Walking Through History: Designing the QueerStory Walking Tour

Ever since moving to Santa Cruz for college, I’ve been deeply drawn to the town’s lively and welcoming community. No experience has involved me with the people of this town quite like my fellowship at the MAH through the UCSC Humanities EXCEL program. From the beginning of my fellowship at the MAH up until now, I have largely worked under someone else, taking directions and learning skills from those with more expertise. After all, this is my first time working in a museum, and I want to use this experience to learn as much as I can from the different professionals with whom I work. I’ve had the chance to really explore what this space has to offer and find what aspect of museum work appeals to me the most. The projects that I have assisted with are typically smaller in scale, with the accompaniment of other undergraduate fellows to help guide and support each other.

At the beginning of January, I was offered to take the lead on a Santa Cruz Queer history walking tour. I felt both nervous and excited by the scale and agency I had in this project. All I was granted was a general idea for the project and a long-term timeline that coincided with a launch around Pride Month. Though the scale of the project felt slightly overwhelming, I began to break it into more manageable chunks, starting with historic research on Santa Cruz Queer history. Luckily, the MAH offers fantastic resources on the topic that helped guide me through this fascinating history, including our in-person Queerystory exhibit in the history gallery as well as our online archives exhibit. The more I learned, the more invested I became in this rich history and excited at the chance to share it with others. I truly believe that this is one of the most relevant aspects of Santa Cruz’s past in shaping the unique community that we know today.

This project pushed me outside of my comfort zone, combining the skills I had previously gained in research, design, and marketing. Though many people have helped me along the way, I feel proud that I have been able to manage the various moving pieces of this project and can now offer a piece of history back to the community. After reaching out and collaborating with others, I am excited about what the future of this project has to hold, even past the end of my fellowship. The Queerstory Walking Tour will launch on June 5th and will be widely distributed and accessible to the community starting the weekend of Santa Cruz Pride 2026.

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