NMAP Staff – Page 3 – Bringing All Americans Together!

February 25, 2019September 12, 2019

#24: More Than 140 Scholars Support NMAP

The National Museum of the American People and the story it will tell about all of the peoples coming to this land will be scholarly-driven and ensure that the highest standards of scholarship are met.

Historians, anthropologists, sociologists, archeologists, ethnologists, human geographers, demographers, geneticists, linguists and others will help develop the story.

We anticipate that a feasibility study that the Museum backers are seeking will provide an outline of the story that the Museum will tell. Then the Museum itself will develop a detailed book about the making of the American People that will guide the development of the Museum’s permanent exhibition.

The story would follow a consensus of the scholars’ views and significant evidence-based historic and scientific alternative views could also be included. As scientific and historic consensus changes, appropriate changes could be made in the Museum. With force and clarity, the Museum will examine the story of the making of the American People.

About 30 of the scholars backing the Museum focus on general issues of immigration, migration and refugee history while others focus on particular groups of people. These scholars focus on European Americans (23), African Americans (17), Asian Pacific Americans (18), Hispanics/Latinos (22), Native Americans (8) and about two dozen others who concentrate on other aspects or peoples in the Museum’s story.

A complete list of scholars supporting the National Museum of the American People is here.

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

February 21, 2019September 12, 2019

#23: 2010 Census Provides In-Depth Snapshot of US Diversity

While a map of the US showing the largest ethnic group of each county in the nation provides a broad brush view of our nation’s diversity, using actual census numbers provides a deeper window into our nation’s diversity.

Based on the 2010 Census, four groups, German American, African American, Irish American and Mexican American constitute about half of the nation’s population.

Adding English American, Italian American, Polish American, French American and those who simply say American, you get to about 75 percent of Americans. Some respondents selected more than one ancestry group or race.

Here are 33 of the largest ethnic groups based on the 2010 Census. Alaskan Native and Native Hawaiian are combined here with American Indians. The total population of the US in 2010 was 308.7 million. The National Museum of the American People expects to use the 2020 Census in bringing the story of the making of the American People up to the present.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

February 18, 2019September 12, 2019

#22: Happy Presidents’ Day Weekend!

George Washington — Can trace his family’s presence in North America from his great-grandfather John Washington who migrated from England to Virginia in 1694.
John Adams — Born in Massachusetts in 1792, John Adams was a 4th-generation descendant of Henry Adams who immigrated from England to Massachusetts Bay Colony about 1636.
Thomas Jefferson — His ancestor came from Wales to Virginia.
James Madison — His paternal family line is of English descent.
James Monroe — His paternal great-grandfather immigrated to America from Scotland in the mid-17th century.
John Quincy Adams — Like his father John, he is a descendant of Henry Adams.
Andrew Jackson — His genealogy shows that he descended from Richard Jackson (1505-1562) from England.
Martin Van Buren — His ancestry was Dutch.
William Henry Harrison — The Harrison family line comes from England.
John Tyler — The Tyler family came to American from England.
James K. Polk — Robert Pollock in 1659 emigrated from Ireland to Maryland accompanied by his wife and children. “Polk” was derived from Pollock.
Zachary Taylor — He was a descendant of King Edward I of England, as well as Mayflower passengers Isaac Allerton and William Brewster.
Millard Fillmore — His maternal side migrated to the United States from England in the early 17th century.
Franklin Pierce — Thomas Pierce, an ancestor of the family, migrated from England to the US in the 17th century.
James Buchanan — The Buchanans were Scotch-Irish; in 1783, James, Sr., emigrated from Ireland.
Abraham Lincoln — The Lincoln family came to the United States in the 17th century from England.
Andrew Johnson — His paternal side of the family descended from England.
Ulysses S. Grant — Grant has English, Scottish and Irish lineage.
Rutherford B. Hayes — Hayes is of English and Scottish descent.
James A. Garfield — Garfield was born of English ancestry.
Chester A. Arthur — His father was Scotch-Irish and his mother was of English and Welsh descent.
Grover Cleveland — He is a descendant of ancestors from England.
Benjamin Harrison — The Harrisons originate from England.
Grover Cleveland (See 22)
William McKinley — The McKinleys were of English and Scots-Irish descent.
Theodore Roosevelt — The Roosevelts were all descendants of Claes van Roosevelt, who was a part of the original Dutch immigrants who settled in New Amsterdam in the 1640’s.
William Howard Taft — The first known ancestor of Taft came from Ireland and he also has some English lineage.
Woodrow Wilson — Woodrow Wilson was the son of an immigrant mother from England, and the grandson of immigrant grandparents from Ireland and Scotland.
Warren G. Harding — In the 17th century Warren G. Harding’s paternal side descended from England.
Calvin Coolidge — The Coolidge family migrated to the United States in the 17th century from England.
Herbert Hoover — Hoover (the family’s original name was Huber) was of German-Swiss and English ancestry on his father’s side and of Irish-Canadian ancestry on his mother’s side.
Franklin D. Roosevelt — Franklin D. Roosevelt’s family history dates back to Claes van Roosevelt, the Dutch immigrant who brought the Roosevelts to New York City in the early 1600s.
Harry S. Truman — His ancestry was predominantly English, with a few German, French and Scottish lines.
Dwight D. Eisenhower — The Eisenhower family migrated to the United States from Germany.
John F. Kennedy — The Fitzgerald family was from western Ireland. Between 1846 and 1855, they migrated to America to escape the devastating potato famine. JFK was the first Irish-Catholic President.
Lyndon B. Johnson — Johnson was of English, German and Ulster Scots ancestry.
Richard Nixon — The Nixon family immigrated to the United States from northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Gerald Ford — Ford is a descendant of Philip King, who emigrated from England to Philadelphia around 1730.
Jimmy Carter — Thomas Carter, Sr. in 1637, came from England to Virginia.
Ronald Reagan — He was 50 percent Irish, 25 percent Scottish and 25 percent English.
George H. W. Bush — The Bush family is primarily of English and German descent. The Bush family traces its European origin to the 17th century.
Bill Clinton — Clinton has Irish ancestry from both parents and traces of PresidentEnglish, German and Ulster Scots ancestry.
George W. Bush — (The same as 41).
Barack Obama — Obama’s father was from Kenya and a member of Kenya’s Luo ethnic group. Obama’s mother is of Irish and English decent.
Donald Trump — On October 7, 1885, Friedrich Trump, a 16-year-old German, bought a one-way ticket to America.

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

February 14, 2019September 12, 2019

#21: The NMAP Will Project the History of Our Nation’s Diversity from First Humans Through Today

“Our diversity,” according to Michelle Obama, “has been – and will always be – our greatest source of strength and pride here in the United States.”

What is now the United States has been diverse for more than 10 millennia. From the many tribal groups prior to first significant European contact to the migrations of different peoples here from all parts of Europe, Asia, Africa (predominantly as slaves at the beginning) our land and nation has always been a cauldron of diversity.

When the United States was instituted in 1789, its diversity was recognized by our founders. They opened the nation’s doors to the people of the world fleeing oppression. The map above demonstrates the modern face of that diversity. It shows the leading ethnic group of every county in the United States based on the 2000 Census.

The light blue color spreading from Pennsylvania across the Midwest to the Pacific shows German American dominance. It is the largest ethnic group in the nation. The pink color stretching across the nation’s southern border with segments running up though California and other Western states is, not surprisingly, Mexican American. In the Southeast and scattered large metropolitan counties, the dark purple color represents African Americans.

The light yellow color that runs through Appalachia and into the South are people who define themselves as “American.” This group is the only major group that doesn’t recognize an ancestry related to another area of the World or another epoch. Their ancestors are believed to have come primarily from England, Scotland, Ireland and Germany, generally during the 1600s and 1700s and totally intermingled so that when they are asked on a Census form 200 years later about their ancestry this is their correct answer. For them, America was a melting pot. This group, comprising about 10 percent of Americans, is the only group that doesn’t have a descriptive before or after their American identity

Looking at the map, you see that the other 94 percent of Americans, however, do recognize their ancestry. Up in New England you see English heritage as you might expect. But if you take your finger from there across the Mormon Trail you’ll see that Mormon Country in and around Utah is predominantly English heritage as well.

The golden color scattered about in Western states are counties where native Americans predominate on reservations. There are people with French heritage mostly in upper Maine and around New Orleans. And Irish and Italian Americans dominate in Boston and New York City and down though Long Island and New Jersey. Scandinavian and Dutch enclaves are scattered along the northern tier of the nation.

Cubans Americans are the leading group in South Florida and Japanese Americans hold sway in Hawaii. While Puerto Rico has its own color, that same color is growing in Central Florida.

This map, by just showing the leading ethnic group of every county in the nation, still only skims over the layers of diversity throughout the nation. In many cases the leading ethnic group of a county may be a small plurality of the county as a whole. Our large cities and metropolitan areas are stewpots of diversity where people whose ancestors came from everywhere on Earth mix and matchup in combinations to make new Americans combining gene pools from around the World.

While this map is a snapshot in time, the story of the making of the American People in all of our diversity has been dynamic over time. That’s the story that the National Museum of the American People will tell.

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

February 11, 2019September 12, 2019

#20: Nation’s Founders Welcomed Immigrants to USA

Our nation’s founders had a profound vision for our new country. It would open its doors to nearly all comers escaping persecution in its many forms across the World.

While slavery was certainly a blind spot for them and natives were persecuted, the founders firmly established the principle that the United States would offer asylum to those persecuted from throughout the World.

Here are some quotations from our Founding Fathers:

George Washington

“I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.”

Thomas Paine

“The United States should be an asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty.”

John Jay

“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.”

Thomas Jefferson

“Shall we refuse to the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the [natives] of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe? …. might not the general character and capabilities of a citizen be safely communicated to everyone manifesting a bona fide purpose of embarking his life and fortunes permanently with us.”

Patrick Henry

“Make it [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.”

George Washington

“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; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.”

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

February 7, 2019February 13, 2019

#19: The National Museum of the American People Can Play an Instrumental Role in Our Foreign Relations

The National Museum of the American People can be expected to have an impact on our nation’s relationship with countries around the globe.

At the opening ceremony for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993, leaders of a dozen nations plus the President of the United States were in attendance. Since then, leaders of 100 countries and 3,500 foreign officials representing 132 countries have visited that museum.

That museum also established strong ties to Poland, Russian and other eastern and central European nations to obtain artifacts and access to archives. It similarly established a collegial relationship with Israel’s national Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem.

The USHMM is just one example of how a center for education and learning in our nation’s capital helps to improve our relationships abroad. The National Museum of the American People will be another important example.

THE NMAP will tell the stories of peoples coming here from every corner of Earth, most of whom had a continental sense of their forbearers and a nationality before becoming Americans.

The ties to those nationalities will be examined and mined by the NMAP to help tell the Museum’s many stories, to obtain artifacts relating to that connection, and to foster relationships between the Museum and nations throughout the world that provided the migrants who became Americans.

The Museum will help answer the question: What exactly is an American? President Reagan said: “America represents something universal in the human spirit. I received a letter not long ago from a man who said, ‘You can go to Japan to live, but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey, and you won’t become a German or a Turk.’ But then he added, ‘Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American.’”

The unique nature of Americans representing every race, creed and nationality around the world will be highlighted by the Museum and will help bind Americans together as it faces global challenges.

By making visitors more aware of their own heritage, the Museum can spur Americans to travel to their ancestral homelands. Foreign visitors will certainly visit to learn how emigrants from their lands and nations came and became Americans and contributed to this nation’s role as a world leader.

At the opening of the National Museum of the American People a virtual United Nations of heads of state could be in attendance to help celebrate that special relationship this nation has with every other nation. As the Museum contributes to the democratization of our society it can also serve as a beacon to nations across the world that have increasingly diverse societies.

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

February 4, 2019February 13, 2019

#18: NMAP Feasibility Study Will Explore Every Element of What Museum Would Be

In 2019, the Coalition for the National Museum of the American People is proposing an exhaustive feasibility study of the Museum. The study exploring creation of the Museum would be conducted by a consortium of major U.S. university museum studies programs in conjunction with funders supporting the museum.

The final report of the feasibility study would be presented to the President and to Congress. Funding for the report would come solely from supporters of the Museum using no taxpayer funds. The details of the study operation would be worked out by the funders, the consortium and the Museum coalition. It should take no more than a year to complete its work and present its findings.

The consortium could use the final report for the National Museum of African American History and Culture as a guide.

The NMAP feasibility study will explore and report on:

The story the Museum will tell, develop an outline of that story and suggest the manner in which the story will be told
Sites in Washington for the Museum with a primary focus on the Banneker Overlook site
Requirements for the Museum building
The scope and mission of the Museum
Potential US audiences including school groups
Visitors from around the world
Costs, budget and staffing
A fund-raising plan to plan, build and operate the Museum
How the Museum will support state, local and ethnic museums in the U.S. with a similar mission
The Museum’s governance, whether part of or separate from the Smithsonian Institution
Ways for the Museum to communicate regularly with ethnic, nationality and minority organizations including more than 240 of these already supporting the Museum
Components of the Museum
Issues the Museum could encounter
A plan to create the Museum
A plan to gain public attention for the Museum
A plan to pass legislation in support of the Museum
Draft legislation to create an entity that would be responsible for building and funding the Museum

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

January 31, 2019February 13, 2019

#17: The NMAP’s New Path to Completion

“Bringing All Americans Together.” With that new tag line and facing a revised national political and cultural climate, the Coalition for the National Museum of the American People is embarking on a new two-track, two-year plan to establish the Museum.

By early 2021 our goal will will be to complete a major feasibility study of the Museum and to pass legislation designating it as a “National” Museum and creating a governing body to guide the project forward.

The Museum’s governing body would plan and build the Museum as well as raise all of the money required to plan, build and operate it without seeking appropriated funds. The legislation creating the Museum would also transfer a prominent plot of land in Washington, DC to the Museum for the NMAP site.

To get to that point over the next two years we are exploring a feasibility study starting later in 2019 engaging some of our nation’s leading university museum programs, historians and a wide range of financial, building, fund raising, education and other experts to design this major new national institution and its many components programs. The model for the feasibility study would be the one that led to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. We estimate that it will take a year to complete the study.

Paralleling the feasibility track will be a legislative initiative with a resolution in the House and Senate that simply supports the study and anticipates future legislation to create the Museum.

Because of the significant economic benefits the Museum would have for the Washington area as it attracts visitors from throughout the nation and the world, we will approach the Congressional delegation from the DC Metro area, as well as members of key Congressional committees and the leaders and members of Congressional caucuses that are centered on ethnic, nationality and minority groups for their support.

Upon completion of the feasibility study, in 2020 it would be sent to the President and Congress and released to the public. We would then arrange to introduce legislation to establish the museum. We would seek to have the Presidential candidates from the two major parties endorse the Museum and work towards its creation in 2021.

In the meantime, there will be a variety of efforts to bring the National Museum of the American People to broader public attention, including this blog and the announcement of major milestones along the way.

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

January 28, 2019February 13, 2019

#16: World Class Architecture Design Expected For National Museum of the American People

The design above at the Banneker Overlook site in Southwest Washington features four soaring structures arising from the grass covered roof of the central building. It evokes several aspects of the proposed National Museum of the American People’s story: waving flags of nations; books opening to reveal the four chapters of the story of the making of the American People; and sails over a landscape of waves recalling the vessels that brought so many to this land.

The maritime aesthetic also relates to the nearby marina where an extension of the museum could berth boats like those used by natives that plied nearby waterways and ships used to bring early European settlers, slaves and others to these shores.

During the day, the textures of the concrete “flags” will constantly change with the movement of the sun’s shadows across the facade. At night, films could be projected onto these surfaces. The design, conceived by MTFA Architecture, calls for a state of the art green building that would serve as a model for the Southwest Washington, DC Ecodistrict.

The building housing the National Museum of the American People would need to accommodate its core permanent exhibition. It would also need to have space for components including special exhibitions, a film theater, auditorium, bookstore and gift shop, dining facility, classrooms, genealogical center, and library and archives. In addition, there would be a need for offices for Museum administrators, scholars, curatorial staff, educators, security, maintenance and other staff.

The NMAP feasibility study, which we’ll discuss in our next blog, would develop preliminary space requirements for the Museum based on space required by other major museums with similar programs.

MTFA Architecture, an award-winning firm located in Arlington, Virginia, created this design for the National Museum of the American People on a pro bono basis. The firm specializes in projects that shape our culture, build on commerce and positively shape people’s lives. They have a long history of projects that build consensus for planning and design involving mixed use, commercial, cultural and educational functions and incorporate environmentally sound features. MTFA designed the recently built St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church just down the street from the Banneker site.

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

January 24, 2019February 13, 2019

#15: Banneker Overlook Is Favored Site For National Museum of the American People

The gathering of peoples from throughout the world is the essential and ongoing American story. Yet there is little in our nation’s capital that tells the full story about all of the peoples that came to make this nation. This has left a monumental void in the midst of our capital that needs to be filled.

The favored site for the National Museum of the American People is the Banneker Overlook site. It is an eight-acre slope at the end of L’Enfant Promenade, an extension of 10th Street, S.W. The site is on a direct axis with the iconic Smithsonian’s Castle Building and reaches down to Maine Avenue and the Washington, D.C. waterfront along Washington Channel, an inlet of the Potomac River. It is adjacent to I-395.

The site is a short walk from the L’Enfant Metro stop. It is the only Metro stop that serves 5 of the system’s 6 lines. Washington’s Spy Museum is relocating to L’Enfant Promenade. There would be auto and bus access and parking nearby.

The large site affords an opportunity for the design of an architecturally significant building along with an inviting landscape. It is already one of the major sites in Washington designated as a location for a future national museum by three federal agencies that oversee the capital and the look it presents to the world — the National Park Service, National Capital Planning Commission and U.S. Commission on Fine Arts. The Overlook site is now under NPS jurisdiction.

The site also sits at the nexus of a major municipal effort to invigorate the DC waterfront area adjacent to the city’s bustling fish market. Across Maine Avenue from the museum site is the Southwest Waterfront project which opened in 2017 and includes condos, shops, restaurants, a river walk and other amenities to draw visitors from the Mall to the waterfront.

While the Banneker site is already joined to Washington’s core tourist area by a roadway and pedestrian walkway across I-395, there could be an effort to build a lid over the freeway to offer a stronger connection to these two sides of Washington. Such a lid could incorporate a park and sculpture garden to reflect the themes of the Museum. The proximity to the waterfront would also be used to extend the Museum’s exhibition reach to a pier where boats — actual and replicas — used for the migration and immigration to the U.S. are moored for visitors to explore.

While the Arena Stage theater anchors Maine Avenue at one end, this museum could anchor the redesigned waterfront at the other end. The Museum’s international food court and plaza, with a mix of restaurants and a gift shop along Maine Avenue, could remain open after museum hours and help to stimulate nighttime street life.

The site could include provisions for landscaping that could include major water features and flora to enhance the beauty of the Museum building and its property. It could also include works of commissioned art relating to the subject matter of the Museum.

Legislation would be required to transfer the Banneker Overlook site to the National Museum of the American People. The Museum at this site would present the opportunity to create a unique and lasting addition to our capital that tells our American story in an unforgettable manner.

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