Political pressure led the new Latino-history museum to scrap an exhibit on youth movements
BY OLIVIA B. WAXMAN
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN Latino doesn’t even have a building yet, but its work is already controversial. For the past two years, historians had been working on an exhibit about the history of Latino youth movements. But after pushback from conservative Latinos in the private sector and the halls of Congress, that exhibit is on hold. A new one on Latin music is being developed in its place, the Smithsonian confirmed to TIME.
The episode is part of a larger fight that will determine who gets to tell the history of Latinos in a museum dedicated to doing just that, on or near the National Mall that attracts millions of visitors each year, filing through the buildings that presume to tell the national story.
The fate of the museum itself may be at stake.
On one side are liberal historians like Johanna Fernandez and Felipe Hinojosa, two of the scholars who helped develop the paused exhibit. On the other are conservative Hispanics and Cuban American politicians like Florida Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, who voted to defund the museum this summer. “If conservatives are serious about culture wars, they should definitely defund this museum,” says Alfonso Aguilar, the president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles.
Caught in the middle is the Smithsonian. When asked by TIME on Sept. 14 why he switched the focus of the exhibit from Latino youth movements to music, the museum’s director, Jorge Zamanillo, said, “We’re going to have over 100,000 sq. ft. of public exhibition space in a future museum. How do I fill that? What stories do I tell that have a broader appeal?”
The fight over how to tell the story of American Latinos—the second largest racial and ethnic group after non-Hispanic white Americans—is partly political. Conservative activists are adamant that Latinos shouldn’t be painted as victims of oppression, while liberal historians believe that the fight against injustice is a vital part of this history. “The story here,” says Hinojosa, a professor of history at Baylor University, “is around who controls the future of Latino history.”
CONGRESS ESTABLISHED the Latino-history museum in December 2020 and authorized 50% of its funding. The museum is working on raising the rest, at least $500 million, says Zamanillo, and is 10 to 12 years away from opening. Until then, it is putting on exhi
