Month: November 2018

Why do we need the National Museum of the American People? There are many correct answers. This blog is the first of three answering that question. In a sense the National Museum of the American People was kick-started at our country’s birth when our founders began the Constitution with the three most powerful words in our nation: “We the People.” The “We” of 2018 has greatly expanded and has been enhanced since its first appearance in 1789. Today it incorporates the descendants of slaves, the natives who were here for millennia, and peoples of every gender, race, nationality, ethnicity and religion whose ancestors are here from every corner of Earth.

How did the United States get to be the world’s leader economically, scientifically, militarily, agriculturally and culturally? The answer, of course, is through the contributions of the American People in all our diversity. The making of the American People is the central story of our nation from first peoples through today. That idea is embedded in the nation’s original national motto bestowed by our founders: E Pluribus Unum … From Many, One!

Among our nation’s first orders of business was to find out more about “We the People.” The Constitution prescribed instituting a decennial census to see just how many were here and where they lived to determine how many representatives each state would have in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Constitution then went on to expand the definition of who was incorporated into “We the People.” The 14th Amendment said that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States. The 15th Amendment opened voting rights to persons of every race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The 19th Amendment said the right to vote can not be denied or abridged on account of sex. The 26th Amendment allowed citizens 18 years of age or older to vote.

This expansion of who “We the People” are coincided with the ever-growing status of our nation. There is no story-telling museum anywhere that tells this powerful story about the making of the American People in a chronological manner. Visitors will be able to walk along a path where they will encounter their own story, and learn about every other group’s story.

Both Canada and Mexico have museums telling about the history of their people starting with first peoples to inhabit their land. So do a number of other countries around the world. The United States, with the most compelling story of all, doesn’t yet have such a museum. The National Museum of the American People should be … and can be … the best story-telling museum in the world.

The story of our nation is unique. It attracted peoples from every corner of our planet. Our founders designed it so. John Jay declared that: “The portals of the temple we have raised to freedom shall be thrown wide, as an asylum to mankind. America shall receive to her bosom and comfort and cheer the oppressed, the miserable and the poor of every nation and of every clime.”

Patrick Henry declared, “Make [the United States] the home of the skillful, the industrious, the fortunate, the happy, as well as the asylum of the distressed …. Let but this, our celebrated goddess, Liberty, stretch forth her fair hand toward the people of the old world — tell them to come, and bid them welcome.”

The NMAP will tell the story of all of the groups who came and will celebrate each.

The National Museum of the American People is already the most important museum that doesn’t exist … yet. Once open, the museum will gain in importance as it tells our story to generation upon generation of our lofty ideals, for the opportunity for all to succeed that we must continually strive to achieve, about where we’ve fallen short, and about our nation’s great accomplishments.

This blog is about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. The blog will be reporting regularly on a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum’s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, and pertinent political issues. The museum is a work in progress and we welcome thoughtful suggestions.

— Sam Eskenazi, Director, Coalition for the National Museum of the American People

This is the inaugural blog on this platform about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. I will be reporting regularly about a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum’s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, and pertinent political issues. The museum is a work in progress and we welcome thoughtful suggestions.

The National Museum of the American People is the most important museum in our country that doesn’t exist … Yet!

It could well be more valuable than any other museum in our country. The NMAP will tell the story about the making of the American People, a story that begins with the first humans in the Western Hemisphere and winds through millennia, centuries and decades to the present.

This story encompasses every person in our nation, whether they or their ancestors over the centuries came from Europe, Africa, Asia or the Americas … or were natives long before. This story is about crossing oceans and continents, whether voluntarily, indentured or enslaved, to get here. This story is one of the most compelling stories in human history.  Yet we don’t tell this full story anywhere.

The recently opened National Museum of African American History and Culture was the first major national museum to tell a part of that story in our nation’s capital, and it does so brilliantly, covering a 500-year tale of oppression, slavery, segregation, discrimination struggle and glorious achievements. While the African American story is rightfully told, so must the story be told of all Americans … Americans whose ancestors came from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, East Asia and Pacific Islands, South Asia, Central and South America, Africa, and our neighbors Canada and Mexico.

It was George Washington who said, “The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions.” Following Washington’s invitation and that of many of our nation’s other founders, people came here from every land and nation and became Americans.

Some 90 percent of Americans recognize their ancestry with a hyphenated attribute to an ethnic, nationality or minority group and, more and more, Americans have fascinating combinations of ancestry. We’ve tried to forge an ideal nation based on the idea behind our original national motto: E Pluribus Unum … From Many, One!

When you’re in the U.S. military, you’re an American soldier no matter where your ancestors came from. That unifying theme begins with the first words of our Constitution: “We the People.” Those words are the basis of the first self-governing people based not on a race or ethnic or tribal or religious basis, but on an idea. Our founding documents, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, all helped to shape the American character.

As that character is reshaped by each succeeding generation, we must continually renew and expand our commitments to our national ideals. The National Museum of the American People will make that task easier for future generations.

— Sam Eskenazi, Director, Coalition for the National Museum of the American People