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Inclusive Museum VOLUME 5 ISSUE 2 The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum __________________________________________________________________________ Melting Pot on the Mall? Race, Identity, and the National Museum Complex NICOLE REINER INCLUSIVEMUSEUM.COM THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE INCLUSIVE MUSEUM http://onmuseums.com/ First published in 2013 in Champaign, Illinois, USA by Common Ground Publishing University of Illinois Research Park 2001 South First St, Suite 202 Champaign, IL 61820 USA www.CommonGroundPublishing.com ISSN: 1835-2014 © 2013 (individual papers), the author(s) © 2013 (selection and editorial matter) Common Ground All rights reserved. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the applicable copyright legislation, no part of this work may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the publisher. For permissions and other inquiries, please contact <[email protected]>. The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Typeset in CGScholar. http://www.commongroundpublishing.com/software/ Melting Pot on the Mall?: Race, Identity, and the National Museum Complex Nicole Reiner Abstract: This essay reports on the controversial proposal to establish a National Museum of the American People (NMAP) on the Mall in Washington, D.C., and situates it in terms of the emergence of ethnically-specific museums at the Smithsonian during the past two decades, in- cluding the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), the Na- tional Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), and the proposed National Museum of the American Latino. While the latter three museums share a mandate to promote post-colonial strategies and outcomes, and embody museum reform directed toward increasing minority and indigenous agency, access and ownership over the processes of representing their culture in the capital, the NMAP counter-proposal exemplifies an antagonistic model that underscores the great need for further research and debate on the scope and future of the ethnically-specific museum in the United States. Keywords: Ethnic Museums, Smithsonian Institution, Race and Museums INTRODUCTION he National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) was es- tablished by an Act of Congress in 2003, making it the nineteenth and newest museum of the Smithsonian Institution, America’s official cultural repository located in the Tsymbolic heart of the nation. Slated to begin welcoming visitors into its purpose-built facility in 2015, it is under construction on the National Mall on a five-acre tract ad- jacent to the Washington Monument. Presently, during the building phase, the museum is producing publications, sponsoring public programs, and assembling collections. It is also presenting exhibitions at other museums across the country and at its own separate gallery in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, located next door to the NMAAHC’s new home. To many, a national museum honoring and promoting Black culture and history in the cap- ital seems long overdue, particularly considering that it took over one hundred years of uphill struggle to win congressional approval. While the current museum is an achievement to celebrate, we should not overlook the difficulties that the NMAAHC’s supporters have faced, or the many reasonable people who continue to assert that ethnically and culturally specific museums are too divisive, prone to politicization, or simply too narrow to be of general interest. This article considers the rise of ethnically-specific museums1 in the United States at a national and federal level, beginning with the National Museum of the American Indian in 2004, the National Museum of African History and Culture in 2015, and the official recommendation 1 Throughout this paper, I have preferred the term ethnically-specific over culturally-specific museum, even though the latter may be more contemporary. For one, the former reflects the language of the formative work on this category of museum, such as that by Fath Ruffins (1997, 1998), Moria Simpson (1996, 2004), Richard Kurin (1997), and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Carl Grodach (2004). But it may also help to facilitate a badly needed discussion of the distinction between group-specific museums that strike a generally celebratory tone, seeking recognition for the The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum Volume 5, 2013, http://onmuseums.com/, ISSN 1835-2014 © Common Ground, Nicole Reiner, All Rights Reserved, Permissions: [email protected] THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE INCLUSIVE MUSEUM in 2011 to establish a National Latino Museum.2 While each of these large-scale cultural projects is unique, I suggest that they also share significant connections as agents of progressive museum reform and as major steps in the Smithsonian’s efforts to “decolonize the museum,” by helping to free it from racialist and ethnocentric disciplinary conventions prescribing distinctions between advanced cultures belonging to the realm of History, and primitive ones considered as part of nature. 3 Their existence also springs from a desire to increase Native American, Black, and Hispanic participation, employment, and museum programs at the Smithsonian, and from a willingness to acknowledge historic shortcomings in these areas and to offer varied forms of rectification intended to invest these marginalized groups with the power of self-representation. As I further explain, however, if there is a trend developing at the Smithsonian toward a liberal policy of lending support and recognition to ethno-cultural minorities by building sep- arate museums honoring certain groups, there is also evidence of considerable anxiety and resistance to such museums, which remain contested within the Smithsonian and among the American public. These voices of opposition, which repeatedly stalled legislation for the African American history and culture museum, and even succeeded in shutting the project down at periodic intervals, represent a conservative legacy that continues to view the Washington Mall as a privileged site of whiteness and as a technology for producing cohesive symbols of national unity.4 Notably, this opposition also culminated in 2008 in yet another proposal for a new Mall museum, the National Museum of the American People, a reactionary institution modeled on the monolithic ‘melting pot’ style of multiculturalism against which the ethnic museum movement implicitly argues. The National Museum of the American People Among those who object to separate ethnic identity museums, an oft-prescribed solution is that the current roster of museums should incorporate the stories and cultural accomplishments of those who have been left out of traditional narratives more effectively. In the case of the Smithsonian, this line of thinking is encapsulated by the view that, instead of promoting a new museum, the Smithsonian should have added an African American Wing to the existing American History Building.5 But another key solution put forward is that “an even bigger building, with the whole American experience in total, would be better.”6 This is the position favored, for example, by Sam Eskenazi, former Director of Public Information for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Eskenazi has advanced a proposal for another new Mall museum, the National Museum of the American People, which would be “devoted to telling the story of how the world’s pioneers interwove their diverse races, religions, and ethnicities into the strongest societal fabric.”7 contributions and achievements of individual groups, and those which also seek restitution for previous misrepresent- ation or denigration by the dominant group in mainstream institutions. 2 The Latino Taskforce was formed in the early 1990s to study the treatment of Hispanic peoples within the Smithso- nian. The committee’s 1994 report, Willful Neglect, called for significant increases in staffing, collecting, and program- ming relevant to Latino Americans and recommended the creation of a new museum (Washington, D.C., National Museum of the American Latino Commission Fact Sheet, May 6, 2011). 3 Remarks by Joshua A. Bell, Curator of Globalization at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (New York University, March 28, 2012). 4 From 1994-1995 Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) singlehandedly prevented the passage of legislation for an African American Museum on the Mall through a number of tactical maneuvers intended to cause a filibuster, such as raising more than two dozen questions about the mission and costs of the museum late in the process. Delays caused the bill to fail to gain approval before Congress let out in 1994, effectively killing the bill. 5 This view was initially advocated by National Museum of American History Director Roger Kennedy in statements he made to the first African American Museum Study Commission in 1991. 6 Statement of an interviewee cited in the Smithsonian Office of Policy and Analysis Summary Report of Exploratory Interviews about the NMAAHC (Washington, D.C.: 2007), 8. 7 Jim Moran, “Telling the Story of All Americans,” Politico, 6 July 2011, 1. 34 REINER: MELTING POT ON THE MALL? According to the picture that is emerging, the National Museum of the American People (NMAP) would distinguish itself from the current National Museum of American History through its emphasis on technology over artifacts, viewing its role
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