June 5, 2014
Dominican Republic Ambassador Anibal de Castro issued a statement last week saying that the goals and objectives of the National Museum of the American People "are of interest to all of the countries in our Hemisphere."
Ambassador Castro said his nation looks forward to assisting the museum in telling the story of Dominicans. He wrote favorably about obtaining Congressional approval for the museum.
Dominican Americans are the fourth largest Hispanic group in the nation after Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans and Cuban Americans.
The director of the museum's coalition, Sam Eskenazi, said "the proposed museum is about the making of the American People. It will tell the story of all of the ethnic, nationality and minority groups that came from every corner of Earth and created this great nation. It will be the embodiment of our original national motto: E Pluribus Unum – From many, one!"
The museum will encompass the history of all Hispanic and Latino American groups which begins with the first contact in the Western Hemisphere between Europeans and indigenous peoples and runs through today.
Two Dominican organizations are members of the coalition backing the museum, the Dominican American National Foundation and the Dominican American National Roundtable. The proposed museum has support from nine national Hispanic organizations as well as eight eminent scholars of Hispanic and Latino immigration and migration. The organizations and scholars associated with the project will contribute to the museum as it tells the stories of all Americans.
The coalition of more than 150 ethnic organizations backing the museum is seeking a federal commission to study establishment of the museum as a first step to creating what Eskenazi says will be "the best story-telling museum in the world telling one of the greatest stories in world history."