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Season 2 of “Stop & Talk” has arrived! This season, dive deep into the themes of purpose and opportunity, guided by the insights of leaders in the arts and culture, sports, philanthropy, finance, and innovation fields. Together, we'll celebrate local achievements and envision what's possible in San Diego County. Let's converse and inspire one another.
Hello, my name is Grant Oliphant, and I'm privileged to serve as CEO of the Conrad Prebys Foundation here in San Diego, and we are about to embark upon a great program. Joining me here is my co host for the program and colleague at the foundation, Crystal Page. Crystal, it's so nice to be here with you.
Crystal Page:Thank you so much, Grant. It's an honor to get to join you on air. It's been fun to be behind the scenes, and, you just do such good work, and I'm inspired to inspire other people to do the same.
Grant Oliphant:Well, I'm right back at you. And I the reason we wanted to do this together is it's it's kind of more fun to talk about the people that, we're interviewing, with someone, and have the opportunity to reflect on, okay, what are we gonna talk about, and then what did we just hear? Because one person's impressions are great, but there's a lot more that comes out in the dialogue. And you were the perfect person to do that with, so I'm I'm really pleased to be able to have this conversation with you. Today, we're talking with, Mike Parzen, who is the head of the Museum of Us here in San Diego.
Grant Oliphant:Mike is really an interesting guy, nonprofit leader of course, but before that he was an attorney, he was an anthropologist, he cares about what the museum has done. He led it through a very difficult and contentious name change some years ago where he took it from the Museum of Man to the Museum of Us, and you know, changing the names of things is a contentious issue in our society, but he but he really did a nice job. And in this conversation, I think we're gonna have a terrific dialogue about what it is to lead that museum, but also what it is to do the deeper work of changing how San Diego relates to its history, and its culture, and the infinite possibility that exists here.
Crystal Page:Yeah. I think, one I love, I think, Michael was your idea to to bring in the studio, and I remember coming back to San Diego and hearing about this Museum of Us, and I was like, oh, I haven't been to that one. Turned out it was, formerly known as the Museum of Man, which I had gone to dozens of times as a kid, and, I guess I'm just really excited. You have to be a pretty brave person to say, hey. You know what?
Crystal Page:I need to get together with community, and we need to rethink these things. So excellent choice on your part, but I'm also just really curious to see what his journey's been, what the feedback has been.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. Part of part of what we're going to be talking about is a manifestation of what you just described, which is the the work that, the museum did, in partnership with the Friends of Friendship Park to, preserve panels from the Friendship Park border wall that was being disassembled as part of the replacement of the border wall project that has been going on, and I well, we'll talk about more we'll talk more about that after we give him a chance to discuss it with us here on air, but I I think it is a it's a beautiful way of understanding how one of the ways in which the the border is part of our culture and our identity in this region.
Crystal Page:You know, I think working at Prebys Foundation has afforded us the chance to think about these multi multiple cultures. Right? We've got the Kumeyaay, we have, the border with Mexico, and we have San Diego. So I think I'm curious to see how you take us through the thoughts on that in your interview with Micah, and I look forward to talking about it afterwards.
Grant Oliphant:Well, why don't we why don't we dive in, have a listen to the conversation with Micah, and then we'll come back and figure it all out. I just wanna start by thanking you, Micah, for being here today and joining me for this conversation.
Micah Parzen:Thank you. It's my pleasure to be here.
Grant Oliphant:I I I've wanted to talk to you for a while, because I view you as that rare leader who is both a visionary about what he wants to create in the world through the organization that he's leading, and also courageous in the pursuit of it and willing to shake things up. And I say that specifically to embarrass you. So I wanna I wanna get it out of the way, and, but I, you know, I think it's important in framing this conversation, Just the name of the institution that you had, the Museum of Us, was not the name when you arrived there. And before we dive into anything else, I just wanna have you tell a little bit of the story about why the Museum of Man in San Diego became the museum of us.
Micah Parzen:Yeah. I'm happy to do that. And it was a long journey that really started well before my time in the early 19 nineties when folks started to take issue with the lack of inclusiveness of the name. And we took, the subject matter back up in 2017, and we had just evolved so much as an institution. Our values had changed.
Micah Parzen:The kind of work we we were doing had changed, and the world around us had changed so much as well, and it just didn't feel like we were a San Diego Museum of Man anymore. And we went through this long process to sort of vet possible when COVID hit and the murder of George Floyd upon murder upon murder and the sort of social justice turn that many museums started to take, we decided that now was the time. And and early on in the pandemic, I had read a article, in the Financial Times by Arundhati Roy called The Pandemic is a Portal. And in I remember that article. It's phenomenal.
Micah Parzen:She really sort of makes that case that we have an extraordinary opportunity in the midst of this suffering and pain to emerge as a better version of ourselves. And, we really took that call to heart, and we decided to go for it. And, we really wanted a name that was part descriptive of the journey we had been on into, developing better and better practices and what an antiracist museum could look like, what a decolonial museum could look like. And we also wanted a name that was part aspirational, one that really forced us to constantly ask that question. What does it really mean to be a museum that is truly for all of us and not just for the usual suspects?
Micah Parzen:And, that was about three and a half years ago, and, it was one of the best things we ever did.
Grant Oliphant:Well and you know from the research you did that people don't love change necessarily, even even if they get intellectually why you might wanna change the name. I think people who grow up with something like to remember it the way it was and have an affinity for how things are talked about. What was it that you that you learned from that research that you carried with you into the process of changing the name anyway?
Micah Parzen:I think that, you know, there's no recipe for success or name that everybody's gonna love, but a true recipe for failure is to try to make everybody happy all the time. Right. You know, you're just not gonna do it. So we really brought out of that process the importance of being very clear about who you are and what you stand for as an organization. And when you do that, I think it really gives people something to react to.
Micah Parzen:Either it will resonate deeply with them, they will be curious about it, or it will touch a nerve in them and really trigger things. And, you know, I think that's really a valuable add to, community discussions because people began to think, what do I stand for? And shouldn't all of our arts and culture institutions be helping people figure that out as we navigate this extremely complicated, multifaceted world we live in.
Grant Oliphant:I think the name that you came up with, the Museum of Us, is a powerful one, and it captures the desire to be broadly inclusive and to make sure that everyone is represented in the in the museum. Who did you feel was not being represented in the museum before?
Micah Parzen:Yeah. Well, you know, that name, San Diego Museum of Man, was was very old school, really It
Grant Oliphant:was based on anthropology. Right? I mean, that was the idea of mankind and
Micah Parzen:That's right. And, very much a sort of western scholarly academic gaze. You know, this idea that, well, we won the colonial endeavor, and to the victor go the spoils, and so we get to take all your stuff and become experts about all this stuff. And, also, now we're experts about you and really a a sort of boxing out and a trampling on the the voices and the lived experience of the folks who went through those events on the other side. Right?
Micah Parzen:So, the name was really designed to sort of, you know, break that open, flip the script, and and imagine again what could a what could a museum look like? Is it if it's really, for all of us and not just for some of us.
Grant Oliphant:So how do you begin to tell that broader story, When you when you thought about, okay, we've got a name, and we've kinda got a sense for, what this museum could look like. What was the story you wanted to begin to tell?
Micah Parzen:You know, I think it was really one of humility to start with, Grant. Really starting with the acknowledgment and recognition and beginning to to tell the truth about a very messy and difficult history of harms that were were promulgated by the museum against indigenous peoples in particular and other communities of color and, you know, beginning to build trust and relationship anew, with these folks that we had harmed. And that took a lot of time to really overcome the skepticism. You know, we also learned that you can't all of a sudden come to somebody who you've harmed for a very long time and say, you know, we're different now. Let's be best friends.
Micah Parzen:We're good. Right? You really have to, you know, show up and, do what you say you're gonna do and even, take some hits in order to continue to hold space to develop a different kind of relationship. And were you surprised
Grant Oliphant:by the type of blowback that you got when you made this move?
Micah Parzen:I don't think so. I think we you know, until you're in the blowback, you you can theoretically
Grant Oliphant:What did you hear from people? How did people react when you when you made this movie?
Micah Parzen:You know, I wouldn't say I had death threats, but I, there were there were some People are
Grant Oliphant:very attached to their museum.
Micah Parzen:Absolutely. You know, we had a lot of philanthropists actually who had supported the museum from this more nostalgic Museum of Manlands that, were quite unhappy and, you know, definitely, made an effort to make sure I knew that, their support would be withheld if we continue down that path. And then, in fact, when we announced the new name, you know, they withdrew their support. And at the same time, we also had this outpouring of love and support and a booing by the community to really lead to a doubling down of support of many of our existing donors and also a whole new kind of cadre of folks who came on explicitly because we had had the courage to to change the name and move forward in a different direction.
Grant Oliphant:So when I when I was pressing you earlier on on, whose story wasn't getting told, you know, I think what comes up is obviously the story of women, doesn't feel like it's being captured by the old name and approach. The Kumeyaay population here was not represented, and there were deep feelings about on the part of indigenous folks about the history, not just of the museum, but of Balboa Park. Can you say a little bit about that too?
Micah Parzen:Yeah. I'd be happy to. A lot of people don't know this, but, first off, Balboa never set foot in Balboa Park. It was really a a sort of commercial advertising ploy to, come up with a name that was familiar to folks that could put San Diego on the map as the first port of entry after the opening of the Panama Canal. Even more significantly, however, and something that most people don't know is that there were, in fact, Kumeyaay peoples living in Balboa Park at the time, of the planning of the 1915 Panama California Exposition.
Micah Parzen:And the organizers, the architects, the urban planners of the exposition, who met in the building of the, Museum of Us, our administrative building, those folks deemed the Kumeyaay living in the park to be insufficiently Indian from a stereotypical perspective. And so they forcibly removed them from their homes, And then they went to Arizona and they brought in, Pueblo Indians who sort of looked the part from a traditional perspective, and they set up a Indian demonstration village called the Painted Desert over on the other side of the park where these Pueblo Indians did dancing and weaving and basketry and, pottery demonstrations for all the tourists to gawk at. And so this is really the the colonial harm and and sort of racist harm that the whole park emerges out of.
Grant Oliphant:You you have shared this story with me before, and, of course, I know it's part of the history of the park, but it is it still stupefies me when I hear the story, that the actual indigenous population that was living in the park and on that ground was removed so as to have somebody who looked more the part that they actually were, could take their place and make the case to tourists. So when we talk about harm, that's, you know, that's significant, and you're that's what you're that's what you're pointing to. I think it's important to acknowledge Balboa Park is an extraordinary community asset. If you fast forward to today, you would be hard pressed to find both a park and a concentration of cultural facilities like we have in Balboa Park today, anywhere else in the country. It's a it's a it's a unique kind of cultural asset.
Grant Oliphant:But it doesn't mean that there aren't these stories attached with it that we still have to work through. When you when you made this move with the Museum of Oz, how did you start doing outreach to the populations who had been hurt by either that history specifically or just the way in which it was talked about?
Micah Parzen:Yeah. You know, initially, when we started down this path, this isn't where we realized we would end up. You know? We just felt, the museum needed a real change. It needed to become more relevant, and we started to bring in stakeholders to sort of ask, what does that look like?
Micah Parzen:A key moment for us was when we brought the race, are we so different exhibit to the museum back in 2,011 for 3 months. We eventually purchased it in 2015, and it's an exhibit about race and racism. And, you know, we learned you can't bring an exhibit like that with without really looking under the hood of your own privilege and the ways in which you're positioned in a community, the ways in which you have harmed, other communities whose voices have have traditionally not been part of the the normative, narrative. And it forced us to really look under the hood and sort of unpack that privilege in a way that kept leading to the Kumeyaay community and to other indigenous communities whose belongings we had taken for them and whose ancestors we had taken from them and refused to give back for decades. And, we really began this process by reaching out to them and saying, we wanna do better.
Micah Parzen:We know better now, as Maya Angelou says, right? When you know better, you do better. And, you know, they really didn't believe us at first. You know? They said, why would we believe you?
Micah Parzen:You know? You've, treated us so poorly all this time, and we said, no. We really mean it. And would you have the grace and the patience to sort of work with us to to do better? And, really, fortunately, they exhibit extraordinary grace and patience with us.
Micah Parzen:After all this harm that our institution and others like ours have done, they really were willing to sort of help us find that path. And I think a lot of deep listening to the community, right, and really understanding, after we've built up enough trust and relationship that they would honestly a that has often, led us to make very different types of decisions where we are privileging what their preferences are and how they would like us to act often in ways that feel detrimental to, you know, the running of a business or a nonprofit. But, ultimately, in terms of playing the long game, it's paying off.
Grant Oliphant:Can you give an example of that?
Micah Parzen:Yeah. You know, before we sort of took this decolonial turn, we would often get overtures from private exhibit companies. And one in particular, had an exhibit that was traveling all around the world in major venues called Mummies of the World. And they came to us early on, and we thought, wow. We have a chance to really generate some revenues here, and we sure sure need them.
Micah Parzen:Right? You know, always trying to make budgets work. And, you know, we did that almost without a second second thought. But years later, as we learned more from our indigenous partners and the role that, of course, ancestors play in their communities, we realized we were sort of pimping out our mummies, as we called them at the time, for our own financial gains. So not only had we harmed them by taking these ancestors, but then we continued to harm them.
Micah Parzen:So we stopped practices like that, and it meant, an impact to our bottom line. And sometimes that took the form of earned revenues as in this case, but often it took the form of, philanthropic contributory revenues when, maybe, a particular donor started to evidence very different values from the types of values we had as an institution, and we ultimately had to become comfortable with blessing and releasing those folks and turning to the people who did have values consistent with who we are and what we sampled.
Grant Oliphant:It's it's a great example. You know, I heard a poet say once that, there are no evil places, only holy places and desecrated places, and I think what you're describing is a moment where you had to think through whether, this financially lucrative act would in fact desecrate who you wanna be and and how you serve the community. You know, if we fast forward to today, I I have to ask this question because the values you're espousing are caught in a cultural cross current, anew right now. It's not as though they weren't 4 years ago when you started down this path, but now we're we're seeing the inevitable pendulum swing around conversations on, redressing past harms, how we define us, you know, the the people people have complicated feelings all across the spectrum about what that means and who's saying it. And I'm I'm curious, are you feeling at all the impact of these cultural cross currents that we're seeing in society today as this con conversation continues to evolve?
Grant Oliphant:And I'm and I'm trying to keep this away from politics because I think there is something deeper here about how people think about these issues, and I'm just curious because you're always so thoughtful about it and not reacting to to the immediate gusts and winds of change. How are you processing what you're seeing right now?
Micah Parzen:It's tough. You know? It's a it's a extraordinarily messy and difficult time where I think we're all being asked to, take a side in a black and white world where, you know, we really live in many, many shades of gray. Right? You know, it's it's a world in which either you're with me or against me, and I think what we're trying to do in many ways is is sort of be transpartisan, you know, transnational to to rise above these kinds of issues that that try to force us to frame the world in that way.
Micah Parzen:And, you know, we've had many conversations about belonging, of course, in the past and and, you know, been thinking a lot about issues in that space of, you know, how do we approach belonging? Is it from the perspective of of abundance, or is it from the perspective of scarcity? I think belonging is sort of an issue that we all strive for no matter who we are. We all wanna walk in a room and feel that we're part of something and that we're accepted and we can bring our whole self into the space. And and I think when when you're you're in that space, you can either retreat back and say I'm gonna try to protect my sense of belonging, and if that means pushing others out, I'll do so, Or this feels so good.
Micah Parzen:I want others to experience that as well. And I'm often reminded of the phrase, that which you appreciate appreciates. You You know? That that which you really focus on, that you are grateful for, that you really, put your energy into, you know, that will grow. And, I think that happens time and time again, whereas if you come from a fear based perspective, you know, there's a retrenchment.
Micah Parzen:Right? There's a a tightening of the circle and, you know, so I think the Museum of Us is really about, trying to, create a sense of possibility that there is abundance out there, that we can all belong, but it requires us wanting that for each other and often doing the hard work necessary to allow that to happen.
Grant Oliphant:I'm so glad I asked you that question because I think the way in which you captured the idea of belonging and how it really does include everyone, and how we can embrace that, while setting aside these other, you know, sort of wildly passionate feelings that we see in the political realm. Basically, what it boils down to is we live in a community. We want that community to include everyone who's here, and the history of everyone who's here, and isn't that a dignity we would all want for ourselves and for each other? I mean, that's what I hear you saying.
Micah Parzen:Yes. Right on. Correct.
Grant Oliphant:So, as as as we think about how you take that message out into the world of today, the very complicated world of today, I'm curious, you know, how you are thinking about your continued relevance in this environment, and you used the word relevance a little while ago. What what projects are you working on or things are you working on that are particularly exciting to you now that for you manifest this desire to tell the story of San Diego, tell the story of everyone who's here, and bring alive the spirit that you're describing so well.
Micah Parzen:Well, I think the main project that is taking up most of our bandwidth and time and energy at the museum these days is something we're referring to as the border wall preservation project. This began where, as you know, the federal government decided that it was going to take down the wall at Friendship Park, which has been a gathering point for decades for people on both sides of the border, and replace it with a, 30 foot wall instead of the 18 foot wall that currently exists. And the existing wall, has all sorts of beautiful protest art on it and all sorts of meaningful stories connected, throughout, for example, you know, somebody dying of a terminal illness who's able to connect with a loved one, for the last time, even though their loved one had been deported or a grandparent who got to see a a granddaughter or grandson for the first time on one side of the border or another. All these amazing stories and and moments that are contained in this place of great deep connection and also place of deep pain and and sorrow. Right?
Micah Parzen:Well, the Friends of Friendship Park, who has been advocating for this space for, decades now, as a site of connection and and remembrance and transcendence, reached out to us and said, look. We've sort of lost the battle to, save the wall from being torn down and replaced, and it's gonna be torn down. Would you consider, reaching out to see if you might be able to preserve it? And we jumped at the opportunity and said absolutely. We reached out to Customs and Border Protection.
Micah Parzen:We thought they would never say yes, and initially, they sort of raked me over the coals in terms of what would you do with these sections of the wall, you know, who would decide, what would be your process. They sort of passed me on to to somebody else who eventually told me that, once the wall gets taken down, it becomes the property of the contractor. And if the contractor was interested in giving them to the museum, they could do so and that they had reached out to the contractor and they were willing to do so. It was just a matter of logistics. So, over the past several months, we have been going to the border, entering into the sort of no man's land and picking up these enormous sections of the wall.
Micah Parzen:They are 18 feet tall. They're 8 feet wide. They're about £43100 apiece. We've identified 21 that Friends of Friendship Park would like us to, procure. We've got 14 of them safe and sound in our storage facility so far with the remaining 7 scheduled for pickup within the next few weeks.
Micah Parzen:So this is a project that, we hope to be behind the scenes on in the sense of the museum helped make this happen, yes, but what we're really going to do is redistribute this wealth. You know, one one government's trash is another trinational community's wealth. Redistribute it, this treasure back into the trinational community on both sides of the border, including the Kumeyaay Nation, and we hope to ultimately create a constellation of interpretive sites. So think, the Stewart Collection in UCSD writ large over, you know, 100 of miles in our trinational region, to share the stories of some
Grant Oliphant:public art in essence spread throughout communities around the San Diego region.
Micah Parzen:Exactly. I
Grant Oliphant:so this project, will have gone live by the time or at least you will have announced it by the time this podcast, airs. And it's extraordinary. I mean, it's a phenomenal it's a phenomenal public art concept. I can imagine that the the feds the federal government representatives who you reached out to had to think twice when they heard from a guy named Mike Parson who wanted a bunch of these panels. Yes.
Grant Oliphant:I mean, it's, and you clearly made the case well. Why you know, for for people who wonder, we'd that the the border wall right now is just it's a political artifact, you know, in terms of how it's talked about, and there is, incredible passions on both sides of the issue, on both sides of the border, about what the wall itself represents. Why is it also a cultural artifact? Mhmm. Why is it important to tell that story?
Grant Oliphant:And I get that there's art on both sides of it, which is wonderful, and you you captured that. But why is it a cultural artifact beyond that?
Micah Parzen:Well, I think as a starting point, you know, we know we're on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Kumeyaay nation, right, who have stewarded this land since time immemorial. And, those folks used to, you know, roam freely and trade freely and subsist freely, in this region. Right? The the sea, the mountains, the desert, they emerged out of this land and this soil. And, you know, at some point, you know, following the the the war between Guadalupe Hidalgo to, indicate that this was the the border, and it was an a random act in many ways that created an arbitrary line that created a a a future that ensued that was very different than what had preceded.
Grant Oliphant:Mhmm.
Micah Parzen:So I think when we start even with the Kumeyaay story and who the Kumeyaay are and whose land this actually was from a stewardship perspective, and then, you know, of course, the increasing militarization of the border over many years when first lady Pat Nixon in, I think, 1971 designated Friendship Park, you know, there was a barbed wire fence and people moved freely. When I was a young person growing up in San Diego, we would regularly go down to Mexico for an evening, at lunch, at night. You weren't, waiting hours and hours. And, over time, as that border has been built up and militarized, families have been separated from one another. There has been a profound disconnection among millions and millions of people.
Micah Parzen:Right? And so this site, begins to, emerge as a place where we transcend those politics. Right? We begin to, find ways that we can deeply tap into our humanity and what's really important to us as as individuals, as families, as communities, and ultimately as a society.
Grant Oliphant:It's one of the things about San Diego that I think is distinctive that the border is a living, breathing part of the identity of this community, for good and bad, for challenges and beautiful gifts. It's just part of who we are, and I think it took an act of inspiration for someone to think of preserving pieces of this old Friendship Park border wall to capture some of that narrative, so thank you for that. I I just think that's extraordinary.
Micah Parzen:Thank you, Grant.
Grant Oliphant:You're also you know, you mentioned belonging, and you've mentioned the trinational region, which is a term that just, I started using almost automatically when I came here because I saw this convergence, not only of 2 nations, but also of the Kumeyaay peoples. And, and the fact that we have all of that here is, again, such an extraordinary part of our culture. But you you have really tried to convey belonging, across all three, And now you're working on a project to actually make that a physical part of the of the museum of us. Can you say a little bit about that?
Micah Parzen:Yeah. Definitely. And and thank you as a, philanthropic leader in our community and beyond for for recognizing the importance of language. Right? We know how much language matters, and and every time we say binational, it's an act of inadvertent, often, erasure of the Kumeyaay nation.
Micah Parzen:And what we're trying to do is, create something that really honors that, at its essence, and that is to create a center for trinational belonging, which, would be at the western gateway of the park in our administrative building. I told this story earlier about the Kumeyaay being dispossessed of their land back in 1915, and that happened in our very building. Right? And the entire park, as you know, is really a celebration, a glorification of colonialism and, a sweeping under the rug of, the atrocities and the harms, to indigenous peoples and other communities of color that, occurred as a result. So what we want to do through this center is to create a place at that western gateway of the park, where everybody feels like they belong, a place where people can process our constellation of social justice exhibits, through a sort of lens of of what, so what, and now what.
Micah Parzen:The what being the experience of the exhibits themselves, whether it's race or immigration or Friendship Park, the so what being what does it mean for me, my community, my team, my organization, my society, and the now what being how do I translate this into meaningful action? So the idea of the center is that, it begins to really uplift and center the voices and lived experience of those who haven't been part of the dominant narrative. And we think in doing so by creating a space for workshops and retreats and field trips and, an indigenous consultation room and a place where the Kumeyaay on both sides of the border can call home, that we'll begin to shift the energy, not just of the museum but of the entire, Balboa Park, that instead of being a a celebration and a glorification of colonialism from the get go, there's a problematization and an asking of questions and a challenging of assumptions that can lead to a larger, building of critical mass and, ultimately, a a different world, 5, 10, 15, 20 years down the road.
Grant Oliphant:You you also play a leading role on the board of the Belboa Park Cultural Partnership, and you're the board chair. That's right. And that organization, does excellent work, by the way, in in advocating for the arts in San Diego and for advocating for Balboa Park. Balboa Park is economically a huge asset for San Diego. I I think I think far beyond the credit it's given, in terms of the tourists that it attracts here, the visitors who come here from all over the region, the, the the jobs that it generates, and the economic activity it generates.
Grant Oliphant:And yet, it is in the midst of this changing, psychology about who and what it should be, including the questions you're asking. When you when you try and square what you're doing at the Museum of Us, and what's happening with Balboa Park to keep Balboa Park alive and vital and relevant for a new generation. How does it translate across that boundary, and what are you seeing happen with the park that is important to what you're doing?
Micah Parzen:I think it really does come down to the word relevance that you mentioned. You know, when we think down the road 10, 20, 30 years from now, it's the new generation coming up, the new new generation of park goers and museumgoers who we're really trying to speak to now so that, Balboa Park, the Museum of Us, is is a place and a set of places that people want to go. And if you look at younger people today, you know, the the binaries and dichotomies that you and I may have grown up with, whether it's gender or black, white, or sexual orientation, you know, they just don't exist anymore. There's a fluidity, among younger folks coming up and also an expectation that, their cultural institutions will, play a very different role in their lives. And, I think it's critically important that whether it's the Museum of Us or Balboa Park that we're we're thinking decades down the road along those lines.
Micah Parzen:For younger people, the kind of work we're doing at the Museum of Us is obvious to them. You know? The the main reaction I get from younger people is, duh, you know? What took you so long to change your name? And if we're not sort of keeping pace with that sensibility, So it requires some letting go of the older generation, I think, and that's change is hard, as you we talked about earlier, to really say, you know, we've had our our run, and it's been rewarding and wonderful in all sorts of ways, and the world's changed around us.
Micah Parzen:And now we need to begin to bridge to a new way of being in the world and create something for future generations. So I think the work we've been doing at the Museum of Us, I often kinda frame as, you know, when you're at home and you're baking cookies and they smell really good and, you know, your neighbors sort of start to sniff around and say, oh, well, that that smells amazing. Like, I want some of that. Right? We've just been doing the work internally, and that comes out externally in all sorts of ways.
Micah Parzen:And and I think people have gotten very curious about it in seeing that we're having a lot of success. And, you know, the world has changed so much that that people are starting to catch up. So we want Balboa Park to be ahead of the curve and not reactive, and and yet, you know, there's a wide range of stakeholders in the park and and everybody has a very different orientation towards what the park should be. And we wanna be very careful that we're not appealing to the lowest common denominator, that instead we're being aspirational.
Grant Oliphant:Right. And inspiring people to come, regardless of how they feel about the many things that you just said. That's right. You know, I think it's, it is it is probably true that we don't know how some of these social changes that you just described will play out over time. You know, somebody pointed out to me recently that we made assumptions during the sixties early seventies about how young people would, evolve in their tastes and wants.
Grant Oliphant:And the reality was was both similar and quite different to what anybody foresaw. So I think some of the assumptions we make today about what today's young people believe, we probably should be humble about those too. Mhmm. And I just wanna put that on the table because I I don't think we actually know. Right.
Grant Oliphant:And we're, you know, older generations are quick to condemn, younger generations are quick to say, we're on the right path, and I think what we'll find out is what we usually find out, which is that the truth is somewhere in the middle of it. Yes. But tell me a little bit about, as we begin to wrap up, why you think that a place like the Museum of Us can be a place of hope and inspiration for what right now feels like a society that's deeply caught up, and you said it, you know, fights over things that seem black and white, and we're we're divided into camps where where, you know, often political, but sociological and demographic as well, and we're, we're we're caught up, I think, in an era of unique negativity around the fate of the planet, and sometimes, by the way, I think the the the the, field that I work in feeds that by we're very good at problem analysis and not so good at the solution side necessarily. Why is a place like the Museum of Us or or unique cultural center like the cultural district in Belboa Park important and potentially inspirational as a way out of this thicket that we find ourselves in?
Micah Parzen:You know, that we're constantly creating a zero sum game. And, the Museum of Us is about trying to, create a world of abundance where everybody can, find a a place that they belong. You know? And I think the the entire sort of premise of museums and the idea that museums hold a great degree of public trust. Right?
Micah Parzen:They're among the most trusted public institutions out there. The data are always, supporting that. And I think it's a problematic house of cards a little bit that in many ways, museums emerged in a sort of elitist mentality to serve a certain subset of the population. And as we are maturing and becoming more sophisticated as a larger society, we realize that it's time to come up with a new foundation for trust, that instead of a house of cards, that if you blow on it too hard, it will all come tumbling down to create a foundation that really, centers community voices and lived experience and honors everybody and does so from a perspective of abundance, not from scarcity. You know?
Micah Parzen:That that by making space in the, dominant mainstream narrative, for new voices and new lived experience to really inform the discussion. We all get better in that process, and so it requires that sort of pausing and that, moment of humility that, I have a story to tell and that is important and it is one story. And the more I hear from others and their lived experience and their stories and the more we make room to center their voices, the better I become too because I understand the range of what it means to be human. And going back to Maya Angelou, you know, when we know better, we can do better. So I think it the museum and other institutions like ours can really be beacons of hope in that way because we're not reproducing the sort of traditional narrative and structure and trying to find a path.
Micah Parzen:You know, Audre Lorde said the master's, tools will never dismantle the master's house. Right? So we have to kind of come together to find out how do we build a new house together using different kinds of tools, and creating a different kinds of future.
Grant Oliphant:And I love that I love that framing. You know the Prebys Foundation believes in a vision of community well-being where we think the capacity for belonging that you described is a key component of that. So is the sense that everybody should have the ability to contribute, and to and to find their path in the in the community. That's opportunity. And they should also have a sense of purpose.
Grant Oliphant:They should feel like this is a place where they can fulfill whatever destiny it is that they feel they're here to to ultimately contribute to the world. That purpose, opportunity, and belonging neatly defines what makes up, I think, strong mental health for any one of us and community health for for a region such as ours. What, I wanna finish on this question. What do you want people who visit the museum to walk away feeling or believing about San Diego? And we have this unique mix of people, we are still for the time being, the largest group of of folks is white, but that's changing quickly.
Grant Oliphant:And we have substantial, Latino and Asian populations and, of course, a black population of of note here in San Diego as well. We've got the Kumeyaay people, and other indigenous tribes as well. So we got a mix, and and it is constantly evolving. You know, it is it it really does feel like the future of America, and so we get to help answer a question that America will ultimately have to answer, and and it would be nice if we could answer it well so that the rest of the country could follow suit. What do you want people in San Diego to believe when they walk away from your museum?
Micah Parzen:Yeah. I love how you frame the the question, because this is such an extraordinarily special place, for all the reasons you mentioned, a a sort of coming together of people in in such a unusual and unique way with such an unusual and unique history and on a very particular landscape, and yet, it also tells a much larger story. Anthropologists often refer to this idea of the universal in the particular, meaning that, yes, we have a very unique particular story that emerges in this trinational region, and and there's so much to be, learned from going deep into those stories, which the museum is is very much about. And at the same time, it's not just our story. It's every story.
Micah Parzen:It's every story along the border. It's every story in every community. It just gets played out in different ways. But there are these universal themes, right, about what it means to be human, about how we deal with conflict, about how we all strive for belonging, that get, kind of are the the umbrella. And, you know, I think we want people when they leave the museum of us to sort of leave feeling, that maybe their assumptions have been challenged.
Micah Parzen:Their, worldview has been stretched. They've been asked to sort of bend, if not but not break, And it's allowed them to, go back out into the world with a little bit of a fresh perspective, a little bit changed than when they left, and that when they hear the news, they participate in discussions around the dinner table or at the book club or at work, that those conversations are, a little bit more hopeful about, you know, the beauty of what it means to be human, the unique genius that we all have, and that we need spaces such as the museum and others, where people can tap into that unique genius and bring their gifts to bear on the world in ways that help lift us all. Absolutely
Grant Oliphant:love that answer. That is a perfect place to wrap up. Micah Parzen, thank you so much for being with us.
Micah Parzen:My pleasure, Grant. Thanks so much. Always enjoy speaking with you.
Grant Oliphant:Likewise.
Crystal Page:So Micah just gave me so much to think about, and I'm just blown away just by the history of Balboa Park.
Grant Oliphant:Right. Yeah. Crystal, I I that was, an important conversation and an amazing conversation on so many different levels because there is history in this community, as in any community, that, sometimes we wanna forget because it's complicated and it's messy. And there are people who have been working on, helping us own it in a productive way that actually benefits everybody who's here now. And I I I just love the spirit in which Micah approaches this very complicated question.
Grant Oliphant:I'm wondering, you know, for you, what stood out as the the most important comment or or piece that he dealt with?
Crystal Page:So right after because we're recording this later. I'm just gonna acknowledge that. But right after Micah came in and you interviewed him, I went back to the museum of us, and what really stood out to me was their choice to build a relationship with the Kumeyaay tribe knowing it was gonna take time. And then now that they know better, they did better with the museum. And so him talking us through the process and the conversation that you 2 just had, it's like that's how we do better in the world.
Crystal Page:You know, it's the the coming together and taking the time to build a relationship of trust, you know. And and it's the same thing we're trying to do at Previs right now.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. Well, and I I I was struck by the how how much he and the museum are wrestling with the fact that we have complicated histories, and that they're not neat and simple. You can't they're you can't just make it about good guys and bad guys, or people who did right things and wrong things, although you certainly can do an element of that. You know the I think the story of of the indigenous community that was moved off of the park because they didn't look quote unquote indigenous enough, is just mind boggling. You know?
Grant Oliphant:So to dispossess people of their land because they couldn't play the part that they actually were in the judgment of the community that was in charge then is is mind boggling. But you know then you then you go deeper into the the whole narrative of the park, the name of the park, the conquistador statue right outside the museum, and, yeah, it becomes the then heritages begin to collide. Right? And then so there are stories that begin to bump up against each other, And I think what the Museum of Us is trying to do, and Micah's trying to do, is figure out how you tell those stories fairly, and create room for people to feel represented in those stories.
Crystal Page:With the whole thing, the entire time you all were talking, it was just shocking improve upon this? Right? Like, I grew up in North County, Grant. So we would Saint Francis Elementary School, we take our little bus down to museum, the museum, and you're like, okay. These are the Indians of of San Diego in the nineties or the 1915, moment, and that's what you learn.
Crystal Page:And so now as an adult walking back through that museum, I see things have been updated or we don't do this kind of exhibit anymore. And you're right. It there's this cyclical nature of improving history. We gather more facts.
Micah Parzen:Mhmm.
Crystal Page:We adjust. We acknowledge that it's gonna be imperfect, but when we bring more people to the table, it gets better. So I just admire his courage, but also that he's willing to share that story. They're not trying to hide it. They're saying, hey.
Crystal Page:You know? We're gonna improve and get better, and this is gonna be good for everybody in San Diego.
Grant Oliphant:Right. And a great example of that was the discussion that we had about the border wall panels, and the, you know, the the truth is, that there was art on those panels. You know, the border wall between the Mexican and US side, of Friendship Park on the Mexican side was heavily decorated with murals and there's a whole narrative that exists in those panels about the meaning of the park, the meaning of family, the way in which cultures celebrate family and togetherness or separation and division, and, and the and each in their own artistic way those panels tell that story. I am so impressed that the museum had the courage to go to the I mean, I want I want people to imagine this for a moment. In the present politics, somebody comes to you, in this case, John Fanestal and the friends of Friendship Park, come to the museum and say, we'd like to save these panels.
Grant Oliphant:Could that be done? And and if you're Micah, you you then process that, and in this environment, you say, yeah. Let's go let's go ask the federal government if we can have these these border wall panels. And you can imagine a 1,000 ways in which the the verdict would have come down. No.
Grant Oliphant:And then, and then, once he got permission there, he had to go to the contractors who were in charge of this who could've, for all kinds of reasons, decided that they didn't wanna play, and he stuck at it, and he worked at it diplomatically and, and quietly, and came away preserving a piece of history that now will help our region tell the story of this very important place and this very important border in this singular moment in history. I think I think it's extraordinary. I think it's hard, and, I have a lot of admiration to for for their willingness to do it. I think what will be interesting next is what does San Diego do with it? You know?
Grant Oliphant:That that's actually the next part of that project as he talked about is letting community decide what these panels actually mean.
Crystal Page:Right. Well and I guess I'm curious because the the part that you just skipped over is that Micah came to you at some point and said, hey. Will Prebys I think it was that way. Will Prebys work with us to make this happen? So Micah shows up at your door or calls you.
Crystal Page:And what was your reaction, or or why did you say yes on this project?
Grant Oliphant:That, that did happen. And, yeah. So he he, just mentioned to me that he wanted to do this, but that in order to make it happen, they needed obviously resources. And, on the spot, I decided that it made sense for the foundation to support this because we care about art and we care about culture and we care about the celebrating the part of our heritage that is about the border, and the the coming together of peoples here. We we just think it's such an extraordinary defining element of San Diego, and, so it made sense in the moment to say yes.
Grant Oliphant:And and, fortunately, our board supported that as well. But I, you know, I think it's I I think I think what made that easy is that in this work, we learn a couple of things very quickly. One is that leadership matters. So if you have a leader like Micah is, who is bold and visionary and willing to really work hard on behalf of what it is they're trying to make happen, you wanna get behind that. And and the second is again that that if you if you say you care about something, then you actually have to model that in the moment, and, and we care about the what this project represents.
Grant Oliphant:So, that was a relatively easy call.
Crystal Page:Well and I noticed in what you just said, but also what in what Mike what, Micah and John Fanesteal of Friends of Friendship Park have said is, like, these are for the community. You asked me before, like, what does San Diego do with them? And I've noticed with all 3 of you, you're not saying we have the plan for what we're doing. It's, you know, what do we do next with it? And so I'm curious.
Crystal Page:Have you heard in those conversations, or or or what do you think San Diegans may wanna do with them? Is that conversation already happening?
Grant Oliphant:Well, I, no. I think that that conversation is what the museum and friends of, Friendship Park will be undertaking next, and I think they want to do it in multiple communities, in multiple ways with many, many different, audiences and in many different venues. And and I hope that they will be successful in that. I mean, I think they're setting themselves a hard task because there are probably a million opinions and and feelings about those panels, but in a way that's the beauty of the project. The project is a true art project in that it's not just about the object, the thing.
Grant Oliphant:It is about what it's evoking in people, and I I think to understand that is, well it's another indication of of of why the Museum of Oz is doing important work because they are they're willing to view the work through that lens. It's, again, it's not just about an object, but about what it means and what it evokes and how people relate to it and what they wish for it. I think that's that's such a great way of of hopefully approaching all the work that our our leaders do.
Crystal Page:Yeah. I think, I really hope when people listen to your interview with Micah that, it makes us all stop and reflect. Right? One of the things I will say I will miss about, prior to my arrival on the podcast, Grant, is I think you're so meditative and reflecting on things. And I think in the work of someone like Micah and the artistry of what he's doing is it really is, like, we all have to stop and talk, but then listen and reflect on it.
Crystal Page:Right? And I I think to your point, now we have these great art panels, which, we will post on the website so folks can see. But then it's, like, let's think about what is the the use in the community? What does it communicate? And if you look at old photos, some of those murals are just, filled with love and connection of people separated by a border.
Crystal Page:You know?
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. And in some ways, we'll never know the stories behind those panels. I but I think, you know, this is maybe a maybe a good place to end or at least something to touch on before we end is in the Museum of Us is in Balboa Park, and Balboa Park, yes, as we were talking about earlier, has a complicated history, but it is an extraordinary cultural place in the United States of America. Within that park and its cultural district, there is a set of museums and cultural resources that is, I think, the envy of everywhere, and, some exceptional work is being done there, and the park itself represents a collective community yearning for, places to come together, for places to dream, for places to wonder, for places to engage in awe, and places to reflect. And sometimes all of that can be challenging and hard, even depressing we may have to grieve.
Grant Oliphant:Other times it is celebratory and joyous and lifts us up out of where whatever places we're stuck in. And so I think what I would say about this whole conversation with Micah is what I would say about the park itself, which is we have this we we have this amazing place, and we have these amazing, and powerful leaders among us trying to preserve those places and make them better, and we should all want to be a part of that in the same way that we're gonna be a part of the panel project.
Crystal Page:Here, here. I I think that's that's the final thought.
Grant Oliphant:Alright. There we go. This is a production of the Prebys Foundation, hosted by Grant Oliphant and co hosted by Crystal Page. The program is coproduced by Crystal Page and Adam Greenfield, and it's engineered by Adam Greenfield. Production assistance is provided by Tess Kresge, and our new theme song is by mister Lyrical Groove, a local San Diego artist.
Grant Oliphant:Download episodes at your favorite podcatcher, or visit us at stop and talk podcast.org. If you like this show, and we really hope you do, the best way to support it is to share, subscribe, and review our podcast. Thank you for your support, your ideas, and most of all, for listening. This program has been recorded at The Voice of San Diego Podcast Studio.