\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tAn installtion view of \u201cPresente\u201d at the Molina Family Latino Gallery at the American History Museum in 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTony Powell\/Courtesy of National Museum of the American Latino<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tAccording to a spokesman, no specific procedural changes have been announced or are in the works. But by November 2022, Zamanillo had already canceled NMAL\u2019s next planned and potentially more controversial exhibition, which was set to cover Latinx youth movements and civil rights history. That exhibition had been in the works for two years. The New York Times<\/em> reported last year that the decision was, at least in part, driven by fears of how it would be received politically and worries over fundraising. A member of the exhibition team that we spoke to confirmed that concerns about fundraising were communicated to them.<\/p>\n \n\tZamanillo said that the decision to move away from the Latinx youth movements exhibition was about laying a foundation for the future and making sure museum activities reflected both his vision and insights gleaned from outreach to Latinx communities. \u201cMy shift when I first arrived here was to make sure that I was implementing my vision for the museum as a new director, as a founding director, all the exhibitions that were going to be on display for the next years in this gallery,\u201d Zamanillo said, \u201cI want to make sure that all the exhibitions moving forward are basically curated by myself, by our team, under my leadership.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tThough Zamanillo dismissed the team that had conceived and worked on the youth movement exhibition, he said that \u201cit wasn\u2019t to dismiss the work that was being done.\u201d However, he remained noncommittal about whether the exhibition would ever be held.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI wanted to make sure that we\u2019re exploring different topics, like the music, food, ways, civil rights. It could be military veterans, Latino military veterans. It could be many things that we explore over the next 10 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \n\tA new exhibition, dubbed \u201cPuro Ritmo: The Musical Journey of Salsa\u201d and focusing on the roots and influence of salsa music, will open at Molina in spring 2026 instead. That show will serve as NMAL\u2019s contribution to the Smithsonian\u2019s commemoration of the US\u2019s 250th anniversary. The hope, it seems, is that an exhibition on salsa will have both broad appeal and avoid the political fissures across the many communities that make up the nation\u2019s Latinx population.<\/p>\n \n\tNMAL associate director of content and interpretation Tey Marianna Nunn told ARTnews<\/em> that \u201cPuro Ritmo\u201d is a way to tap into one of the most popular aspects of Latinx culture while emphasizing its long history, from historical origins up to contemporary times. A Smithsonian veteran and former director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum (NHCC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Nunn said the exhibition and the museum will seek to celebrate Latinx Americans\u2019 cultural multiplicity.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cCollecting Latino histories and art and culture is a hot topic right now. Many museums are hiring Latino curators for different things and there\u2019s a market out there for right now,\u201d Nunn said. \u201cIn our case, we\u2019re not just doing it to fill in a story in a mainstream museum for representation. We\u2019re doing it to fill out and celebrate a national story.\u201d NMAL is far from the only institution exploring Latinx culture, history, and art. In addition to NHCC, there is New York\u2019s Museo del Barrio, Chicago\u2019s National Museum of Mexican Art, Southern California\u2019s Museum of Latin American Art, and the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture, among many others. Those institutions, according to prominent Afro-Latinx curator Maria Elena Ortiz, do critical work that NMAL can lean on as it builds.<\/p>\n \n\tBut they also typically focus on only one or a few diasporic communities; NMAL aims to bring those threads together and fill a wider gap. Until NMAL has its own home, the Molina Gallery exhibits are a step toward that goal. The members of the Latino art communities that we reached out to tend to support that vision. \u201cWhat doesn\u2019t exist is an organization that can encompass all the different Latinx experiences, that incorporate Chicanos, the Tejanos, the people that were crossed by the border, the people that are new to the country, the people that left \u2026 dictatorship[s],\u201d Ortiz told ARTnews<\/em>. \u201cIt could be very neat if that\u2019s part of their goal\u2014an official intersection of the narratives between all those stories.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tA curator at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and currently guest curator for the Museo del Barrio 2024 Trienal\u2014ongoing until February\u2014Ortiz has worked with the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) on the Latinx objects in its collection. She has yet to hear from NMAL, however.<\/p>\n \n\tAnd if NMAL truly wants to represent the diversity of the Latinx experience, it will have to mend some fences. The exhibition on Latinx youth movements was, according to members of the exhibition team, 65 percent complete when it was abruptly canceled by Zamanillo in November 2022. By that time, many veterans of the activist movement had spent hours providing the project their stories and testimony. One group of women who participated in the 1968 East Los Angeles student walkouts sent a letter to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch (previously founding director of the NMAAHC)) demanding answers. They got no response. Some in the art and academic communities told ARTnews <\/em>they still feel that trust has been broken; they won\u2019t work with the museum until these concerns are addressed.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tNational Museum of the American Latino\u2019s founding director Jorge Zamanillo<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of National Museum of the American Latino<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tFelipe Hinojosa, a professor at Baylor University, the author of Apostles of Change: Latino Radical Politics, Church Occupations, and the Fight to Save the Barrio<\/em>, and a member of the exhibition\u2019s curatorial team, told ARTnews<\/em> that he is still looking for answers to why it was shelved. But he still believes deeply in the Museum\u2019s core mission and acknowledges the difficult context the NMAL leadership is working within. As Hinojosa said, \u201cThe Smithsonian is a part of the federal government. So, I understand that, and I understand museum curators and officials wanting to be very, very careful in terms of how they do this.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHinojosa said he is most concerned about the impact the political pressure campaigns might have on its direction. The question remains: how best to navigate that inevitable ongoing turbulence, especially with regard to transparency and who gets a seat at the table. \u201cI think what [Congressman] Mario D\u00edaz-Balart and others are going to find out is that there\u2019s probably going to be other things down the road that they\u2019re not going to like,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd here we go again.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe risk, in this historian\u2019s view, is what happens then: \u201cThis is going to be a kind of nonstop back and forth over who gets to tell this story and who gets to tell the Latino story.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAccording to Hinojosa\u2019s perspective as a historian, the story the team wanted the movement exhibit to tell was a very American one with broad appeal: \u201cI think if you [had] seen our exhibit, at least this is what we are working toward, that people would have seen American democracy in action, \u2026 how young people did the most American thing ever, which is come together, organize and fight for their rights as people with dignity and people that deserve to be treated as first-class citizens. That, to me, is going to be the struggle going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe problem for Hinojosa and others on the team was a lack of communication from Zamanillo on the specific pushback and funding challenges the museum was facing that led to the exhibition\u2019s abrupt cancellation. \u201cAll we got was a note saying Lonnie had signed off on it. All we got was Lonnie not responding to the women,\u201d he said, which left the exhibition team to do damage control and apologize to the activists, organizers, archivists, and curators who had already contributed.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tSpeakers at a symposium hosted by the National Museum of the American Latino.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJeremy Norwood\/Courtesy of National Museum of the American Latino<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tFor Julio Ricardo Varela, an MSNBC<\/em> columnist and founder of the Latino Newsletter<\/em>, the political battles and calls to defund NMAL over the museum\u2019s content and ideology are a frustrating distraction. \u201cNo matter their political ideology, everyone needs to look at the bigger picture,\u201d Varela told ARTnews<\/em>. \u201cThe bigger picture is where are we represented in Washington, DC? Where is our presence in Washington, DC? That\u2019s it. Everything else we can talk about filling in the details, but if you\u2019re not for that, then that\u2019s not American.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tVarela has been a loud proponent of \u201cBuild It on the Mall,\u201d a push to get NMAL\u2019s site on the National Mall near the other major institutions and monuments. But securing a site has been another challenge for the nascent institution. The proposed Tidal Basin site has yet to receive congressional approval and, along with the one dedicated for the new American Women\u2019s History Museum (AWHM), is controlled by the National Park Service as part of a reserve \u201cno build zone\u201d in order to preserve the beauty and openness of the Mall. The National Capital Planning Commission has described the sites as having significant challenges. Bunch, for his part, wrote a Washington Post<\/em> op-ed in late 2022 defending the sites, writing that they \u201care optimal for broadening the American narrative and expanding our civic discourse.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tNMAL\u2019s supporters feel much the same. The National Mall Tidal Basin site would mean a symbolic seat at the nation\u2019s table, a signpost and affirmation that Latinx identity is an essential part of US national identity. Varela said he sees the protracted struggle to make the vision a reality, however, as a sign that Latinx Americans\u2019 political clout remains limited. The proof, according to Varela?<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s 2024 and this effort\u2019s been going on for decades, and you\u2019re so close to the finish line, and I haven\u2019t seen anything substantial to suggest that this is going to be a done deal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \n\tThere has been some movement, however. This past August, Republican Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, who represents Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, introduced the SHAWL Act. The bill would grant the Smithsonian authority to develop those preferred sites that are currently under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service for the NMAL and the AWHM. That crucial legislation needs to pass by the end of the year for the project to stay on track. Notably, the bill has 91 sponsors, with roughly even support from Republicans and Democrats. The act is in committee while Congress was in recess for the election. With Trump now set to re-enter the presidency, and Republicans taking control of Congress, it\u2019s anybody\u2019s guess where the bill goes from here.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"\u00a9](\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Tony-Powell.-National-Museum-of-the-American-Latino-49.jpg?w=400\")
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\n\tThe National Museum of the American Latino (NMAL) faces a Herculean challenge. Established in late 2020, nearly 30 years after it was first proposed, the Smithsonian component must represent the art, history, and culture of a diverse population of 64 million Latinx Americans, with roots in\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0more than 30 countries across North and Latin America and the Caribbean. Each of those communities, from Tejanos of Texas to Cubans in Miami and Puerto Ricans in New York, comes with vastly different histories, identities, and political orientations. That challenge isn\u2019t lost on Jorge Zamanillo, named founding director of the museum in May 2022.<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\u201cThe museum is about bridging communities across the US, and bridging divides,\u201d Zamanillo, the son of Cuban immigrants who fled to the US after the 1959 revolution, told ARTnews<\/em> in a recent interview. The key challenge, he said, is \u201cto create a space for dialogue and engagement and get a better and complete understanding of the total population.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhile NMAL has yet to establish a permanent home, it has cleared important hurdles under Zamanillo\u2019s leadership. It has built a core team, gathered a well-connected board that includes some of the country\u2019s most influential and high-profile Latinx public figures, including actress Eva Longoria, journalist Soledad O\u2019Brien, and Alberto Ibarg\u00fcen, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation, and raised $70 million of the projected $500 million in private funds needed to match the $500 million in public funds offered to construct a building and establish an endowment. At the grassroots level, NMAL also launched a multipronged listening program to gather information and input from communities nationwide, in the hope of generating the broad-based buy-in the project needs. Hosted in collaboration with local museums, community organizations, and universities as part of a deliberately inclusive national engagement strategy, these nearly 100 community conversations have tapped local leaders, educators, artists, and museum workers in 30 cities and 19 rural communities in 22 states so far. And in September, the museum unveiled a new strategic plan, brand, and logo. The top priorities: \u201ckicking off awareness and advancement campaigns, acquiring seminal objects for the collection, and breaking ground for the museum building.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe milestones may sound straightforward, yet advances on even these\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0objectives may prove challenging, as controversy and disagreement have dogged the institution from its infancy.<\/p>\n \n\tIn 2022, shortly after Zamanillo joined, the museum opened its first exhibition, \u201c\u00a1Presente! A Latino History of the United States,\u201d in the National Museum of American History\u2019s Molina Family Latino Gallery, which will serve as NMAL\u2019s exhibition space until it secures a permanent home. The exhibition attracted wide audiences\u2014half a million people have visited since its opening in June 2022\u2014but also garnered a scathing public review from some right-wing Latinx critics, who called the exhibition \u201cdisgraceful\u201d and \u201cunabashedly Marxist.\u201d Then, last year, several members of congress, led by Mario Diaz-Balart, who represents parts of Miami and its suburbs, vowed to defund the museum entirely, saying the exhibition depicts Latinx people as \u201cdeserters, traitors, and victims of oppression.\u201d After a meeting between Smithsonian officials and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, however, Diaz-Balart changed position, even going so far as issuing a press release in July 2023 signaling his support and saying that \u201cprocedural changes in the review of content and leadership have been made,\u201d regarding NMAL\u2019s exhibitions.<\/p>\n\n
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