served her community for decades, the thriving neighborhoods that created spaces of belonging, the ordinary triumphs that ground families in their heritage. These stories provide essential "anchor points" that help people understand themselves as part of something greater than themselves.

Ready to preserve your own family's legacy? Listen as Dominique shares practical strategies for conducting oral histories with elders and properly documenting family photographs. These simple acts of preservation might be the difference between stories that live on and those lost forever. Connect with Dominique at thelustercompany.com and through her upcoming contribution to "Brave Women at Work: Lessons in Letting Go."


Learn more about Dominique's Work Here: https://www.thelustercompany.com/

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Speaker 1:

Hello again, welcome to the Cultural Curriculum Chat Podcast. I'm your host, Jeba Edmonds, and I'm so excited to have in the guest chair today a storyteller, tedx speaker, archivist, ms Dominique Luster. But before we dive into our conversation today, I want to tell you more about our show. Our show is dedicated to showcase and share multicultural educational practices and strategies for you, educators and community members who are striving to promote and create positive change. Now a little bit more background on Dominique before we jump into our conversation today. Dominique Luster is a dedicated storyteller and advocate whose primary mission is to illuminate the rich narratives of the Black diaspora. With over a decade of experience in cultural heritage and memory, she expertly navigates the crossroads of history and advocacy. Formerly the Teenie Harris Archivist at the Carnegie Museum of Art, dominique founded the Luster Company in 2021, channeling her passion into ensuring that Black stories are not only preserved but celebrated. Her work is more than just research, but celebrated. Her work is more than just research. It's a vibrant tapestry woven with dynamic storytelling and a profound commitment to justice. Dominique has established herself as a fervent champion of Black-centered narratives, combining her research prowess with the art of narrative building to create platforms that elevate marginalized voices. Her consulting services have been sought after by prestigious institutions, including the King Center, the J Paul Getty Foundation and Denver Public Library, alongside numerous small and large nonprofits. Through the Luster Company, dominique reveals hidden stories, empowering individuals and organizations to amplify the voices of the Black community. In 2018, her TED Talk on the transformative power of archives captivated a global audience, leading to features on popular podcasts such as Archives in Context and Brave Women at Work. Dominique is also a sought-after keynote speaker at Women's Leadership Conferences, where her impactful messages resonates deeply with those striving to create a more inclusive historical narrative. Take a listen to me and Domin inclusive historical narrative. Take a listen to me and Dominique's conversation. Hello again, welcome to the cultural competition. Hello again, welcome to the Cultural Curriculum Chat Podcast. I'm your host, jeba Edmonds, and I am so excited to have in the guest chair today a storyteller, tedx speaker, archivist, ms Dominique Luster. But before we dive into our conversation today, I want to tell you more about our show. Our show is dedicated to showcase and share multicultural educational practices and strategies for you, educators and community members who are striving to promote and create positive change. Now a little bit more background on Dominique before we jump into our conversation today.

Speaker 1:

Dominique Lester is a dedicated storyteller and advocate whose primary mission is to illuminate the rich narratives of the Black diaspora. With over a decade of experience in cultural heritage and memory, she expertly navigates the crossroads of history and advocacy. Formerly the Teenie Harris Archivist at the Carnegie Museum of Art, dominique founded the Luster Company in 2021, channeling her passion into ensuring that Black stories are not only preserved but celebrated. Her work is more than just research it's a vibrant tapestry woven with dynamic storytelling and a profound commitment to justice. Dominique has established herself as a fervent champion of Black-centered narratives, combining her research prowess with the art of narrative building to create platforms that elevate marginalized voices. Her consulting services have been sought after by prestigious institutions, including the King Center, the J Paul Getty Foundation and Denver Public Library, alongside numerous small and large nonprofits. Through the Luster Company, dominique reveals hidden stories, empowering individuals and organizations to amplify the voices of the Black community. In 2018, her TED Talk on the transformative power of archives captivated a global audience, leading to features on popular podcasts such as Archives in Context and Brave Women at Work. Dominique is also a sought-after keynote speaker at Women's Leadership Conferences, where her impactful messages resonates deeply with those striving to create a more inclusive historical narrative.

Speaker 1:

Now join me in listening to our impactful conversation on the Cultural Curriculum Chat podcast. Take a listen to me and Dominique's conversation. All right, welcome back, educators, to the Cultural Curriculum Chat Podcast. I'm Jeva Edmonds sitting with the uncomfortable Dominique Luster today. She is, oh, I can't tell you how excited I am to have her on our podcast friends. I found her on TEDx, just you know, looking through multicultural, culture-responsive, you know strategies, especially for us educators, and she has it beat. She talks about how to search for those critical pieces of history that people are trying to be erased. And again, how kismet is this interview this time in our history? So, dominique, welcome to the show. We're so excited to have you here with us today.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, thank you so much for inviting me, for allowing me to be here and sharing space with you. This is the best part of my day.

Speaker 1:

I'm so excited oh thank you, let's just get into it. You know your journey into archival work is so inspiring to archival work is so inspiring, so let's just, you know, kind of break it down for our guests so far, our podcast listeners what does archival work look like, before we talk about your passion?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so I kind of akin. My particular flavor of archival work is kind of like the joining between like Harriet Tubman meets Indiana Jones. We kind of go investigating Black history and all of these. I mean we don't really like dive into caves and whatnot, but we do go explore attics and dates, looking for history and documents, and so that's my particular flavor of archival work. But in general archivists are kind of the preservers and keepers of historic documents, photographs, cookbooks, family Bibles. There's all kinds of documents and things that tell the story of who we are as people, of societies, of civilization, and archivists preserve those things, various things, so that they can be available for the future, for other people, for new generations, scholars, research, so that we can look back on those documents and say what happened.

Speaker 1:

Love that. Okay. So now, what has sparked your passion for preserving these and celebrating these Black narratives?

Speaker 2:

You know it's interesting. I am from Kentucky. Sometimes it comes out in my accent just a little bit, but sometimes so if you catch me, slip a word here and there, it's all good. So I'm from Kentucky and my family kind of has a way, I think, of lots of Black families. Like we just tell stories. You know how we talk the cookout, easter, thanksgiving, you all sit around this table and you go hear about this story and you grow up hearing these stories and grow up hearing about this time or that time or this person or that person.

Speaker 2:

But when I got to university, still in Kentucky, was when I started working at a university library in the archives and special collections on campus, mostly because I needed a campus job. Don't get it twisted, I just think it wasn't some, like I've always. Actually I was the kid who worked in the library, like I was that kid growing up. I was always reading books, but it wasn't this, I just want to be an archivist. I didn't even know what that was. I just needed a job, to be very honest.

Speaker 2:

And at the time the campus library was paying $15 an hour, which not trying to date myself, but at that time Big money $15 an hour was big money for a student job on campus where you could either work in the dining hall or you can work in tech services, or you can work in the library at the desk Right so, but I, um, I was working in a special collection which I didn't know, the main library versus the art library versus I didn't know. I was just like this is where they told me to show up to work but sit at this desk and get my $15 an hour and that is absolutely not what it was. It was actually kind of an intro archiving program, which again didn't know what that was, which, again, didn't know what that was.

Speaker 2:

And the manager of the program was this amazing, wonderful, just phenomenal Black woman who nurtured and tutored all these students into taking the skills that they had in whatever major they were in, and applying it to historic objects. So, for example, I was actually a theater major in college. I know wild, given that I'm an archivist now. I was a theater major in college and she showed me how to apply playbill collections. Like you know, when you go to a Broadway show, they give you the playbill and it shows you all the different information about the actors and the set and the design and all that stuff. The university had a collection of like hundreds of them and they were from like the 1910s, 1920s, 1940s, 1970s. They were historic in my mind. And so she was like, yeah, you have this expertise in this one discipline, right, this academic discipline you're studying to be a theater major. Did you know that pretty much any discipline you could possibly think of has a historic past? Wow, so she tried it for all of us. I happen to be a theater major, but there were students who were pre-med, there were students who were in architecture and engineering, there were students from all kinds of disciplines, and she would find the historic avenue of all of our various interests, one by one, and she would nurture each individual student in whatever they were already majoring in. She wasn't trying to convince anyone to become an archivist, she was just saying hey, you're pre-med, are you interested in the history of medicine? Because we got stuff about that. Hey, you're an engineering student, are you interested in the history of? I don't know? I don't know engineering. And so she just nurtured that interest so that it just kind of planted these depth roots in each of us.

Speaker 2:

Fast forward. I remember she brought me in her office one day and I'm pretty sure it was something that I was doing at work and she goes you seem to really like this what we're doing. You seem to really like this. Did you know that this is a thing? Like, did you know that there are those of us out here with like master's degrees and PhDs that do this for a living? Like, has this ever occurred to you that there's a thing called library school? And I was like, no, that is not a real word. I know you made that one up. It wasn't. It was a real thing.

Speaker 2:

But honestly, my path into becoming an archivist was semi-circumstantial but also intentionally divined and driven right. Intentionally divined and driven right Like it was circumstances that may have brought me to the library, but I do believe that people were intentionally placed at that library Educators, teachers, mentors, black women were intentionally placed in that library to kind of nurture that path forward for me. And so I went from a theater collection to a theater collection about, specifically about Black history, towards and purely Black history collection. I mean, she just kept going deeper and deeper and deeper, realizing that I had this natural love for history and for Black history, and she just kept giving me more and more opportunities to explore that interest until eventually I went to library school and have been doing this work ever since.

Speaker 1:

This is amazing and it took that educator to spark and make those connections. Theater major Clay Bills. Like who wouldn't think you know? Like, oh, people discard Clay Bills after you know they go to a Broadway performance. You know, I keep all of mine when we go to you know, my husband and I go to Broadway. Oh, I grew up dancing, so no wonder you are so comfortable on that TEDx stage. Honey, on stage, you are a theater major. Okay, that makes so much sense.

Speaker 2:

Well, I don't know about that. I don't know because actually, I was a lighting design student, not a student Right? So my undergraduate degree is in lighting design and technology. It's about putting can lighting cans in the air and hanging electrics. That's actually what my degree is in, not in performing or stage work. I will say, though, that you know you can stand on a stage, and there is a skill in being able to project and to speak with your full diaphragm. These skills are true, but what I learned is that you know, as a lighting designer, as a lighting technician, I need to be able to illuminate this individual from the back of the house, so that the person in the very back can see, so that the person on the sides can see, so that you know you capture all their good angles, for lack of a better word, but standing on the stage and speaking to us sold-out girls. That was the Lord in a prayer.

Speaker 1:

He was there for you because you could have fooled me. You were just glad and glad and on that stage. So I love hearing this. Thank you, Dominique. So that passion, that spark of learning our histories and Black narratives, how did that lead to you to found your company, the Luster Company?

Speaker 2:

So I, my company, is called the Luster Company, sure, which is my last name, but I didn't actually name my company after myself, which is a slight misnomer. I named it after my fifth great-grandmother. I named her after my fifth great-grandmother. Her first name was Charity, and Charity was born in 1825, 1824, 1825, is an enslaved woman. In what we now know as Dansville, kentucky, and in my own archival work, trying to find my own family history and story and discover who I am, this was before the company was started.

Speaker 2:

I was on this journey to try and figure out what entrepreneurship might look like for me.

Speaker 2:

It was very scary I mean it's not very scary time and I remember finding my fifth grade grandmother with the help of my grandmother, and finding and learning more about her and learning about what she must have lived through as an enslaved woman. And learning about what she must have lived through as an enslaved woman. I'm from Kentucky, if you subtract 150 years from that. I could only imagine, and I remember thinking to myself just having this like very cold but warm realization, as I learned that you know, she eventually, after freedom, reached Kentucky. She reunited her family that had been separated during the war, that she ran a boarding house as a woman, as like as an entrepreneurial woman within her own right, that she even had. We found remaining Freedmen Bureau's records with her name on the accounts. So I found out a lot about my fifth great-grandmother again, who was born as an enslaved woman in 1825. Fast forward, I couldn't really grab with myself what I was waiting for, what I was struggling with, what I was struggling with, what I couldn't do given what she did.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I mean with all the privileges and advantages and the capabilities and abilities and mobilities that I had. I knew that if I could find my story, I could help other people find their story and I felt as an archivist. I had a professional skill set to do so, and to do so outside of the traditional institutions. So I was an archivist for museums and universities and libraries, which is where archivists typically work. This is very commas, but I thought if anybody could preserve their story or help other people preserve their story, it would have to be outside of those traditional realms and that was really scary to me. But when I learned about my great-grandmother I was just very inspired, resolved, propelled. Couldn't I do? Given what she could do and what she could do for herself, her family and her community, I felt like I could do for mine and so I started the Luster Company.

Speaker 1:

Well, chills, I mean Charity's looking down at you and just saying, yeah, I knew, I knew. I'm not surprised. You know that you have. She gave you that baton. You know, and you know how many of us you know, black women, entrepreneurs I'm one myself with a consulting firm. It's just like you have that ache in the back of your mind going. Something doesn't feel like. I feel like I'm destined for more you know, and for you to uncover your own family history in archival. You know, digging to find her and to see all the circumstances, like you said, that she went through and still succeeded and still has done it. You know and it's like, yeah, why not you, dominique? You know why not you? And I feel like you know, with your work, which is so powerful, and again we're going to have to talk because I love history and you know, diving into my own personal family and shout out to Kentucky. We used to hang out in Paducah, kentucky.

Speaker 2:

Oh, in the Grand.

Speaker 1:

Liberians yeah, we my parents were grad students at Southern Illinois University and their little friends they would go visit on the weekends. Go to paducah, kentucky.

Speaker 2:

yes, let's find out a little bit about paducah I will say as a shout out, it's also one of like the only part, one of the only parts of kentucky that's actually in central time zone and so the whole rest of the states in eastern time zone is one of those just random small things that happened. But I love Paducah. I had to spend a summer there one year when I was in high school, so my heart, I have a shout out for Paducah. Same same yeah.

Speaker 1:

So, when you have your work like you said, you've worked with the King Center and the Getty Foundation and your own, you know family story. Your own, you know family story. What is the?

Speaker 2:

thing that just that was so powerful that you uncovered through your work, you know, with either client or with your previous connections with those organizations. I think for me one of the most powerful things is the everyday nature and the everyday, the everyday nature and the everyday, when I feel that we have discovered something incredible and amazing. Yet it is just the everyday Black life, everyday nature of Black folk, the everyday living and being and doing of the Miss Mary Sue's dry cleaner. And all of a sudden we discover her papers from the 40s and we can demonstrate to someone that you know, this was a thriving Black neighborhood back in the day. You know, those, those moments really mean a lot because the I find that the everyday, the everydayness of of black life, as a in in contrast to the, the highest of achievements or the highest of tragedies.

Speaker 2:

Most black folks in in america actually live somewhere in the middle. Uh, not everyone is the amazing, wonderful dr martin luther king, but not everyone is the amazing, wonderful Dr Martin Luther King, but not everyone is all the. I mean we get caught, I think, in our modern society, in the extremes. Yes, we do, yes, live kind of tightly in the middle and the everyday successes, the everyday achievements mean so much to communities, to find out that your great grandmother owned a beauty salon in the South side of Chicago that she operated for 40 years, and we'd be able to find photographs of that in the newspapers. Those things mean a lot to people, mean a lot to the everyday person, and that in my work means a lot to me.

Speaker 1:

Of course, and you know the misconceptions and misnomers. You know that African-Americans are conditioned that you don't know your heritage, you don't know where you come from and the fact that you have these, you know firsthand articles. You know that, yes, we exist, we have been existing, just like you said to your point of you know the great-grandmother that owned that beauty shop for 40 years. Here's pictures, here's photographic evidence that they were here. There is that sense of pride to say, no, I wasn't alone, I was here and my ancestors meant something and they have done something. You know that. I bet it's just a thrill for you every time you're working with a client to just feel like you know, like you said, like that you know Indiana Jones without the you know caves, but just to find and unearth those mysteries of their people. You know.

Speaker 2:

It's powerful knowing something about just knowing that who you are and who you are isn't some just bark of random.

Speaker 2:

I mean we are, but there's something about that everydayness just to know, like, hey, my grandfather was an attorney, not mine.

Speaker 2:

But let's say we discover records and we help someone trace back and say, hey, no, your grandfather was one of the first law or barred attorneys in this state of whatever you know, like that means something to people, find those connections and you find those parallels and draws it kind of grounds you and it grounds the family, or at least I find that it it's, it's an anchor point that says, uh, in this world that can seem or feel very chaotic, I come from something that has a strong root and that alone had tends to have the power to impact trajectories and totally change how people see themselves, and not as these random floating objects of chaos but as intentionally and wonderfully made to do and to drive and to continue your lineage and to understand that they are part of a legacy and to understand that they are part of a legacy and you feel within yourself and your heart almost a responsibility to that Like when you know you do better, when you know you do differently, at least, and you can never say that I didn't know.

Speaker 1:

That's so powerful, you can't say you didn't know when it's right there no-transcript publishing speaking is to communicate this very nuanced idea.

Speaker 2:

History is a meticulously curated phenomenon of power. It is something that is curated and shaped and deliberately chosen, and that we as humans especially probably since in the last 500 years, we create a lot of things. We create a lot of documents, records, papers. Every church has papers, Every government has papers, Every school has. We create a lot of documentation.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we do. I was a teacher for 18 years. We kept a lot of things.

Speaker 2:

And that's just one teacher, much less the whole school of teachers or the whole district, the whole county, all states, whole nation, all over the world. Are all keeping documents and papers and in records of everything that happens for every student, for every college student, for I mean, for every patient, I mean. Just think of the sheer amount of stuff that gets created. Fraction of it, a sample of a sample, ends up in permanent preservation for what we would call an archive. So like the 1% of the 1% of everything that's created ends up being preserved through all Civil Rights Movement. But we have first-person accounts or documentation of people who were so on and such forth throughout history, and so what ends up in an archive or in a library or in your textbook usually is referencing a piece of paper that was preserved and that preservation was chosen to be put in that archive by a human, someone, someone, a historian, someone chose to keep that piece of paper versus destroying that piece of paper. That is a choice, however you phrase it, it's a selection that we call appraisal.

Speaker 2:

Moving forward, the individual perspectives of the person who created the document influence the information that goes into it. So, to give you an example, you are the author of your diary. Your lived experiences will inextricably influence how and what you write in your diary. That can be based on where you live, how old you are, your family dynamic, your parents, your school. Like what you write in your story or you write a letter to your grandmother, what you write in that document is influenced by who you are and the perspectives that you bring to that world. Yes, so the object itself is influenced, or it's. The object itself isn't neutral because it's not human.

Speaker 1:

And then their own lens their own perspectives.

Speaker 2:

Right or wrong, it's just their own lens. Little Susie's Diaries. Little Susie's Diary, that is what it is. Diaries Little Suzy's diary, that is what it? Is, and then, on top of that, the selection of keeping or not keeping those objects to become an archive, a history vault, is also another selection that happens by somebody else. Yes.

Speaker 1:

So you have to determine who gets Abraham Cabe in.

Speaker 2:

And they determine whose perspectives, stories, objects, records, histories, diaries, letters get included in for the next 500 years and whose don't. So I think the thing that I try to talk about or share about, I think one of the most important things for me is this education for people that everything is selected, everything is curated, and so it's not that some objects are bad and some objects are right or good or wrong or whatever, but just understanding and having that critical thinking skill of analyzing everything that you read for perspective, analyze everything that you read for respect. You can agree with the perspective, you can disagree with the perspective. To me that's irrelevant. My, my, my call, my, the thing I feel very called to, is educating people on the critical thinking around everything that you see, hear and read.

Speaker 1:

that's it actually. I love it. I love it, and when I was in the classroom and with this educational podcast, it's like, yes, teach your students to be critical thinkers and to find other voices at that same time in history, to get that overreaching scope of the attitudes, perspective, of what was happening at those points of time in our history, and that's so amazing what you're doing and so important of our libraries to still be there in our museums and how they are being selected. On another level, I feel like of saying, okay, you have your archive here, the selection here, but maybe we're going to decide what gets to be going forward, you know, in this museum for people to attend, to see, or in this library for people to find. You know, and that's something that you feel is like a slippery slope because Because, like you said, it depends on the, like you said, that's the person's feeling perspective, but who's in charge of the selection, right? Yeah, yeah?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I would say that, as an archivist, we tend to look at history in these very large slots of time, so you might hear me reference things like for the last 500 years, for the last 2 years, 2000 years, or the last 5,000 years, in the advent of some of the earliest forms of writing and record keeping. Yeah, humans have been documenting or recording their stories in variety in there and telling of those stories in various ways and in various modalities, methodologies and institutions for thousands. Yes, what I want say is that history doesn't repeat itself. Humans do, people. Yes, yes, history doesn't technically repeat itself like history is the storytelling of something that happened in the past, like it doesn't actually repeat itself. History is the storytelling of something that happened in the past. It doesn't actually repeat itself, though it's a great phrase. When faced with similar inputs, humans tend to make the same outputs time and time again, generation after generation, because they didn't read it by the last time, that part, last time that happened. Yes, I time that happened.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I just love it. History doesn't repeat itself. Humans do. Girl, you got to trademark that, that's a word.

Speaker 2:

I think it's true. I think we, since by using that phrase we separate ourselves, our distance, accountability. It's like history, it's not this random, mysterious third-party object humans do when faced with similar inputs, humans tend to create or or choose similar outputs, as a previous generation may have. But what I will add is that, in that choosing, humans have told and retold, and retold again the story of anything over and over and over again for the past 5,000 years.

Speaker 1:

Yes, we're always telling and retelling a story. Wow, yes, and look at you, the storyteller extraordinaire of our history. Oh my gosh. Hey, let me tell you, I tell you, I am just mind blown. So for our educators, dominique, I need advice. Our educators, community leaders and even individuals who are trying to preserve and amplify our Black stories. We know we can get our phones and dah, dah, dah, dah dah. I've got tons of my kids, you know. But what can we do as archivists of today to preserve? You know, where do we start? How do we go about that?

Speaker 2:

I would say I usually have two recommendations. Okay, and it depends on who I'm usually speaking with.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

When I'm speaking with our kiddos, for example, or our younger generation, I would often encourage them to do oral history projects with grandmothers, great grandmothers, and sometimes, depending on the age appropriateness, parent or a teacher needs to work with them on that.

Speaker 2:

But there's something special about your son or daughter sitting down with your mother or grandmother right Like so. Now we're skipping a couple of generations to create some space and asking them questions about their lives, about their experiences, about what it was like growing up. I have found in my work that most people, many people let me not say most, many people can name all of their grandparents, like all four of their grandparents, or both of their grandmothers let's use grandmothers, for example. They can name both of their grandmothers and there are always circumstances through adoption or there's family challenges, where that may not be the case. That's not necessarily what I'm referencing here. What I'm referencing here is a family dynamic in which an individual could theoretically name the first name of their grandmothers, but that same individual might struggle to name all four of their great grandmothers, certainly will struggle to name all eight of their great grandmothers.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and so it goes on and on, and particularly women in our families, their names get lost First name, first name and typically their maiden name gets lost and they just become known as Grandma, or they just become known as Meemaw was named Edna and Edna used to be down, you know, and was a straight A student at HBCU that she was one of the first people to register as a Black individual, or at a PWI where she was first to register as a Black individual, or she was the first person to do this, or she traveled here. She was the first in her family to fly on a plane to Europe and she gallivanted around Europe looking at art for a summer. You might never know that about Grandma because you only know her as Grandma. Grandma yeah, a life and a story and a name and a first name, and that can often get lost.

Speaker 2:

And I think that for our younger communities, honestly, your family might be cooler than you think they are. They may have done some really cool things before you came along. And having that conversational point with them and recording it it doesn't have to be production. It doesn't have to be. I mean, I know we use a lot of the lights and the sound and I know we're in the era of social media, but it doesn't have to be all about that. It could literally just be the voice memo on your phone at the kitchen table while grandma's cooking the mac and cheese that you are not allowed to learn a recipe. That could be it.

Speaker 2:

Just get to enroll them and then, in reverse, I think it does something magical for our elders to know that someone is asking them, that someone, for the first time in years, has cared enough to ask them questions. And then one question becomes another question, and then you get to the sassy story and then aunt, so-and-so is like no, that's not what happened. And then it becomes a thing and it really, I think it uplifts and honors our elders and they find a warm place in their heart as well because they're experiencing and sharing and passing down this wisdom. You have your younger generation who gets to absorb and find joy in grounding in that story. It may not be for everyone, but that's usually an advice or a methodology that I have found to be very successful and beneficial for all involved.

Speaker 2:

The other thing that I often recommend is usually to take a classic photo project, so you have your photographs. Maybe a parent or an elder is the keeper. There's usually like a keeper of the family history and usually people know who that is and they'll have photos. They'll have early 1900s photos, they'll have things, but typically all that material is undocumented. Meaning if I flip on the back of that photo as an archivist, if I flip on the back of that photo. I don't have any names or any record of who's in the photo. Flip on the back of that photo. I don't have any names or any record of who's in the photo. Thereby you actually still lose the history, by me as the historian, as the archivist, as a librarian.

Speaker 2:

Once you separate the object from the family historian, that tacit knowledge gets broken. So a really important strategy for your own family legacy keeping is to simply write it down. Write it down, everybody is right. Who's related to who? If you have older photographs, flip them over on the back gently and write the names of who's in the photo and when the photo was taken. Those are the two most important pieces of data. Usually, as an archivist will just give professional secret names, dates and location. We can usually figure out the rest from there. But if you preserve the name, the date and potentially where one graph was taken, you can do so much for your own family legacy wow, oh, dominique, I tell you I'm gonna have to go call my mom after this.

Speaker 1:

Be like, ok, I need to see those pictures, and you know, because she'll always go. What I want to know, you know, and that will happen. But again, you know, to remain curious because, you're right, the generations right here need to hear from our elders. You know, before. You know, yeah, before they go and before we leave, because this is just such a eye opening conversation. So thank you so much for having this with me, dominique, before we go. How can folks find you? To learn more about your work and, you know, be a potential client of your work? You know, because I'm about to be calling you, too, my dear, because we got a lot in this african diaspora family that I have, but that's a whole, nother episode. So where can we find you?

Speaker 2:

daphne, but somewhere, pretty much everywhere that I could find at the luster company, um. So the luster companycom on instagram, at the luster company on facebook, at the luster company company LinkedIn, carrier pigeon, like pretty much anywhere, and I would say, you know, we, we have a variety of different levels of things that we can help with. So I mean, if you're curious at all, please reach out. Um, we, we'd be happy to to help learn more about your family and what's going on, and or your organization, what's going on, see if we can help. Or even if it's just having conversation, it doesn't always have to, you know, not everything has to result in client work.

Speaker 2:

Like I said, for me, I really love educating people about how this works and that educational lens of saying, hey, this is how, this is that critical thinking component of how history is made, and so you know, if you're ever interested in a conversation, please let us know. If any of this resonates and you're interested in any of the work. Actually, I'm talking about it and writing about it a little bit more of a book coming out, or at least a chapter in a book coming out in June in which I talk a little bit about this. It's going to be called Brave Women at Work, lessons and Letting Go. So I think June 16th, june 14th, something like that, the book will be coming out, and I talk more about this process in detail.

Speaker 1:

So I cannot wait to order your book. Oh, my goodness. Thank you so much, dominique, and and everyone listening to the Culture Curriculum Chat podcast, I will see you here same time next week. Thank you, dominique, for joining us. Thank you so much for having me.