I was primarily interested in working with people from different cultures in a more “diplomatic” capacity, so the International Hospitality Council of Austin turned out to be a perfect fit. Their goal is to increase citizen diplomacy. They are one of the many CIVs, or Councils for International Visitors, in the U.S. When Washington receives new participants in the International Visitor Leadership Program, they break up the group into smaller aggregates, and send them to various CIVs across the country to get a more realistic picture of what Americans are really like. Participants have political agendas that are addressed through meetings with local businesses and organizations. CIVs like the IHCA host visitors in their cities and schedule business meetings, as well as cultural events with hospitality hosts. I quickly realized that interning there would give me a front row seat of a diplomatic organization’s practices.
My duties each day began by entering the latest programs into the ECIV system on the intern’s computer. Each program contains the list of international visitors, the political topic they’re addressing, hotel and transportation information, language officers, as well as the day-to-day schedule with their meeting locations for the entire visit. This all must be systematically entered into the system for funding purposes so that the government can keep track of the programs the IHCA is hosting. For each program that needs to be entered in the morning, I go through the entire program and enter each piece of information in the correct category to create an electronic record.
I have also assisted with ongoing projects including the SABIC Foundation Host Family Orientation. Several families in the Austin area had agreed to host Saudi Arabian students for eighteen months and they were required to attend an orientation. I composed a welcome letter with information about the program including what they should expect to get out of this experience. Then I assembled an entire package with more facts about SABIC, a list of recreational activities and places to eat in Austin, do’s and don’ts in Saudi culture, and background information on the IHCA.
A more current project I worked on was the 50th anniversary exhibit for the IHCA that is currently being showcased at the Austin History Center. The other intern, Ally, and I went through old albums and picked out photographs that displayed the organizations’ admirable qualities. Afterwards we composed the invitations for the reception that kicked off the event. The photographs were processed at the development center and sent back. Once we received them I went through the matte framing and taped them together to insert the photos, worked on the wooden frames until the pictures and the matte frames would fit, and assembled them one-by-one before the exhibit opened on April 24th. The entire exhibit turned out perfectly and the IHCA will be able to re-use those photographs for countless events in the future.
The pursuit of this internship experience in itself gave me a better idea of what my career goals were and highlighted my interest in applying anthropology to intercultural relations on the international level as well as the micro-cultural level.