At Washington's Hallowed National Mall, No Room For Hispanic Museum...Fight For Inclusion...Again...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

Editor-In-Chief

AUSTIN, Texas - It would be easy to say the spot is deserved if for no other reason than that enough Hispanics have bled and died while fighting for this country. The record shows that forty-three men of Hispanic heritage have won the Medal of Honor while serving this nation's military in wars from Germany to Afghanistan, 25 of those medals presented posthumously.

Yet in a country born from immigrants and built by more than 230 years of immigrant sweat, today's Hispanics have no memorial honoring their contributions anywhere along the revered National Mall in the nation's capital. Big monuments to big men can be seen for miles: Abraham Lincoln's and George Washington's bookending the mall; Thomas Jefferson's nearby - all flanked by venerations for veterans of America's wars, from World War II, to Korea, to Vietnam.

Also in the mix is the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum paying its respects to the many Jews killed during the Nazi atrocities in early-1940s Germany. The National Museum of the American Indian sits off Independence Avenue in the shadows of the Capitol, where Congress does its work. Back a bit toward the center of the mall lies the future site of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Nowhere is there a similar memorial to U.S. Hispanics.

Federal money, or really a lack of it, stands in the way. Where the federal government chipped in half of the $500 million needed for the African-American museum, the Hispanic version has failed to generate interest from a Congress using the current budgetary crisis as a shield against any sort of imminent commitment. In the case of the museum for Native Americans, the federal government paid two-thirds of the cost.

According to a story published last Thursday in the inside pages of The New York Times, efforts to link construction of the museum to the Smithsonian Institution complex have been stalled by a variety of roadblocks that go beyond the federal budget crunch. The Native American museum, also sponsored by the Smithsonian, opened seven years ago. The African American one is scheduled for completion within the next four years.

Unlike the other ethnic museums, the Hispanic project has drawn opposition that never surfaced before. U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, a Democrat from Virginia, was quoted in The Times as saying this: "I don't want a situation where whites go to the original museum, African-Americans go to the African-American museums, Indians go to the Indian museum, Hispanics go to the Latino American museum. That's not America."

The point seems a bit odd, especially when Hispanics clearly see the government-backed efforts for the other ethnic groups. Strong opposition also has come from something called the National Coalition To Save Our Mall, whose president, Judy Feldman, said this about the Hispanic museum project: "What's happening is we just keep jamming things into the limited space." Still, backers say the country's burgeoning Hispanic population, now exceeding 50 million, and its often-overlooked tremendous contributions to all sectors of American society demands includion. And even as all of this plays out, the federal commission assigned overview has been conducting a variety of surveys asking Hispanics what they would want in their museum: the tireless toils of Cesar Chavez in defense of mistreated farmworkers, the allegiance and service to the military, the athletic field, the socio-political world, the economy. It's a veritable mountain of mostly-positive material. The commission is scheduled to report its findings to Congress next month.

In the Times article, Lisa Navarrete, a spokeswoman for the National Council of La Raza, said the mall's lack of Hispanic-related memorials is unfortunate because Latino children also travel to Washington, D.C., where, as things stand, they cannot see "their community and history and legacy reflected."

Backers of the museum say their drive, which began in 2003 in a Bill submitted in Congress by California Democrat Xavier Becerra, is an uphill political battle at this point. They acknowledge that federal money is just not there, not as readily as it was for the African-American museum or for the Native American one. Left as the only viable option is the idea of private donations. Support in Congress has come mainly from representatives who say they endorse the idea, but not if it means spending federal dollars.

The commission preparing the report has released some data about the project, saying it has looked at plans for a 310,000-square-foot building, which would be about as big as the African-American museum. Four sites have been offered as possibilities for placement, all of them along the desired National Mall, shown in photo directly above.

It's a museum whose aim is noble and, without question, due. But, back in 2009, when supporters first began making inroads on the project, they envisioned a 10-year fight to get it built. Now, that timetable is said to be more a dream than a possibility.

It's something to think about...

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