TIM JOHNSON: Welcome to the National Museum
of the American Indian.
My name is Tim Johnson.
I'm Associate Director for Museum Programs
here.
Regrettably our Director Kevin Gover is not
able to join us this morning because of a
death in his family.
On Director Gover's behalf, and that of the
Museum, I welcome you to (Re)Presenting America:
The Evolution of Culturally Specific Museums
for an
important discussion of a challenging subject
in the nation's capital.
This symposium will address a debate that
was reignited in May 2011 when a federal commission
recommended establishing a Smithsonian Museum
dedicated to American Latinos.
Critics of "ethnic museums" argue that museums
dedicated to the experiences or cultures of
specific
communities are divisive, while supporters
insist that such museums enrich the national
narrative and offer more depth and perspective
into what it means to be an American.
The
Smithsonian, with its cohort of world-class
museums and scholars, including museums and
scholars dedicated specifically to the examination
of Native American and African American history
and culture, African art, and Asian art, along
with the work of the Latino Center, the Center
for Folk Life and Cultural Heritage, and the
Asian Pacific
American Program provides an apt venue for
this vital conversation.
Today's discussion concerning the development
and roles of ethnic museums (and we should
really be circumspect about this label) brings
together Museum Directors and scholars from
across the national mall, as well as scholars
and critics from across the country.
From
Birmingham, Alabama to Seattle, Washington.
By presenting various facets of the existence
and practices of "ethnic culturally-specific
museums" at the Smithsonian and
elsewhere this special symposium advances
knowledge of a complex subject of substantial
interest to American Society.
It provides an important step toward understanding
the history of museums and matters of race,
the development of "ethnic culturally-specific
museums," and the development of a cogent
philosophy on these museums.
Now, before I
introduce today's moderator, I want to remind
everybody to turn off your cell phones so
we're not interrupted during these discussions.
Also, I want to welcome internet viewers who
are watching this symposium live, and welcome
them to the program as well.
Now, it is my great pleasure to introduce
the distinguished moderator of today's program,
Ray Suarez.
Mr.
Suarez has more than 30 years of varied experience
in the news business.
He came to the NewsHour from national public
radio, where he had been host of the nationwide
call-
in news program, Talk of the Nation since
1993.
Prior to that, he spent 7 years covering local,
national, and international stories for the
NBC-owned station WMAQ-TV in Chicago.
He is the author of numerous books, most recently
of the Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in
America, which examines the tightening relationship
between religion and politics in this
country.
Mr. Suarez currently hosts the monthly radio
program America Abroad for Public Radio International,
and the weekly politics program, Destination
Casablanca, for Hispanic Information Telecommunications
Network, HITNT-TV.
Mr. Suarez was a co-recipient of NPRs 1993-94
and 1994-95 DuPont-Columbia Silver Baton awards
for on-site
coverage of the first all-race elections in
South Africa, and the first 100 days of the
104th Congress respectively.
He was honored with the 1996 Ruben Salazar
Award from the
National Council of La Raza, and the 2005
Distinguished Policy Leadership Award from
UCLAs School of Public Policy.
Please help me welcome Ray Suarez.
[Applause]
RAY SUAREZ: Thank you.
Thank you Tim Johnson, and I want to thank
everybody who thought that it was a good idea
to invite me to be here
today.
It was a great pleasure to be asked, because
as an American, as a lover of history, and
as someone who cares deeply about getting
this right the first time because we don't
really get multiple bites at the apple.
I care a lot about the evolution of culturally-specific
museums.
I have a couple of core questions.
Who are they for?
What
do they do?
How do we know if it's working?
I hope that we can answer those questions
across the course of today.
The preparatory materials for this day-long
symposium included the
question, "Do they provide different portals
into what it means to be an American?"
I think, clearly, they do.
Each American may take away different understandings
from the encounter with one of these museums
or exhibitions in advance of a museum actually
being built.
As we've seen multiple times in both the Smithsonian
and in other historical
museums around the country, anything that
seeks to critique core narratives of American
history, much less redefine them, is in for
a rough road.
There are accusations of political correctness,
ethnic cheerleading, or overemphasis on darker
corners of our shared history on this continent.
If the museums focusing on black Americans
and now,
perhaps Latinos tell a different story from
the core narrative, will other Americans even
know?
I think it's a valid question given that once
you create a separate building, a
separate institution, a separate collection,
and a separate story you're not really modifying
that comforting, reifying, reinforcing story,
the big arc of American history that a kid
could be expected to learn from K-12.
If you just choose not to go in that museum,
you only get the story that was told absent
the existence of that museum.
I'm writing a book right now on the history
of Latinos in the United States from the end
of the Mexican War to today.
Part of my goal is to have the general interest
reader say at least once in every chapter,
"How come nobody ever told me this?"
I mean, that's really a conscious goal that
I have as I'm sitting down and writing about
from the mid-19th
Century, the different immigrant flows from
different places in the rest of the hemisphere.
There are all kinds of stories that are very
much part of the American whole, but
because we shunt them off into separate alleyways,
rooms, and galleries in our national head,
you could very easily go from kindergarten
to university without ever having heard that.
I'm reminded of that every time I have to
explain to an otherwise apparently well-educated
American why Puerto Rico is part of the United
States, and why
one day when minding their own business in
1917, all my grandparents moved from being
persons of not quite defined citizenship to
being American citizens with a signature on
a document at the capital with no Puerto Ricans
in the room.
So we have to keep that in mind, I think in
part because new patterns of information consumption
are already
teaching us lessons.
The way people find out the things they know
offer you the opportunity that you didn't
have at another time in our mass communication
to just consume the
messages you want from sources that ratify
your already held world view, and don't do
anything to rattle the cage of the things
that you already believe are true.
Given that's becoming more and more possible
every day, we have to wonder not if these
culturally-specific museums are divisive,
no, just the opposite.
Whether once you open the doors and
say, "Come on in," whether people who just
want to hear that story are going to come
in and not have that core narrative disturbed
in any way.
That story of an English speaking - - moving
steadily west from the Atlantic seaboard isn't
really true.
Yet, what is true, you know?
As a journalist I have to wrestle with that
every day.
As people who work
in this cultural space, people who run museums,
people who think deeply about these things.
Many of you have to wrestle with this every
day.
We don't want to create an American
historical narrative that remains save and
ratified in the big house (the Museum of American
history on the Mall) while all these other
outbuilding's are the places where you have
to go to find out those other stories.
We have a great lineup of really heavyweight
guests today, terrific panelists and discussants,
so let's move on.
I
want to give you a couple of housekeeping
tips.
I will repeat because, you know, even though
you're all grownups and seem to be very nice
people, it sometimes takes two or three passes
to get people to really believe you that we
want you to turn your cellphones off.
After our last presentation this morning our
speakers will return to the stage and
we'll have a question and answer session.
So please hold your questions until then.
There's a microphone set up right back there
in the sort of intersection between the
mezzanine and this center aisle.
We will ask you to go to that microphone,
because remember this is being webcast, and
people all over America want to hear what
you have to ask.
