August 4, 2015

11 American Indian, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian, Swedish, Polish, Liberian and Albanian Groups Join American People Museum

5 Scholars of African American, Latino, Mormon, Asian And European Migrations To and Within U.S. Join Coalition

WASHINGTON, DC - Eleven new ethnic, nationality and minority organizations and five scholars of immigration and migration history have joined the Coalition for the National Museum of the American People since last spring.

"The museum, about the making of the American People from the first humans in the Western Hemisphere through today, will be one of the greatest story-telling museums in the world," said Sam Eskenazi, director of the coalition. "It will tell about every group's history of coming to this land and nation and their migrations within it."

There are now 167 ethnic organizations and 71 scholars in the museum's coalition supporting this effort. The museum, which will be scholarly-based, is expected to attract visitors from throughout the nation to learn about their group’s stories. It will draw people from throughout the world to learn how Americans came from every corner of our globe to create this nation.

The coalition is seeking a Presidential Commission to study establishment of the museum in Washington, DC.

The new organizations in the coalition include:

Albanian American Women's Organization

Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement

Hispanic Elected Local Officials

Liberian-American Community Organization of Southern California

Native Hawaiian Legal Defense and Education Fund

Native Hawaiian Organization Association

Polish American Historical Association

Polish Institute of Art and Sciences of America

Rosebud Sioux Tribe

Swedish Colonial Society

United States Hispanic Leadership Institute

The new scholars in the coalition are:

Sylviane Anna Diouf

Director of the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery, New York Public Library Schomburg Center (Ph.D. - Paris University)

Kathleen Flake

Professor, Richard Lyman Bushman Chair of Mormon Studies, University of Virginia (Ph.D. - University of Chicago)

Lori Flores

Assistant Professor of History, Stony Brook University, SUNY (Ph.D. - Stanford University)

Marilynn Johnson

Professor of History, Boston College (Ph.D. - New York University)

Linda Trinh Vo

Associate Professor of Asian American Studies and Director, Vietnamese American Oral History Project, University of California, Irvine (Ph.D. - University of California, San Diego)

For a complete list of coalition organizations and scholars and information about the museum project, go to: www.nmap2015.com.