In support of a National Museum of the American Latino at the Smithsonian

21 January 2021 – Will Walker

On December 21, 2020, as part of the omnibus spending bill, Congress approved a National Museum of the American Latino (along with a Smithsonian Women’s History Museum).^[1] This approval came after a previous effort was blocked by Senator Mike Lee of Utah who argued that such efforts to create new museums were divisive and that the existing Smithsonian buildings—not separate new ones—were the appropriate places to explore histories of Latinx people and women.

Screenshot of the Smithsonian Latino Center. This center was created in 1997 and is distinct from the National Museum of the American Latino.

As a public historian, scholar of Smithsonian history, and person with Latinx ancestry, I respectfully disagree with Senator Lee. I do not view the effort to create a National Museum of the American Latino as divisive; rather, I see it as advancing the core mission of the Smithsonian: the increase and diffusion of knowledge. Indeed, the museum offers an unprecedented opportunity to broaden and deepen explorations of human history and culture across the entire institution.

The creation of new Smithsonian museums should not be seen as a zero-sum game—with the founding of culturally specific museums necessarily detracting from the inclusive, universal scope of the institution or dishonoring other cultural groups. Instead, the founding of a National Museum of the American Latino carries the potential to encourage the flourishing of wider, cross-disciplinary explorations of multicultural stories throughout the Smithsonian—from the National Museum of American History and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival to the National Museum of Natural History and the National Portrait Gallery. The recent efforts of the Smithsonian American Art Museum to collect and exhibit the work of Latinx artists and the National Museum of African American History and Culture to highlight Afro-Latinx histories and cultures stand as great examples of this type of cross-pollination. Similarly, longstanding work at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, which mounts the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and the Smithsonian Latino Center also point the way toward rich and nuanced explorations of multicultural histories and identities.

The ideal cultivation of such a rich, healthy, and variegated garden of diverse museum programming may not always happen smoothly in the real world of limited funding and competitive marketing; still, more often than not, the Smithsonian has shown that the potential of a universal institution with many component parts, including culturally specific museums, is extraordinarily well-suited to the pluralistic nation and world it strives to describe and illuminate. The potential for success is even greater under Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III, who has spent his career doing exactly this type of inclusive museum work.

I have come to this perspective on the Smithsonian largely through my years of study and observation of the institution as an outside scholar who has never been employed there except as a predoctoral fellow. But here, ancestry is also relevant. In the case of supporting the establishment of the National Museum of the American Latino, my scholarly interests intersect with my own deeply personal reflections on family and identity. I rarely discuss my background in professional contexts. I am of Latinx descent—more specifically, I am a white (cisgender, heterosexual) man with both Latinx and non-Latinx ancestors. My maternal grandmother’s parents were migrants from Puerto Rico and Spain, and I knew both of them as a child. In addition to my Puerto Rican and Spanish great-grandparents, my ethnic ancestry includes Irish, English, and German people. My immigrant and migrant ancestors resided in and around New York City and came together in the polyglot and pluralistic environment of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As a result, diverse and inclusive histories are intertwined not only with my scholarly analyses of museums, but also my personal and familial background.

As a person of Latinx descent, I am proud that Congress has finally endorsed a National Museum of the American Latino, and as a historian of museums and the Smithsonian, I understand that this is a landmark moment in the institution’s history, as well as the broader history of the United States. In 1994, the Smithsonian Task Force on Latino Issues documented the “Willful Neglect” of Latinx history and culture across the institution. Since that time, various initiatives have advanced Latinx exhibitions and programs. These projects have explored Latinx history and culture from multiple angles; however, they have often been hindered by a lack of adequate support and visibility. The headwinds working against rich and sustainable explorations of Latinx history and culture continue to be challenging to navigate. A new museum will bring needed energy, resources, and staff to advance the broader, institution-wide objective of ensuring that all Americans’ stories receive the attention they deserve.

Taken as a whole, the Smithsonian is a universal institution that includes within its overarching structure important culturally specific museums. This unique characteristic of the Smithsonian—as an entity that encompasses the universal and the particular in equal measure—means that it belies facile and politicized rhetoric about divisiveness. Because of the institution’s history, it is well situated to incorporate new museums while maintaining its broad scope and honoring its mission to increase and diffuse knowledge. The truth about the Smithsonian is that histories of Latinx individuals and communities, along with the histories of all other human groups, can and should reside in multiple spaces throughout the institution. The wonder and uniqueness of the institution is that it encompasses a dizzyingly broad range of topics and themes across its museum spaces.

As a person whose background includes Latinx and non-Latinx ancestors, I am deeply invested in the notion of a national museum that tells inclusive stories that illuminate both what distinguishes and unites all human groups. A new National Museum of the American Latino will surely advance, not hinder, that project. At the Smithsonian it isn’t a question of either/or; instead, it is about probing the intersections that define us. Ultimately, the objective is to develop and refine ways of telling the whole story of Americans, humanity, and the world we inhabit.

~Will Walker is the author of A Living Exhibition: The Smithsonian and the Transformation of the Universal Museum (University of Massachusetts Press, 2013). He is an associate professor of history at the Cooperstown Graduate Program, SUNY Oneonta, and an editor of The Inclusive Historian’s Handbook.

[1] Because of the complexity of both museum projects’ histories, I have chosen to address only the National Museum of the American Latino in this post. It is my hope that another History@Work author will examine the equally significant Smithsonian Women’s History Museum in the near future.