DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Molina Family Latino Gallery -- Exhibit: ¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States:
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Description of Pictures: ¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States
June 18, 2022 – Indefinitely
First Floor East, Molina Family Latino Gallery of the National Museum of the American Latino Floor Plan
¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States tells U.S. history from the perspectives of the diverse Latinas and Latinos who lived it and live it today. This exhibition uncovers hidden and forgotten stories, connects visitors to Latino culture, and lays the foundation for understanding how Latinas and Latinos inform and shape U.S. history and culture. The intentional diversity of objects, images, and stories clarifies that Latinhood is a dynamic exchange between related but distinct communities under the Latino identity.
The Molina Family Latino Gallery is the first gallery space of the National Museum of the American Latino.
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
LATINO_220410_07.JPG: Presente!
A Latino History of the United States
Where does US history begin?
LATINO_220410_09.JPG: Why did Puerto Rico become part of the United States?
What are the legacies of the Mexican-American War?
LATINO_220410_12.JPG: Latino Center
Smithsonian
MOLINA FAMILY LATINO GALLERY
Opening 2022
Learn more about this gallery and the work of the Smithsonian Latino Center at latino.si.edu
What does it mean to be Latino? To be Hispanic? To be Latinx?
LATINO_220618_018.JPG: It was opening day for the gallery so there were a lot of selfies and greetings of friends going on.
LATINO_220618_023.JPG: Presente
A Latino History of the United States
Latino perspectives energize our understanding of U.S. history. We invite you to reflect on the effects of colonization and slavery in the Americas and throughout the world. Make new connections between U.S. expansions and the Mexican-American and Spanish-American Wars.
LATINO_220618_034.JPG: Colonial Legacies
LATINO_220618_053.JPG: Inditas Dance Regalia
LATINO_220618_057.JPG: The first section of ¡Presente! is “Colonial Legacies.” The case explores three main themes: the brutality of European colonization and its dependence on slavery on the left side of the case, the resistance of different colonized peoples in the middle of the case, and the early colonization of today's western United States on the right side of the case.
LATINO_220618_059.JPG: Colonial Legacies
Indigenous societies met an invasion of Spanish colonizers in the late 1400s. This violent encounter reshaped the world.
LATINO_220618_066.JPG: Invasion and Slavery
Colonization had violent consequences for Indigenous and African peoples.
Most Indigenous communities resisted European control. However, diseases introduced by colonists decimated Indigenous populations and weakened their societies. Some Indigenous peoples fled areas settled by Europeans, while others formed new political alliances to hold off colonization. Many had no choice but to live under colonial control.
Africans and their descendants were enslaved throughout the Americas. From the 1500s to the 1800s, roughly 12 million Africans were trafficked across the Atlantic Ocean to ports such as Cartagena, Colombia, and Charleston, South Carolina. They too resisted and, when possible, escaped slavery. Sometimes they escaped alongside Indigenous peoples.
LATINO_220618_070.JPG: Epidemics
In 1493, Spanish colonizers introduced influenza to Santo Domingo (present-day Dominican Republic). In the following decades, several epidemics reduced the local Taino population. Similar outbreaks spread across the Americas. It may be impossible to know how many millions of people died from new diseases and the traumas of colonization.
LATINO_220618_074.JPG: Nicoya Ruler
Maya Ruler
LATINO_220618_077.JPG: Mexico Maize God
Sican Maize God
LATINO_220618_079.JPG: View of Tenochtitian
LATINO_220618_082.JPG: Graphic reproduction of a print by Indigenous artist Jesús Barraza showing blue waves drawn behind a large turtle silhouette with the Americas drawn on turtle’s back; the print reads, “Tierra Indigena; Indigenous Lands.”
LATINO_220618_086.JPG: Indigenous Civilizations
LATINO_220618_091.JPG: Epidemics and Slavery
LATINO_220618_093.JPG: Unequal Societies
LATINO_220618_096.JPG: Religion and Colonization
LATINO_220618_105.JPG: The Virgin of Guadeloupe
LATINO_220618_111.JPG: Taino Maskette
LATINO_220618_113.JPG: Osoosi Drawing
LATINO_220618_118.JPG: Did colonization promote racism?
LATINO_220618_122.JPG: The Wealth of Empires
LATINO_220618_128.JPG: Resistance and Uprisings
African, Indigenous, and mixed-race peoples remade their societies, despite the inhumanities of colonization. .
They adapted their traditions, mastered new environments and ways of life, and built communities. These survivors also protested the abuses of European colonizers. They fought injustice in different ways. Some burned and escaped plantations and missions. Others made their cases in court. Many also participated in their nations’ wars of independence from Spain.
The objects and images here focus on diverse stories of resistance like Indigenous rebellions in Puerto Rico, New Mexico, and California; the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804); and the daily endurance of enslaved Puerto Ricans.
LATINO_220618_133.JPG: Missionaries
LATINO_220618_137.JPG: La Virgen de Monserrate
Colonial laws in much of Latin America required practicing Roman Catholic Christianity. Despite the imposition of Christianity during colonization and enslavement in the Americas, many peoples adapted Christian practices and beliefs to their cultures. Figures like this Virgin of Monserrate were displayed in homes. The scene at the bottom refers to the story of a miracle in which she saved a farmer from a bull. She was introduced to Puerto Rico in the late 1500s by colonists from Catalonia, Spain.
LATINO_220618_138.JPG: Ceremonial Axe for Ṣàngó
African, European, and Indigenous spiritual traditions have shaped Latino communities worldwide. Colonial laws in much of Latin America required the practice of Roman Catholic Christianity. Protestant Christianity, Judaism, along with African and Indigenous religions were forbidden under colonial law. Despite this, local spiritual guides and healers maintained and passed down religious traditions like Santería. Santería is a religious belief system historically practiced by Yoruba-speaking peoples in present-day Nigeria and Benin; it was transplanted to Cuba in the 19th century through the massive importation of slaves from this region of West Africa. In Santería, the warrior Ṣàngó is an òrìṣà, or Yoruba spiritual being. This ceremonial axe represents his power over lightning. Ṣàngó’s spirit of resistance inspired enslaved communities.
LATINO_220618_145.JPG: Francisco Menendez: Making Freedom
LATINO_220618_147.JPG: Self-Portrait
Pio Casimiro Bacener (1840-1900)
LATINO_220618_151.JPG: The Haitian Revolution
This print shows Toussaint L'Ouverture, hero of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804). Present-day Haiti was formerly Frances wealthiest colony. Enslaved Haitians demanding the abolition of slavery led this struggle. Plantation owners in the United States and Latin America feared, could that happen here?
LATINO_220618_160.JPG: Illustration celebrating the first centennial of the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico. Primer centenario de la abolición de la esclavitud en Puerto Rico, 1873-1973 (First centenary of the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico, 1873-1973). Augusto Marín, 1973.
LATINO_220618_164.JPG: Pueblo Revolt Pottery
LATINO_220618_170.JPG: Mexico’s Northern Frontier
From about 1600 to 1800, Spain colonized present-day New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Arizona, and California.
Priests, soldiers, and families traveled from central Mexico to the northern frontier. They built their earliest settlements in present-day New Mexico. Official documents describe these colonists as Spanish, Black, Indigenous, Filipino, and mixed-race. By 1800, Spanish New Mexico’s population numbered about 30,000. The descendants of colonists, called nuevomexicanos, outnumbered local Indigenous peoples by this period.
During the 1770s, Spanish colonists occupied California. They built settlements, such as San Diego and Monterey, near Indigenous villages. Unlike the New Mexicans, they were vastly outnumbered by an estimated 300,000 Indigenous Californians.
LATINO_220618_172.JPG: Toypurina: Freedom Fighter
LATINO_220618_175.JPG: The Fitch-Carrillos: A Californio Family
LATINO_220618_179.JPG: Branding Iron
LATINO_220618_182.JPG: Herding Cattler
LATINO_220618_188.JPG: Comanche Warrior
His-oo-sán-chees was a Comanche warrior with Spanish or Mexican ancestry. From the 1700s to the mid-1800s, the Comanche dominated the region around New Mexico and Texas through trading and raiding. This painting was made in 1834 during a U.S. Army expedition into northern Texas. Though part of Mexico at the time, this region was under Comanche control.
LATINO_220618_192.JPG: Citizens of Mexico
LATINO_220618_197.JPG: "We didn't cross the border; the border crossed us."
-- Judy Baca, 2021
LATINO_220618_199.JPG: "Journalism is a central part of this country. We cannot let journalism die."
-- Maria Hinojosa, 2021
LATINO_220618_207.JPG: The Foro
The space at the center of the gallery is named "Foro" for its plaza-like design. In Foro you will find eight, eight-foot-tall interactive monitors. By touching any of the screens you can explore 12 first-person oral histories from Latino and Latina entrepreneurs, teachers, activists, community leaders, and artists. You can select particular stories or themes to listen to and learn from.
LATINO_220618_209.JPG: Welcome to the Foro
LATINO_220618_222.JPG: Gentrification
LATINO_220618_226.JPG: Welcome to the Foro
LATINO_220618_231.JPG: Albion Printing Press
The press here created small documents. Following the Mexican American War, presses like this became increasingly available in Latino communities in the U.S. West. Since then, Latinas and Latinos across the United States have been telling their own stories by using print and later digital technologies to set the record straight.
Latino newspapers, novels, autobiographies, and other printed works bring fresh perspectives to U.S. history. Before today’s age of digital communication, printing presses were used to share words and images with large audiences.
In the 1800s, Latina and Latino writers began publishing their stories, reports, and ideas in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Santa Fe, San Francisco, and other U.S. cities. During this period, most writers and publishers were Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Chilean, among others. The earliest Spanish language newspapers in the United States include El Misisipi, printed in New Orleans between 1808–1810 and El Habanero, printed in Philadelphia and then New York City between 1824–1826. Newspapers published by Chileans in San Francisco in the late 1800s give testament to largely unknown experiences of the thousands of chilena and chileno migrants who stayed in California following the Gold Rush (1848–1855). After facing racism and mob violence, about half of their original number, mostly miners, returned to Chile. Their newspapers demonstrate the historical diversity of the U.S. Latino experience.
Since the 1800s, Latina and Latino journalists, writers, and artists have struggled to make their communities visible and their perspectives heard, especially within English language media. Their work combats many of the anti-Latino stereotypes that circulate in U.S. culture. The earliest of these stereotypes are anti-Mexican, appearing in widely read adventure novels that became popular after the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). By the end of the century, authors like María Amparo Ruiz de Burton wrote books like The Squatter and the Don in English to tell the story of the Mexican American War from the viewpoint of California’s land-owning Mexicans, called Californios. At the same time, Cuban and Puerto Rican political exiles began moving increasingly to U.S. cities like New York City, Philadelphia, Tampa, and Key West. Their newspapers advocated for their islands’ independence from Spain and discussed topics such as racial equality and democracy that are still relevant to today. One of Latin American’s best known political thinkers, the Cuban writer José Martí, founded the newspaper “Patria” in New York City, which was published between 1892–1898. Few in this generation of Cuban and Puerto Rican writers expected the Spanish American War, which led to conditional independence for Cuba and the annexation of Puerto Rico by the United States.
LATINO_220618_233.JPG: Touch the Movable Type
LATINO_220618_235.JPG: Printing Press
LATINO_220618_239.JPG: Wars of Expansion
LATINO_220618_241.JPG: Wars of Expansion
LATINO_220618_244.JPG: Somos Theater
The Somos Theater in the Molina Family Latino Gallery is an intimate theater which provides visitors with a moment of contemplation. Named for the Spanish verb “We are” Somos is the first commissioned piece for the theater.
Somos is a video and photography multimedia project directed by writer, filmmaker, and content creator Alberto Ferreras featuring a diverse group of Latinas and Latinos answering questions about identity, family histories, and experiences. Accompanying the video interviews are a series of over 150 captivating black and white portraits of Latinos and Latinas from across the United States. You will be able to experience the full Somos video in the Molina Family Latino Gallery. The Somos collection offers an eye-opening and thought-provoking window on the rich diversity of Latino experiences.
The Somos Theater is generously sponsored in part by Henry R. Muñoz III and Kyle Ferari-Muñoz
LATINO_220618_247.JPG: Shaping the Nation
LATINO_220618_249.JPG: Shaping the Nation
LATINO_220618_267.JPG: From Abolition to Slavery in Texas
LATINO_220618_270.JPG: Texas: Breaking from Mexico
Texas was part of Mexico until 1836, when local Mexicans and Anglo-American immigrants fought together for Texas’s independence.
Anglo-American families began moving to Texas in 1825. Only about 3,500 Mexican Texans, or Tejanos, lived in the sparsely settled region. The Mexican government encouraged Anglo-American immigration to boost the population. By 1836, the Anglo-American population had grown to 30,000. Many of these settlers were angry that Mexico abolished slavery in 1830. Many Tejana and Tejano landowners thought that Mexico’s government had too much control. Together, they rebelled against Mexico and established the Republic of Texas (1836–1845). The United States annexed Texas as a pro-slavery state in 1845.
LATINO_220618_272.JPG: 1833 Map of Texas
LATINO_220618_276.JPG: Driving Out Indigenous Peoples
LATINO_220618_283.JPG: An Alamo Survivor
San Antonio native , Juana Navarro Alsbury (1812-1888) survived the Battle of the Alamo. The Mexican Army let women, including Navarro Alsbury, escape, but killed the remaining rebels.
LATINO_220618_289.JPG: Remember the Alamo?
LATINO_220618_293.JPG: Turning Against Tejanas/os
Texas rancher and independence fighter Juan Seguin (1806-1890) served as a senator in the Republic of Texas and as Mayor of San Antonio. Despite their contributions, Seguin and other Tejanas/os increasingly faced anti-Mexican prejudice and violence from Anglo-American newcomers. Seguin lived out his life on both sides of the new US-Mexico border.
LATINO_220618_301.JPG: Invading Mexico
The Mexican-American War changed the lives and identities of Mexican communities in the United States.
After annexing Texas in 1845, the United States set its sights on Mexico’s northern territories. From 1846 to 1848, the United States invaded Mexico and occupied its major cities. After winning the war, the United States gained about half of Mexico’s territory under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.
The estimated 115,000 Mexicans living in present-day California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico became U.S. citizens. In the following decades, many lost their land and political representation to Anglo-American and European newcomers.
LATINO_220618_304.JPG: How did Racism Affect Mexican Americans?
LATINO_220618_310.JPG: Recruiting Poster
Posters like this were printed en masse across the United States to recruit the almost 75,000 men who volunteered to fight in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848)—known by Mexicans as the North American Invasion. U.S. public opinion was divided over the war, with many considering it unprovoked and motivated to by pro-slavery politicians.
“To Arms! To Arms! Volunteers for the Mexican War!” 1846. Courtesy of University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History
LATINO_220618_315.JPG: Brass Curiass, or Chest Armor
An unidentified soldier from a Mexican cavalry regiment wore this armor. Objects like these were war trophies for returning U.S. troops. In Mexico the Mexican-American War is remembered as “the North American Invasion.”
LATINO_220618_317.JPG: Attacks and Retaliation
Many Mexicans were enraged by the US invasion. Some, such as a the man shown here on horseback, joined groups that harassed and attacked US troops. In response, the US Army attacked innocent Mexican civilians. They destroyed their property and sometimes killed them.
LATINO_220618_324.JPG: Second-Class Citizens
LATINO_220618_333.JPG: Manifest Destiny Visualized
This painting shows Anglo-Americans migrating across North America. On the right side, they farm while trains move across the land. On the left, indigenous peoples are pushed out. The woman in the middle symbolizes "progress." This painting is a visual representation of Manifest Destiny, the idea that White, US Protestant Christians are superior to other peoples of the Americas.
American Progress, John Gast, 1872. Loan from Autry Museum, Los Angeles.
LATINO_220618_340.JPG: The California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush (1848-1855) attracted almost 380,000 migrants. They came from the United States, China, Mexico, Chile, and across the globe. By comparison, Californios numbered about 10,000. This drawing shows Anglo-American migrants walking overland to California.
LATINO_220618_346.JPG: Pio Pico's Telescope
LATINO_220618_351.JPG: Violence During the Gold Rush
LATINO_220618_353.JPG: "Government of the white man"
LATINO_220618_357.JPG: Opposition to the War
LATINO_220618_361.JPG: Manifest Destiny in Central America
LATINO_220618_363.JPG: Outlaw or Hero?
Joaquin Murrieta (?-1853) migrated to California during the Gold Rush, likely from Sonora, Mexico. After Anglo-American settlers violently attacked him family, he became a feared outlaw. California Rangers tracked down and beheaded Joaquin Murrieta -- or a man they thought was him> Mexican American communities remember Murrieta as a justice-seeking hero.
LATINO_220618_369.JPG: Taking Advantage of the Changing Times
LATINO_220618_380.JPG: Invading Nicaragua
William Walker's 1855 invasion of Nicaragua captured the imagination of the US public. Many supported his actions and his memoir, The War in Nicaragua, was a bestseller. In 1860, Walker traveled to coastal Honduras to meddle in local politics. Authorities there executed him.
LATINO_220618_384.JPG: Latino, Hispanic, Latinx?
Why the different labels?
LATINO_220618_392.JPG: Puerto Rico under the U.S. Flag
The United States defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War in 1898. It annexed several former Spanish colonies, including Puerto Rico
U.S. sugar corporations bought up much of Puerto Rico’s farmable land. Sugar became the island’s principal export. Poverty drove many rural families to towns and sugar growing regions for work.
The 1917 Jones-Shafroth Act declared that Puerto Ricans were U.S. citizens. The island, however, remained an unincorporated U.S. territory. Democracy and constitutional rights were limited. Most Puerto Ricans wanted more control over local affairs. Puerto Rico’s political parties at the time presented conflicting visions for the island’s future—U.S. statehood or independence.
LATINO_220618_411.JPG: Pedro Albizu Campos:
Independence Advocate
LATINO_220618_422.JPG: A New Constitution
In 1952, Governor Luis Munoz Marin led the drafting of Puerto Rico's Constitution. The Constitution designated the island as a commonwealth. Since Puerto Rico is an unincorporated US territory, its residents still cannot vote in presidential elections regardless of their US citizenship.
LATINO_220618_426.JPG: Negotiating Nationhood
LATINO_220618_431.JPG: Puerto Rico Gubernatorial Election Stamp
Governor Munoz Marin took office with the promise of lifting Puerto Ricans out of poverty. His plan was to replace sugar production with an industrial economy. However, many Puerto Ricans only found work by moving to the mainland United States.
LATINO_220618_438.JPG: Sugar, Blessing or Curse?
This painting shows Puerto Rico's growing sugar industry as a mechanized monster. It overtakes the countryside and squeezes blood from workers. Sugarcane drove the island's economy until the 1950s.
LATINO_220618_443.JPG: Negotiating Nationhood
LATINO_220618_446.JPG: The Textile Industry
LATINO_220618_452.JPG: Blockading San Juan Harbor
Over centuries, Spain fortified San Juan's harbor to keep colonies such as Puerto Rico safe from its European rivals. During the Spanish-American War, the US Navy blockaded San Juan for three months, destroying parts of the city's fortifications.
LATINO_220618_463.JPG: Refugee Boat
In 1994 over 30,000 Cubans risked death traveling to Florida in homemade boats or rafts. This boat was used by two young refugees who were escaping Cuba’s economic crisis. They were part of an ongoing migration of Cubans. The greatest numbers arrived after the 1959 Cuban Revolution. However, Cubans have been migrating to the United States since the early 1800s.
LATINO_220618_469.JPG: Immigration Stories
LATINO_220618_472.JPG: Immigration Stories
LATINO_220618_477.JPG: Cuban Raft Raft used by Cuban balseros. Around 1992. Dimensions: 24 × 36 × 79 in. (61 × 91.4 × 200.7 cm); Object ID: 1996.0008.0001; Medium: styrofoam (polystyrene foam), tar, cloth, rope, wood, plastic
Courtesy of Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Humberto Sanchez
In July 1992, two young men illegally used this handmade raft to flee Cuba for the United States. They set out on their journey two years before the 1994 Cuban Rafter Crisis. During the 1994 Crisis, tens of thousands of Cubans fled the island by boat and raft for Florida. People who immigrate this way are often called balseros, or rafters. Why might people risk their lives by undertaking this dangerous journey? Since the 1959 Cuban Revolution, over a million Cubans have immigrated to the United States. Many escaped political repression and economic hardships, among other challenges, on the island. One balsero explained in 1995, “I had to leave the only way I could—in my boat—it was all I had left. I had no one in the United States. I didn’t want to leave.”
The men who used this raft made it amid Cuba’s restrictive and changing policies on immigration and travel to the United States. Materials like styrofoam and wood make up the raft’s body—tar and cloth coat the exterior, likely in hopes of protection from sharks and water flooding. A blue, plastic sheeting—perhaps a shower curtain—covers interior parts. These materials reveal the resourcefulness of balseros.
By way of Humberto Sanchez, who worked with Hermanos al Rescate (Brothers to the Rescue), this raft arrived at the Anacostia Community Museum in 1996. Brothers to the Rescue, a non-profit organization founded in 1991 by Cuban exiles in the United States, rescued balseros by searching for them via plane and leading the U.S. Coast Guard to them. Pilots working with Brothers to the Rescue found the two men who used this raft. The U.S. Coast Guard then rescued them and recovered the vessel. The raft later came into Sanchez’s possession, which he donated to the museum. Over 20 years later, Anacostia Community Museum partnered with the Smithsonian Latino Center in the summer of 2019 to stabilize this historical object and “preserve the human story of its use.”
LATINO_220618_497.JPG: Seeking Democracy and Safety
Civil wars, oppressive governments, and natural disasters pushed millions of people to migrate from Latin America and the Caribbean to the United States.
Throughout the 1900s, the United States supported foreign governments that favored U.S. businesses and fought communism. Sometimes U.S. foreign policy contributed to the violence and corruption driving people to migrate. The United States backed numerous dictators, including Cuba’s Fulgencio Batista and the Dominican Republic’s Rafael Trujillo. Cuban, Dominican, and many other Latino communities still feel the effects of war and revolution. Their stories reveal the human cost of immigration and the contradictions of U.S. foreign policy.
LATINO_220618_500.JPG: Fear and Prejudice
LATINO_220618_504.JPG: Immigration Novel
LATINO_220618_506.JPG: Freedom Flights
This photo shows the first “freedom flight” from Havana to Miami. After the Cuban Revolution, the United States organized flights for Cuban refugees. From 1965 to 1973, around 250,000 Cubans arrived on freedom flights. Many assumed they would return home.
LATINO_220618_508.JPG: Cuban Revolution
LATINO_220618_512.JPG: Airplane Ticket
LATINO_220618_517.JPG: Anti-Communism
LATINO_220618_520.JPG: Dominican Civil War
LATINO_220618_527.JPG: Clothing worn by Cuban child immigrant who came to the United States through Operation Pedro Pan (Peter Pan)
LATINO_220618_542.JPG: Seeking Work and Opportunity
By 1900, the U.S. economy began to rely increasingly on workers from Latin America and the Caribbean.
Low-wage Mexican workers were essential for maintaining railroads, harvesting crops, and mining in the western United States. This was especially true after the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. Over the 1900s, Mexican immigrants built new communities throughout the United States.
Many others from the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Peru, Venezuela, and elsewhere also immigrated for work and opportunity. These immigrants participate in every part of the U.S. economy, from fashion and entertainment to farming and small businesses.
LATINO_220618_552.JPG: A bracero stoops down with a short-handled hoe to cultivate a pepper field in California. Leonard Nadel, 1956.
LATINO_220618_557.JPG: Bracero Program
LATINO_220618_562.JPG: Indigenous Immigration
LATINO_220618_579.JPG: This poster celebrates the potential of undocumented young people. It rejects the idea that they are “illegal immigrants.” My Dreams Are Not Illegal. Yocelyn Riojas, 2017
LATINO_220618_587.JPG: Teresa Ruelas:
US Citizen Deported
LATINO_220618_590.JPG: Teresa Ruelas's Bible
LATINO_220618_597.JPG: Who Gets to Belong?
LATINO_220618_623.JPG: Objects found near the US-Mexico border in Arizona.
LATINO_220618_661.JPG: Late 1960s–early 1970s newspaper printed by the Young Lords; a Puerto Rican youth organization founded in late 1960s Chicago.
LATINO_220618_668.JPG: US Military Presence
LATINO_220618_671.JPG: Reinventing Tradition
LATINO_220618_677.JPG: AmeRican
LATINO_220618_693.JPG: Puerto Rico: Nation within a Nation
Today, over half of all Puerto Ricans live on the U.S. mainland. Still, many stay connected to the island’s people, culture, and politics.
In 1952, Puerto Rico’s constitution established it as a commonwealth (described in Spanish as “an associated free state”). This gave Puerto Ricans control over most of their internal affairs, but always at the discretion of the U.S. Congress. Because the island is an unincorporated U.S. territory, residents cannot vote in presidential elections, despite being U.S. citizens.
Commonwealth status was a compromise between independence and U.S. statehood. For many Puerto Ricans, it continues their colonial relationship with the United States.
LATINO_220618_698.JPG: Jesus Colon:
Writer and Social Critic
LATINO_220618_700.JPG: Cuatro
LATINO_220618_707.JPG: A National Community Still in the Making
LATINO_220618_713.JPG: Building Community
Latino communities have been built by local leaders.
Grandmothers, teachers, doctors, business owners, activists, artists, and many others have worked together to make a difference. The diverse stories of Cuban priest Félix Varela, the Black Dominican activist Carlos Cooks, and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) are all rooted in the needs of their communities.
For many Latinas and Latinos, the concept of community goes beyond ethnicity or nationality. It finds purpose in bringing people together to build a just society for all. The objects and stories here come from California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Texas, and Washington, D.C.
LATINO_220618_725.JPG: California physician C. David Molina’s medical bag with two short handles and name “C.D. Molina” embossed on the surface in gold letters.
LATINO_220618_735.JPG: Festivals and Parades
LATINO_220618_746.JPG: Expressing Identity
LATINO_220618_751.JPG: The Power of Self-Representation
LATINO_220618_767.JPG: Mouse hand puppet dressed in fancy suit and dress, from Teatro SEA, a New York City community theater.
Cockroach hand puppet dressed in fancy suit and dress, from Teatro SEA, a New York City community theater.
LATINO_220618_773.JPG: Fighting for Justice
The history of Latinas and Latinos has been shaped by the struggle for justice.
At first these struggles involved specific Latino communities. In the 1800s, Mexican Americans fought early legal battles for their civil rights. Later, Latinas and Latinos began to mobilize in response to issues that affect multiple U.S. communities. Latino groups have fought for fair labor practices, education access, safe housing, immigration and criminal justice system reform, and LGBT rights, among other issues. Historically, many Latinas and Latinos have been disenfranchised. This led to a tradition of coalition building with diverse U.S. communities. Latinas and Latinos continue to work alongside others to make a more just and inclusive society.
LATINO_220618_777.JPG: The United Farm Workers Movement
LATINO_220618_811.JPG: Judy Baca: Public Artist
Mexican American artist Judy Baca envisions community murals as public spaces for retelling history and including everybody’s stories. In 1976, she founded the Social and Public Art Resources Center (SPARC). SPARC’s first project involved young people as co-creators of one of the largest murals in the United States—The Great Wall of Los Angeles.
LATINO_220618_814.JPG: Breaking Boundaries
Latina and Latino boundary breakers have shaped U.S. history. They set new standards for excellence, creativity, and civic participation.
They are activists, artists, athletes, military veterans, small business owners, and many others. Some, like Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, have entered spaces where no Latina and Latino have been before. Many have left their creative mark on struggles for justice. They fought racial segregation in schools and demanded LGBT rights. Their distinct experiences defy any single representation of the U.S. Latino experience. The stories displayed here show how Latinas and Latinos have energized U.S. culture and democracy.
LATINO_220618_819.JPG: Graphic reproduction of black and white photo of an unidentified man wearing a trench coat, tie, fedora hat. Man holds a protest sign reading, “Jim Crow Doesn’t Teach,” in Spanish. Photo shot by Puerto Rican photographer Frank Espada at a 1964 boycott against racial segregation in New York City schools.
LATINO_220618_827.JPG: Judy Baca’s Boots
Mexican American artist Judy Baca used these paint-splattered boots when she was painting a series of monumental murals retelling the history of California. Baca, who is an emeritus professor of Chicano Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, came of age during an era of Mexican American civil rights activism know as Chicano Movement. For her and her fellow activists, public art is a tool for empowering communities. She is part of a wider tradition of Latina and Latino artists who have used art to express their historical perspectives, involve community members as artistic co-creators, and advocate for social change.
Baca’s artworks represent the stories not just of Mexican Americans, but all the people who have contributed to U.S. history but have been disenfranchised from it, including African and Asian Americans, Indigenous peoples, and others. She is deeply interested in creating equitable public spaces that honor community memories and uplift neighbors. Her best-known work is the Great Wall of Los Angeles, located in San Fernando Valley. The mural depicts the complex history of marginalized people in California from prehistoric times through the 20th century. This mural spans half a mile and still is a work in progress. Baca’s murals have employed more than 400 youth and their families from diverse social and economic backgrounds. Many of the stories featured in her mural unfold within the California landscape. She says, “I am beginning to believe I am a political landscape painter. I have always known the value of art as a tool for transformation both personal and political. What I have had to learn…is that I choose often to use land as my method of recording memories and stories in my paintings and murals.”
Baca’s life and work reflects the nation-shaping impact of Latinas and Latinos. In places like California with its Mexican history and multi-cultural present, diverse Latina and Latino artists, performers, and athletes have broken new ground and created national legacies. This includes the graphic art of Chicano civil rights movement leader and artist Ester Hernández, the alternative comic book artists the Hernandez Brothers, and the street skater and artist Mark “Gonz” Gonzales, whose stories are all on view in this exhibition.
LATINO_220618_830.JPG: Jose Julio Sarria:
Drag and Politics
LATINO_220618_833.JPG: Comic Book, Love and Rockets #1
The Mexican American Hernandez Brothers' series Love and Rockets had a cult following within the alternative comics movement of the 1980s. Raised in Oxnard, California, they created contemporary storylines and eclectic characters that defied Latino stereotypes.
Gilbert, Jamie and Mario Hernandez, 1982.
LATINO_220618_841.JPG: Blue Dress
World War II veteran Jose Julio Sarria (1922-2013) was the first openly gay person to run for public office in the United States. Of Colombian ancestry, Sarria worked in the restaurant business, and was a well-known drag queen.
LATINO_220618_844.JPG: Skateboard
Mexican American athlete Mark “Gonz” Gonzales pioneered the street style of skateboarding in California during the early 1980s. A native of South Gate in Los Angeles County, he is also a poet and visual artist, known widely for his skateboard design collaborations.
LATINO_220618_845.JPG: Rumba Dress
This dress belonging to Celia Cruz (1925-2003) is decorated with the Cuban flag. Cruz rose to fame across Latin America in the 1950s. After the 1959 Cuban Revolution, she lived briefly in Mexico before immigrating to the United States. Her musical career spanned six decades.
LATINO_220618_862.JPG: Latinas Making History
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor
In 2009, Sonia Sotomayor broke boundaries by becoming the first Latina, and the third woman, to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the country. Sotomayor was born in New York City to Puerto Rican parents. She grew up in the Bronxdale-Houses, a public housing project in the Bronx. Through perseverance and determination, she received degrees from Princeton University and Yale Law School. As a Supreme Court Justice she has ruled to uphold the Affordable Care Act and legalize same-sex marriage.
LATINO_220618_877.JPG: Media Icon
Born in New York City to Barbadian and Panamanian-Barbadian parents, journalist Gwen Ifill (1955-2016) was an award-winning TV newscaster and author. In 1999, she became the first Black woman to host a national political talk show, Washington Week on PBS.
LATINO_220618_903.JPG: "The thing that is going to bring about a better society is hope followed by action."
-- Yolanda Levya, 2021
LATINO_220620_010.JPG: There are 19 Pueblo Nations living in New Mexico. The Spanish invaded Pueblo lands in the 1600s. Hornos and wheat were introduced by Spanish colonizers. Hornos are dome-shaped ovens made of adobe (dried mud) and are still used today. Does your family have baking traditions?
LATINO_220620_044.JPG: Printing Press
This type of press was used for small documents like booklets. Throughout the 1800s, Latina/o writers published their work in cities such as Philadelphia, New York, New Orleans, Santa Fe, and San Francisco. They were Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Chilean, and other nationalities. Their newspapers, novels, autobiographies, and other printed works bring fresh perspectives to US history.
LATINO_220620_055.JPG: Domino Park is in Little Havana, Miami. Local Cuban Americans gather in this plaza to play dominoes and socialize. Smell the cafe cubano (Cuban coffee) coming from the pot. Do you have community spaces in your neighborhood?
LATINO_220620_112.JPG: Manifest Destiny Visualized
This painting shows Anglo-Americans migrating across North America. On the right side, they farm while trains move across the land. On the left, indigenous peoples are pushed out. The woman in the middle symbolizes "progress." This painting is a visual representation of Manifest Destiny, the idea that White, US Protestant Christians are superior to other peoples of the Americas.
American Progress, John Gast, 1872. Loan from Autry Museum, Los Angeles.
LATINO_220620_122.JPG: Recruiting Poster
Almost 75,000 men from across the United States volunteered to fight Mexico. This included many new European immigrants.
LATINO_220620_138.JPG: The National Anthem in Spanish
This is sheet music for the Spanish translation of the US national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner." Peruvian composer Clotilde Arias (1901-1959) translated it for the US State Department at the end of World War II. By then, Arias was a US citizen.
LATINO_220620_147.JPG: Peruvian Passport
This passport belonged to Clotilde Arias (1901-1959). In 1923, she moved from Iquitos, Peru, to New York City to study music. She made her career composing advertising jingles and translating songs for the Latin American market. Arias also advocated for introducing Spanish in New York City schools.
LATINO_220620_161.JPG: COVID-19
COVID and Education
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Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Molina Family Latino Gallery) directly related to this one:
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2022_DC_SIAH_Latino_Tree: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Molina Family Latino Gallery -- Exhibit: Tree of Life (by Verónica Castillo) (75 photos from 2022)
2021_DC_SIAH_Latino: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Molina Family Latino Gallery (13 photos from 2021)
2022 photos: This year included major setbacks -- including Putin's invasion of Ukraine and the Supreme Court imposing the evangelical version of sharia law -- but also some steps forward like the results of the midterms.
This website had its 20th anniversary in August, 2022.
Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000.
Trips this year:
(February) a visit to see Dad and Dixie in Asheville, NC with some other members of my family,
(July) a trip out west for the return of San Diego Comic-Con, and
(October) a long weekend in New York to cover New York Comic-Con.
Number of photos taken this year: about 386,000, up 2020 and 2021 levels but still way below pre-pandemic levels.
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