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Smithsonian Latino Museum

Smithsonian Staff

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino advances the representation, understanding and appreciation of Latino history and culture in the United States. The museum provides financial resources and collaborates with other museums to expand scholarly research, public programs, digital content, collections and more. The museum’s Molina Family Latino Gallery is the Smithsonian’s first gallery dedicated to the Latino experience. The legislation creating the National Museum of the American Latino at the Smithsonian passed Dec. 27, 2020. Connect with the museum at latino.si.edu, and follow @USLatinoMuseum on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Smithsonian Latino Museum's collections

 

Yo Soy/ I am… Creating a Community Art Piece

<p>This learning kit from the National Museum of the American Latino highlights five important Latinos(as) who have worked for their local communities and are featured in the exhibition <a href="https://latino.si.edu/exhibitions/presente" target="_blank"><em>Presente! A Latino History of the United States</em>.</a> The learning kit provides an activity sheet and steps to create a community art piece. </p>
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Voices y Valor: Latinas in the U.S. Army

<p>This Learning Lab features stories of Latinas in the U.S. Army and spotlight five Latinas that span different military eras and that have served the United States Army in various capacities.  The Learning Lab collection includes additional resources and classroom activities such as creating object biographies of Smithsonian Collections and additional questions for class discussion using Project Zero's Thinking Routines. </p>
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Community Murals: Art on Walls

<p>The National Museum of the American Latino is proud to partner with museums to hold events and meet the nation’s diverse Latino communities across the country. At these events we invite local artists to paint Community Art Walls based on the Latino culture and traditions that are local to their region. <br><br>These Community Art Walls then travel to Washington, D.C. to be temporarily displayed in the Molina Family Latino Gallery’s General Motors Learning Lounge. This space hopes to inspire visitors to the gallery to explore more about Latino culture and is a chance to be a window to the nation. After they are displayed, we return them to be enjoyed by their community. Take a virtual tour through these murals, learn about the artists, and about Chicana Muralist Judy Baca, view Smithsonian collections, and take a hand at designing a sketch for your own mural. </p>
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Graciela, Latinas Talk Latinas

<p><strong>This resource is designed to accompany the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Latino and National Museum of American History's video <em>Latinas Talk Latinas, <strong>Ashley Mayor Talks About Graciela: The Power of Music</strong>. </em> After watching the video, which is located in the second tile of this collection, please return to this page to learn more about the objects and resources we have in our digital collection as well as additional information that will help you further explore the topics and themes presented in the video.</strong></p> <p><strong>Graciela helped popularize Mambo music during the 1950s in the New York City Latin music scene. Her unparalleled voice allowed the trailblazing Afro-Cubana to use music to break color lines and stereotypes.<br></strong></p>
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Jovita González, Latinas Talk Latinas

<p>This resource is designed to accompany the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Latino and National Museum of American History's video <em>Latinas Talk Latinas, Cynthia Vidaurri Talks About Jovita González: Documenting a Community. </em> After watching the video, which is located in the second tile of this collection, please return to this page to learn more about the objects and resources we have in our digital collection as well as additional information that will help you further explore the topics and themes presented in the video.<br><br>Jovita González was one of the earliest folklorists to document the border between the United States and Mexico as its own cultural zone. She wrote several groundbreaking books with innovative documenting and writing techniques.</p>
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Jovita Idar, Latinas Talk Latinas

<p>This resource is designed to accompany the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Latino and National Museum of American History's video <em>Latinas Talk Latinas, Gilda Mirós: From the Journalist's Desk</em>. After watching the video, which is located in the second tile of this collection, please return to this page to learn more about the objects and resources we have in our digital collection as well as additional information that will help you further explore the topics and themes presented in the video.<br></p> <p>Jovita Idar, recently depicted in coinage as part of the American Women Quarters Program, was a courageous journalist and educator. She wrote about injustices and promoted Latino civil rights from her Texas home.</p>
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Celebrating the Holidays with Poinsettias

<p>This learning lab collection explores the origins and history of the Cuetlaxóchitl (phonetic spelling cuet-lax-o-chitl) plant. Find out interesting facts about the plant that we have all come to know as the Christmas plant. Discover the legend behind the plant and the science behind the magical color. Then, try your handicraft skills out and make your own poinsettia plant using materials found at home or in the classroom. The learning lab includes additional resources and videos to continue exploring. </p>
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¡Descubra! Breaking Barriers in Space

<p>Latinas and Latinos have had a long legacy of contributing to space exploration from Arturo Campos, an electrical engineer that helped solve the power crisis on the Apollo 13 mission and Franklin Chang Diaz and Ellen Ochoa, the first Latino and Latina astronauts respectively, to today and the team of three (3) Latinas Diana Trujillo, Christina Hernandez, and Clara O’Farrell who helped lead the Mars Perserverance Rover Team. On the International Space Station, astronauts like Frank Rubio continue to pursue answers to science's greatest questions.  Explore this Learning Lab collection to learn more about these space pioneers through Smithsonian objects, exhibitions, articles, and video resources. Go a step further and enjoy exploring space through our Create-It activities for elementary, middle school, and high school students. </p>
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Nuestras Voces: On the Home Front with Valentina

<p>This resource is designed to accompany the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Latino's book <em><em>On the Home Front with Valentina </em></em>created in collaboration with Capstone and written by Claudia Oviedo and illustrated by Juan Manuel Moreno.<br></p> <p>In 1940, eleven-year-old Valentina lives in El Paso, Texas, with her Mami, Papi, and two older brothers, Hugo and Kiki. Valentina loves reading and learning, and she hopes to go to college and become a teacher and writer someday. Her brother Hugo was in college, but with World War II looming—and Kiki eager to join the military—Hugo decides to join the National Guard with Kiki. Trying to help her family navigate wartime changes, Valentina takes on a lot more at home. She writes to her brothers, keeps her parents updated on news about the war, and helps with the war effort on the home front—all for a country she’s not so sure accepts Mexican American families like her own. In diary format, the <em>Nuestras Voces</em> series profiles inspiring characters and honors the joys, challenges, and outcomes of Latino experiences. </p> <p>This Learning Lab helps identify objects in the Smithsonian's collection that could be found in <em>On the Home Front with Valentina.</em> They are grouped into themes for easier viewing.</p> <p>What is in a collection? It has objects that were used or worn by someone. Examples of objects include articles, photographs, artifacts, and videos. Objects can be anything from a baseball to a piece of clothing. It could even be a space shuttle! Objects help museums tell more complete stories. Museums also take care of objects. That way, future visitors can see them, too.</p> <p>Each Learning Lab includes a thinking routine. They are from the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero. These questions can help create discussion around the stories and objects here. This Learning Lab can serve middle school and high school students. Especially if they are interested in Latino culture. It can help with a Spanish project exploring family traditions.<br><br></p> <p>For more information on the <em>Nuestras Voces </em>series, please visit www.latino.si.edu.</p>
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SLC Day of the Dead Bilingual Curriculum-Based Resources

<p>The cultural online programs and resources developed by The Smithsonian Latino Center (SLC) featuring Dia de los Muertos represent groundbreaking efforts by the Smithsonian to promote a deeper appreciation for Latino heritage and our connections to the ancestral past. In addition to its online festival, complete with bilingual interactive online resources based on Smithsonian scholarly research, is a vehicle for the exploration of this traditional practice which has become a phenomenon of popular American culture today. The online programming is in part a collaboration with Michigan State University (MSU) and other key community partners across the country.<br /><br />Generous support for the Smithsonian Latino Center's bilingual digital educational resources provided by the following Education Sponsors: Target and The Walt Disney Company.</p>
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Cerámica de los Ancestros: Central America's Past Revealed

<p>This bilingual collection features activities, publications, and videos for middle and high school students as well as scholars and life-long learners on Central American archaeology and history through ceramics from 1000 BC to the present.</p> <p>For thousands of years, Central America has been home to vibrant civilizations, each with unique, sophisticated ways of life, value systems, and arts. The ceramics these peoples left behind, combined with recent archaeological discoveries, help tell the stories of these dynamic cultures and their achievements. <em>Cerámica de los Ancestros</em> examines seven regions representing distinct Central American cultural areas that are today part of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Spanning the period from 1000 BC to the present, the ceramics featured, selected from the National Museum of the American Indian's collection of more than 12,000 pieces from the region, are augmented with significant examples of work in gold, jade, shell, and stone. These objects illustrate the richness, complexity, and dynamic qualities of the Central American civilizations that were connected to peoples in South America, Mesoamerica, and the Caribbean through social and trade networks sharing knowledge, technology, artworks, and systems of status and political organization. </p> <p>This collection features the past exhibition, <em>Cerámica de los Ancestros: Central America's Past Revealed</em>, a collaboration of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Smithsonian Latino Center.<br /></p>
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Our Journeys Our Stories: Portraits of Latino Achievement | Nuestros Caminos Nuestras Historias: Retratos del Logro Latino

<p>This bilingual resource serves middle and high school teachers and students as well as lifelong learners. </p><p><i>Our Journeys/Our Stories: Portraits of Latino Achievement</i> explores the diversity of the Latino experience in its portrayal of a group of extraordinary men and women and the stories they tell. Like the exhibition, this companion book combines personal narratives, portraits, and <i>dichos</i>, or traditional sayings, to provide an inspirational, illustrated anthology of Latino accomplishments across generations.</p> <p>People of all ages and backgrounds will be engaged by these inspirational stories and portraits of Latinos who have made significant contributions to American life. By telling the stories of leaders in the Latino community who display outstanding character traits, such as dedication, discipline, perseverance, integrity, passion, responsibility, courage, and commitment, this anthology provides multiple views of achievement that will motivate many other Americans to realize their own dreams.</p><p>Este recurso bilingüe sirve a estudiantes de secundaria y preparatoria (high school) y a aprendices de todas edades.</p><p><i>Nuestros Caminos/Nuestras Historias: Retratos del Logro Latino </i>explora la diversidad de la vivencia latina al presentar de un grupo de hombres y mujeres extraordinarios y las historias que ellos nos cuentan. Así como la exhibición, esta publicación complementaria combina anécdotas personales, retratos y relatos orales tradicionales para ofrecer una antología ilustrada de inspiración sobre los logros de los latinos a través de distintas generaciones.</p> <p>Personas de todas las edades y orígenes se sentirán atraídas por estas historias y retratos de latinos que contribuyeron de manera significativa a la vida estadounidense. Al contar la historia de los líderes de la comunidad latina que demuestran características sobresalientes como dedicación, disciplina, perseverancia, integridad, pasión, responsabilidad, valor y compromiso, esta antología ofrece múltiples facetas del logro que motivará a muchos otros estadounidenses a materializar sus propios sueños. </p>
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