Cathy Youngblood: Obama’s Inauguration Gives Aspiring Anthropologist a Look at the Future

When Cathy Youngblood was preparing to attend the inauguration of President Barack Obama, she did what any aspiring anthropologist would do: she paid a visit to the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda to see what memorabilia she should collect while in Washington D.C. for the event.

“My Congresswoman (Linda Sanchez, D-Ca.) and her people told me these are the things your descendants will take to the ‘Antiques Roadshow,’” Youngblood quipped as she proudly displayed the official program and other materials from the inauguration ceremony that she received when she picked up her tickets at Sanchez’s office in the nation’s capital. But among her most prized remembrances of watching Obama take the oath of office as the 44th president of the United States was a sense of renewed hope for her country – and great personal and professional change for herself.

Youngblood, who will graduate this spring with a double major in anthropology and Africana studies at California State University, Dominguez Hills, says she defines Jan. 20, 2009 as “the day that America finally grew up.” Attending the inauguration on the National Mall with her sister, cousins, and especially her elderly aunts, gave her the perspective of how far the nation had come in affording equality and freedom to all.

“I spoke to so many people that had gathered on that day who had come from all over the world,” she recalls, “and they all had different interpretations. I think that’s the day that not only did America grow up, but it realized it had grown up. When [Obama] finished the oath, it was like a release. It was like all had been forgiven... but you certainly don’t forget. It was like saying, ‘This is a new day, this is a new start.’”

The inauguration may mark a new start for Youngblood as well. The Ohio native, who decided to earn her college degree after retiring from the machinery industry, thought that as a cultural anthropologist, she would be listening for the stories of people from all walks of life who had come to see President Obama sworn in. However, she found herself and her family in the spotlight among the crowds, as schoolchildren and others asked them and other African Americans for their stories.

“I thought I was going to interview people, but I ended up being interviewed,” says Youngblood. “They were going around trying to find out themselves [about] people who had been through the civil rights struggle. My 80-year-old aunt celebrated her birthday that day. She began recalling how when she was growing up, they wouldn’t let her take books out of the local public library. They wouldn’t let her go to the swimming pool on the same day as whites. She remembers the colored and white drinking fountains. She had a job as a housekeeper with a family who traveled extensively, and they couldn’t go into certain places because they would have to take her into the eating establishments with them. So for her, it was a very emotional time.”

Along with looking back at her relatives’ history, Youngblood found herself looking at a future entwined with that same history, and one very different from the peaceful retirement she had planned for herself in Southern California. While in Washington, she met a curator from the Smithsonian Institution, who upon hearing about her studies at CSU Dominguez Hills, said she would be an asset to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is slated to open in 2015.

“I said I was 58 and I didn’t know if the government would hire an older person,” Youngblood says. “He said, ‘You have been through the civil rights era, you have seen so many changes. It would be wonderful for you to lecture in one of our galleries.’ He suggested that I apply for a job with the Smithsonian or other museums [of African American history]. He was opening the avenues psychologically, I had never really thought about that before. It really set the tone for me, like, for me the sky’s the limit. I don’t think I’m content now to stay in Los Angeles. It was so hard to get back on that airplane and come back to California, because armed with doing all [my] classes and research... I felt like I should be there.”

Having traveled the world, Youngblood is eager to return to Latin America, Canada and Europe with her new anthropology skills. She credits Dominguez Hills with training her to channel her passion for history and people into scholarly endeavors.

“One of the things I so appreciate about Cal State Dominguez Hills is that their anthropology department puts you in the field,” she notes. “I had one course with Dr. (Susan) Needham, where we spent a whole semester with the Cambodian community, particularly those who had come out of the Pol Pot regime. That was where I really got my feet wet as to how to interview people and write it up in research form. I know how to do surveys, how to conduct myself in interviews, and how to accumulate [information] and write... personal stories. I’m anxious to get on an airplane and just start doing that.”

Youngblood also found a link to her own family’s history while working on a research project on black Native Americans in a class taught by Dr. Janine Gasco.

“I’m the one person in our family who gathers all of the historical anecdotes and artifacts,” she says. “I’m the keeper of the histories. My grandmother, who is 101 now, had always told the story that we were part Cherokee. There was no proof, because the elders didn’t keep written records then like they would now. Beginning in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the government of the United States sent out agents to the five civilized tribes at that time to gather their histories and officially [record them] as Indians or freedmen. Through the National Archives website, I found that three of my grandmother’s relatives were on the official Indian roll.”

In addition to her new ambition in the wake of President Obama’s inauguration, Youngblood has also considered earning her master’s degree after graduating from CSU Dominguez Hills and becoming a history teacher, sharing her knowledge as inclusively as possible.

“I want to teach history – in such a way to people who never have the chance to come onto a college campus – in the black and brown communities,” she says, “not just a Eurocentric perspective or an Afrocentric perspective, but the whole of history, with nothing left out.”

For more information on the anthropology department at CSU Dominguez Hills,
click here.

- Joanie Harmon