Thalia Gavilanes

I attribute my success to my parents and my village. It's a very Hispanic household, I would say - multifamily household, first floor parents, second floor aunt, next floor cousins. Having my village to just rely on and not feel lonely or individual made me always feel like I can do it. I was like Superman - you never know because you've never experienced your kryptonite. And then I experienced it in the real world, but even then, I could go home, and I had people that were there, that understood me, had similar experiences and stories that I could gain confidence from. So definitely my parents. I don't come from a family that has finished college, so having all these helping hands and being told that you can reach the stars was a very first for us, and St. Elizabeth opened all these doors for me. I never knew what was possible before, so I'm very grateful for them.

The best career advice I ever received is to trust and bet on yourself. That was by my mentor, Dr. Vincent Perrin, my first ever mentor. During my graduating ceremony, because I was doing my capstone on Women of Ancient Egypt, he gave me a ring - a cartouche that he and his wife bought in the 70s or 80s at the Met while they were opening one of their newer Egyptian exhibits. His wife has one, and he said that he has never worn his, but after 2 years of working on a project with me, he felt like I earned it and deserved it. He gave it to me, and he told me to just bet on yourself, and I have so far, and it's worked for me, so I'm very proud of that. I'm actually wearing that ring right now - I wore it when I was taking the headshots for this interview as an homage to him.

My best friend is younger than me, and she often asks me for advice. What I tell her is that right now, it's hard because you're in it. Don't be hard on yourself. In the future, future Thalia, future Amanda (that's her name), we will be laughing at what's happening right now. It makes me so much stronger for what's happening right now. You really just have to be resilient, and sometimes you don't have to smile through it, which is something I've always heard as well - you know, you look prettier with a smile on. I don't have to smile. Sometimes I'm just gonna go through it, and we're gonna get through it with our heads held strong. Tomorrow will be a new day. So yeah, I would tell them to just practice resilience. In every way that you can practice it, practice it, because it's going to be the only thing that takes you through next week, tomorrow, next month, next year.

The biggest challenges in my field, at least that I have faced, is the prejudice and racism that I read in the history books and thought that they were all over, in the past, in the 90s - you know, we're past that now. But having to live them, having to experience them, especially with my name, has been a whole obstacle for me. People just don't know how to say it. My name has an accent on the i. They think it's this most exotic thing. I get called exotic often, especially while I was in one of my earlier roles. I would get visitors who were not of my race, white visitors would grab my name tag like I was a dog, and on multiple occasions, ask me where I'm from. When I would say I'm half Puerto Rican, half Ecuadorian, my name is Thalia Gavilanes, they would call me exotic and say, wow, you know, you're not as tan as we would have expected. Being on the clock and facing that racism was jarring. Naturally- I'm very used to it now, given that I've been in the profession for about 5 years, but it's hard. Nobody prepared me for that. I thought it was really past us. The sexism that I faced with a guest - the sexual assault, rather - was also extremely eye-opening. We were not given any training on how to maneuver a situation like that in my education. Not even a conversation was had in my education, especially during my masters program, which is specifically for museum studies. So I would say that's my biggest obstacle - trying to find my way around that, not having known how to maneuver that in the past, and having to have self-confidence in knowing that these comments are from ignorance, it's not a reflection of myself or my education or my face or skin color. It's just a matter of their ignorance, and having to stay confident and keep your head up was a big deal for me.

For my work life, I would say treating people the way that you wish to be treated, as cliche as it sounds. I feel like it's super important to practice being an advocate for yourself, as well as your peers and your coworkers, so that the environment is somewhere you look forward to working every day. We spend most of our lives at work, so might as well be a place where we enjoy it, even if the work doesn't reflect that. And dedication to your craft - if you see a project through, you'll see the fruits of your labor at the end, so I would say those are at least the top things for me in my career. At home, it's just rely on your family, and again, treat them with love and respect, because you'll get that back. Right now, I don't live with my parents anymore, but my partner is an amazing support system, truly an equal to myself. Surround yourselves with individuals who have ambitions just as your own, so you don't fall into laziness. It's one of the worst things. As hard as it might be, try to enjoy life before it passes you by. You can be a trailblazer and enjoy the flowers that you see while you're blazing that trail.