La Gente’s Museum

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Written By Open Plaza

Dr. Johanna Fernández and fellow historian Dr. Felipe Hinojosa discuss the controversy surrounding their proposed exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Latino

Pinback button for the People's Church / Iglesia De La Gente, 1969; ink on paper with metal and plastic. In 1969, The Young Lords Party occupied The First Spanish Methodist Church in New York City after a minister refused the organization a space to work. The Young Lords called it the People's Church / Iglesias De la Gente to serve 3,000 community members. After 11 days, police forcibly removed the activists from the church and arrested a hundred people. Source: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of T. Rasul Murray

 
 

Dr. Felipe Hinojosa talks with fellow historian, colleague, and good friend Dr. Johanna Fernández, Associate Professor at Baruch College, about Latino history and the exhibit on youth movements that was put on hold by the Smithsonian National Museum in the fall of 2022. Dr. Fernández teaches 20th-century U.S. history and the history of social movements. Dr. Hinojosa is the John and Nancy Jackson Endowed Chair in Latin America and Professor of History at Baylor University. The scholars’ curated show was widely billed as the “largest federally funded Smithsonian exhibit on Latino Civil Rights History.”

“But after pushback from conservative Latinos in the private sector and the halls of Congress,” writes Olivia B. Waxman in TIME, “that exhibit is on hold.” And Dr. Fernández and Dr. Hinojosa found themselves embroiled in the political turmoil. 

In this episode of OP Talks, the two scholars take us behind the scenes–from the selection of Latino youth movements as an exhibit theme, to the work entailed in creating the exhibits and what ultimately brought the project to a halt.

“This question that we were going to answer through the Smithsonian exhibition on Latino youth movements…‘Who am I?’ That's the quintessential existential question that everyone asks themselves,” says Dr. Fernandez, author of The Young Lords: A Radical History (UNC Press, 2020), a history of the Puerto Rican counterpart to the Black Panther Party. ”Who am I, and what's my relationship to the nation? And what's my relationship to my community?” she continues. “That was one of the key questions we were going to ask and answer through that exhibition.”

 

OP Writes

“Making History Together”

An HTI Open Plaza virtual tour of the National Museum of the American Latino

Featured
Johanna Fernández

Dr. Johanna Fernández is an Associate Professor of History at Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY). Dr. Fernández specializes in 20th Century U.S. history and the history of social movements and is the author of The Young Lords: A Radical History (UNC Press, 2020). The book explores the Puerto Rican counterpart of the Black Panther Party and has received the American Book Award, the Frederick Jackson Turner Award, the New York City Book Award, the Merle Curti Award, and the Liberty Legacy Foundation Award. Dr. Fernández's recent research and litigation have significantly advanced the field, particularly through her successful Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) lawsuit against the NYPD, which recovered the "lost" Handschu files. This archive, containing over one million surveillance records compiled by the NYPD from 1954 to 1972, includes crucial primary documents on New Yorkers, including Malcolm X, making it the largest repository of police surveillance records in the U.S. She is the editor of Writing on the Wall: Selected Prison Writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal (City Lights, 2015) and with Abu-Jamal co-edited a special issue of Socialism and Democracy titled "The Roots of Mass Incarceration in the US: Locking Up Black Dissidents and Punishing the Poor" (Routledge, 2014). Her scholarly contributions have earned her multiple accolades, including the Fulbright Scholars grant for research in the Middle East and North Africa and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Her writings have been featured internationally, from Al Jazeera to the Huffington Post, and she has appeared in various media outlets, including NPR, The New York Times, and Democracy Now! As an accomplished filmmaker, she directed and co-curated the exhibition ¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York, recognized by The New York Times as one of 2015’s Top 10 Best in Art. She also wrote and produced Justice on Trial: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal (BigNoise Films, 2010). Dr. Fernández holds a PhD in U.S. History from Columbia University and a BA in Literature and American Civilization from Brown University. During the pandemic, she hosted WBAI’s radio morning show, “A New Day” and currently hosts their morning show, “What’s Going On!Friday.” Her current research focuses on U.S. fascism.

Featured
Felipe Hinojosa

Born and raised in Brownsville, Texas, Dr. Felipe Hinojosa is the John and Nancy Jackson Endowed Chair in Latin America & Professor of History at Baylor University. Dr. Hinojosa was formerly on faculty at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, where he also served as Director for the university's Carlos H. Cantu Hispanic Education & Opportunity Endowment. His research areas include Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies, American Religion, Race and Ethnicity, and Social Movements. He co-edited Faith & Power: Latino Religious Politics Since 1945 (New York University Press, 2022) with Sergio M. González and Maggie Elmore. His recent book, Apostles of Change: Latino Radical Politics, Church Occupations, and the Fight to Save the Barrio (University of Texas Press, 2021) is set in four major cities (Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Houston), where, in 1969 and 1970, Latino radical activists clashed with religious leaders as they occupied churches to protest urban renewal, poverty, police brutality, and racism. Latino Mennonites: Civil Rights, Faith, and Evangelical Culture (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014) received the 2015 Américo Paredes Book Award for the best book in Mexican American and Latina/o Studies by the Center for Mexican American Studies at South Texas College. His work has appeared in Zócalo Public Square, Western Historical Quarterly, American Catholic Studies, Mennonite Quarterly Review, and Latina/o Studies collections. Dr. Hinojosa holds a PhD in History from the University of Houston, an MA in History from the University of Texas Pan American, and BA in English from Fresno Pacific University. He serves on the Advisory Board for the interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, and online moderated forum Latinx Talk.

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