Lawmakers push for Smithsonian American Latino museum

A bipartisan group of legislators introduced twin bills in the House and Senate Tuesday for the creation of the National Museum of the American Latino.

The lawmakers said they were inspired in part by the Smithsonian Institution’s opening on Sept. 24 of its National Museum of African American History and Culture.

{mosads}“It provides inspiration, and it really does give you locomotion to try to move this forward,” said Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), one of the authors of the bill. “So many [of the African-American museum’s supporters] have come to me and said, ‘You’re next.’ It pumps you up.”

The proposed site for the Latino museum is the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building, the site of the first national museum, built in 1881. The building recently went through a renovation and reopened this year as a special events space. 

If the plan to house the Latino museum were accepted, further renovations would add an underground section to maintain the area’s historic skyline.

Along with Becerra, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) co-sponsored the House bill.

“I’m excited to be working again with Xavier, and we’re hoping to get a lot of support,” Ros-Lehtinen told The Hill Tuesday. “We know it’s the last legs of this session, but it’s time to kick up the interest again, and it doesn’t have a dollar figure but it gets the conversation going and reenergizes our discussion about why we need this museum and to highlight the many contributions of Latinos to our country.”

On the Senate side, Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) are taking the lead.

“At a time when some seek to reject our nation’s rich multiculturalism and rewrite our history, I’m very proud to introduce this bipartisan, commonsense legislation for Congress to officially recognize the Latino story as an integral part of America’s past, present and future,” Menendez said. “Our future generations should have a central source to learn about the contributions Latinos and Latinas have made to our great country.”

The project to build a museum of Hispanic-American history has been around for decades, but previous attempts to secure funds have failed.

The Smithsonian Institution formed a task force on Latino issues in 1993 and published a report the following year entitled “Willful Neglect” that panned the group’s museums for “almost entirely” excluding and neglecting the Latino population of the United States.

A decade later, Becerra and Ros-Lehtinen, along with then-Sens. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) and Mel Martínez (R-Fla.), introduced a bill to create a commission for the creation of a Latino museum.

Becerra, Ros-Lehtinen, Menendez and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced bills for the creation of the museum in the 112th, 113th and 114th Congresses.

“Hispanic Americans have contributed to our country since its founding, and it is because of that indisputable part of the American story that I have been working for years to establish a museum that tells those stories,” said Menendez.

Many additions to the National Mall have been notoriously slow to come to fruition.

Early plans for a museum of African-American history date back to the 1920s, and serious consideration began in the 1970s.

The National World War II Memorial was inaugurated in 2004, nearly 60 years after the war’s end.

The Latino museum’s backers say it’s worth the wait and effort to be memorialized as part of the country’s history.

“It is so important to see yourself reflected in the jewels — the artifacts and treasures on the Mall — that America uses to display her beauty,” said Becerra.