At the end of the NMAP's permanent exhibition, visitors will be able to enter a Memorial Hall in remembrance of their first ancestors who made that trip across oceans and continents under many circumstances to this land and became Americans. While future generations will continue to write this story of The Making of the American People, visitors will be able to pause and reflect on the story that they have just encountered.
This will be a fitting end to this story. The descendants of living immigrants will then have a place to remember and celebrate their elders who came here. Every American has ancestors who migrated or immigrated here. Except for First Peoples, they all came within the past five centuries, most in the last 150 years. The memorial will be a solemn and moving space fitting to its purpose.