First Native woman to lead Smithsonian American Indian museum

[Donkees]

‘Dr. Chavez Lamar is at the forefront of a growing wave of Native American career museum professionals’

KALLE BENALLIE Jan 19, 2022

Excerpt:

Cynthia Chavez Lamar has been named the incoming director for the National Museum of the American Indian. Her position is historic as she is the first Native woman to be a Smithsonian museum director. Chavez Lamar is a citizen of San Felipe Pueblo, and a maternal ancestry of Hopi, Tewa and Navajo. She said she is excited to begin her tenure on Feb. 14.

“I am looking forward to leading and working with the museum’s experienced and dedicated staff. Together, we will leverage the museum’s reputation to support shared initiatives with partners in the U.S. and around the world to amplify Indigenous knowledge and perspectives all in the interest of further informing the American public and international audiences of the beauty, tenacity and richness of Indigenous cultures, arts and histories,” she said in a press release.

Chavez Lamar’s journey with Native art began as a child with her family. Her father Richard Chavez is a celebrated jeweler, her brother is a jeweler and her mother taught her and her sister the processes of working with clay.

Chavez Lamar started out as a museum intern for the National Museum of the American Indian in 1994. She said it left her with the hope to work there again. With her eventually returning as a curator in 2000 for five years, it was that position which planted the idea of possibly being the director of the museum one day.

“The outpouring of heartfelt and warm wishes has been really meaningful to me,” Chavez Lamar said. “I have to give thanks for where I'm at because it's not through my efforts alone – my ancestors before me, people before me have paved the way for me to be here, and I won't be the last one.”


https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/first-native-woman-to-lead-smithsonian-american-indian-museum


Cynthia Chavez Lamar

Walter Lamar

[Haggard Celine]

1. Glad she was chosen.

It just seems logical that the head of that museum should be an Indian.