The 248 ethnic organizations (and counting) that have signed on to support the National Museum of the American People all want one thing: they want their stories told about how and when and why they came to this land and nation and became Americans. And they want them told in a major national museum near the center of our nation’s capital.
The will tell the story of the making of the American People starting with the first humans in the Western Hemisphere and continuing through today. The organizations that have signed on represent 73 different ethnic/nationality/minority groups that together represent virtually every sizable group in the nation, well over 95 percent of all Americans. The museum will embody our original national motto – E Pluribus Unum (From Many, One).
The museum will tell all of our stories through four chapters of the museum’s permanent exhibition:
1) First Peoples Come (15-20,000 years ago to 1607;
2) The Nation Takes Form (1607-1820);
3) The Great In-gathering (1820-1924); and
4) And Still They Come (1924-Today).
Of the 248 organizations backing the museum, there are 135 representing groups whose ancestors came from every part of Europe, 37 who came from throughout Asia and the Pacific Islands, 36 from the Americas, including 14 Native American organizations, 18 from Africa and a variety of others from throughout the world.
Italian, Scandinavian and Scottish Americans each have 10 organizations backing the museum; Irish, Russian and Polish Americans each have 9 organizations signed on; and there are 8 German, 7 Jewish and 6 Baltic American organizations. All of the organizations are listed on the museum’s web site.
* Generally, people who put down “American” on the Census form have ancestors who came from England, Scotland, Ireland and Germany during the 17 and 18th centuries. They and their descendants thoroughly intermingled and 200 years later they describe their ethnicity as American.
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