Overview

Supporting Latino* museums across the United States is vital to preserving and promoting American Latino art, history, and culture. Latino museums foster opportunities for people to work, enjoy, create, share, and learn about the diverse Latin American diaspora.

In 2020, Congress enacted legislation to establish a new American Latino History and Culture (ALHC) program at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and to establish the Smithsonian’s first National Museum of the American Latino. The ALHC program will use grantmaking to strengthen the capacity and impact of American Latino museums nationwide.

Urban’s Role

The Urban Institute team conducted research designed to inform IMLS as it planned for and developed the ALHC program in ways that would promote inclusivity and sustainability for American Latino museums. The team’s work included a review of more than 250 pieces of literature in English, Spanish, and Portuguese; an environmental scan of 30 directories and databases to map the American Latino museum field; two community listening sessions, one in English and one in Spanish, with 49 total attendees; an online survey in English and Spanish that received 74 responses from potential ALHC program applicants; and 40 interviews in English and Spanish with museum professionals, collaborators, and funders.

Urban’s team was guided by the following five objectives:

1. Inform the design of the ALHC program to reflect cultural literacy about American Latino institutions and the communities they serve.
2. Identify the universe of existing and potential American Latino museums.
3. Develop priorities for IMLS in implementing the ALHC program to build applicant capacity and assets and address needs.
4. Clarify ways IMLS could capitalize on existing federal endowment, program, grant, and regulatory models.
5. Support IMLS in preparing for the ALHC program’s evidence building, performance measurement, and evaluation.

^* We acknowledge ongoing debates surrounding the terms Latino, Latinx, and Latine, and support use of gender-neutral language. For this project, we use “Latino” to be consistent with the National Museum of the American Latino Act, under which the ALHC program was established.

What We Found

This project concluded in December 2023, with an IMLS webinar planned for January 30, 2024, at 2:00 p.m. EST for Urban to summarize finding and recommendations. As a part of this work we produced the following materials:

• A final report: Research to Inform American Latino History and Culture Program: This report and technical appendix provide the findings of our core research and engagement and present recommendations to IMLS as its develops the ALHC program.
• A series of research summaries:
  • “Where in the US Are There Museums in Latino Neighborhoods?”: This summary examines museums located in neighborhood where significant shares of the population are Latino.
  • “How Federal Funders of Latino Museums Commit to Equity”: This summary examines equity action plans of federal agencies that fund Latino cultural institutions and their work to deepen engagement with populations that have historically been underserved.
  • “Funding Opportunities for Latino Museums”:This summary describes potential funding opportunities for Latino museums and provides tips on accessing these opportunities and ideas for equitable capacity building.
  • “A Snapshot of the Communities That Hispanic-Serving Institutions Serve”: This summary provides a snapshot of communities that are home to Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), including characteristics of their Latino populations and the presence of Latino museums.
  • “How to Engage with Latino Museum Communities in the Research Process”: This summary outlines Urban’s strategies for community engagement, assessing how Urban measured its community engagement success, and reflecting on future improvements.
• Two blog posts:
  • “The Importance of American Latino Museums” examines the vital role that American Latino museums play nationwide.
  • “What is an American Latino museum?” reflects on the diversity of the American Latino museum field.
• A webinar: How Do Latino Museums Elevate Cultural Equity in Communities? At this event we hosted a conversation about the unique responsibilities and innovative strategies that Latino museums and cultural institutions use to advance cultural equity.
• A final public briefing on the project, held on January 30, 2024, at 2:00 p.m. EST (hosted by IMLS).

Research Team

Led by senior researchers Mark Treskon and Jennifer Yahner née Castro, Urban’s predominantly Latino team includes multidisciplinary colleagues from across the organization, including a core research team of Paola Echave, Josh Fording, Sofia Hinojosa, Karolina Ramos, and Fanny Terrones, and contributions from Celina Barrios-Millner, Aravind Boddupalli, Jaya Dayal, Malore Dusenbery, Brenda Estrella, Olivia Fiol, LesLeigh Ford, Luis Gallardo, Gabriella Garriga, Luisa Godinez-Puig, Alicia Gonzalez, Diana Guelespe, Erica Henderson, Arielle Jackson, Mel Langness, Nicole Loonstyn, Rod Martinez, Jorge Morales-Burnett, Demetra Nightingale, Jessica Perez, Rudy Perez, Violet Sulka-Hewes, and the late distinguished scholar, Harry Hatry. Thank you to Zach VeShancey for review and copyedit support across the range of project materials.

Urban also partnered with Latino museum professionals Patricia Lannes and Antonio Rodríguez and IMLS experts Gibran Villalobos and Laura Huerta Migus.

Contact Us

We want to hear from you! If you have thoughts on the ALHC program’s design or want your institution added to the list of American Latino museums and collaborators, please contact us at [email protected].