So four or so years ago, when I first heard that the long-held dream of having a national museum devoted to Latino art, culture and history was working its way through our national legislative system, my heart skipped a beat. I held my breath as I read the proposed working title: the Museum of the American Latino. Then my heart fell as the acronym immediately flashed in my head: MAL (Museum of the American Latino) or NMAL (National Museum of the American Latino). You see, mal is Spanish for “bad.” I envisioned t-shirts in the future gift shop emblazoned with “MUY MAL,” or “very bad.”

Okay, I know it is just a working title. However, I must be honest and declare that while I am personally excited by and supportive of a national Latino museum, as a Latina scholar, director, curator and participant in the issues surrounding Latinos and museums, I will also admit to some deep concerns.

Yes, a national museum on the Mall or elsewhere in Washington, D.C., would be a political and cultural statement that could not be denied. Symbolism, inclusion and presence are integral to acknowledging Latino contributions. Let’s face it: Alarmingly, we Latinos still rarely find ourselves reflected in U.S. museums. Our contributions remain largely removed from the “American” story line. Why are our mainstream institutions still dramatically behind the times with regard to Latino-related exhibitions and developing Latino museum professionals? Why, in the 21st century, when Latinos have been pronounced the “minority majority,” are people still afraid to address identity? Is it because to really tell our stories, institutions will have to confront complexity, prejudice and stereotypes?

Is a national Latino museum the solution to this willful neglect and cultural oversight? Can one museum take a vast and complex group like Latinos and successfully interpret our multilayered individual histories? How can we start a new National Latino Museum when, with few exceptions, our existing Latino-specific museums and cultural centers lack political support and funding?

I know the MAL/NMAL is still a long way off, but in the meantime I would be encouraged to see progress being made on interpreting the art, culture and history of the vast Latino experience within the doors of this country’s mainstream museum temples (and I don’t mean Aztec, Mayan or Inca). I know what you are thinking as you read this, but exhibitions highlighting Spanish, Latin American and Mexican art and artists only represent a fraction of the Latino experience. While spectacular and inspirational, they don’t address the nuances of Latino culture in this country. The same approaches to exhibitions proliferate today as they did during the 1930s and 1940s era of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his Good Neighbor Policy, when hemispheric unity, border issues, immigration and guest worker programs were also heated topics confronted by U.S. policy makers and cultural institutions. During that time, with few documented exceptions, rarely were the arts and history of U.S.-born or recently immigrated Latinos showcased in museums. Then and now, most mainstream institutions have played it safe and exhibited Mexican paintings and Peruvian archaeological finds rather than art and artifacts inspired by issues of cultural relations, identity politics and racial tensions within the U.S. Latino population.

Today, mainstream institutions continue to face difficulties in attracting a U.S. Latino audience because in many cases they fail to acknowledge the dynamic multiplicity of this group. It is not just a simple, singular community; Latinos are layered and complex. We are constantly negotiating our identities. Latinos in the United States make up lower, middle and upper classes. We have roots in Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala and Peru. We live in California, Illinois and North Carolina. Some of us have dual citizenship. While many of us speak Spanish, not all of us learned it as a first language. Although we share a “mother tongue,” the same word can have multiple meanings. Think, for example, of bilingual museum labels: You probably would not want to use idioms from Puerto Rico to describe the work of a Tejano artist. How does one convey these dimensions in museum exhibitions?

Earlier this year, the U.S. House of Representatives approved funding to set up a 23-member commission to explore the possibility of a national Latino museum. If the bill is passed by the Senate, the commission will have a difficult road ahead. It will have to decide the feasibility of such a venture, including governance, mission, scope of collections, funding and location.

I am concerned that because of political pressure from multiple entities, a national Latino museum might commodify and ghettoize (or should I say barrio-ize?) the Latino experience into a vibrant, colorful, worry-free “fiesta” in order to begin to teach a general museum visitor about Latino culture. Simplifying Latinidad (Latino-ness) will do more harm than good. The fact is that Latinos live and experience multiple worlds and are comfortable negotiating multiple identities. This topic came up in a recent discussion with Dr. Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, the acclaimed scholar active in museum issues, frequent author on Latino and Chicano art and culture and former director of creativity and culture at the Rockefeller Foundation. Ybarra-Frausto noted, “We are a simultaneous people. People don’t get that we have institutions like the Museo Alameda [a Smithsonian-affiliated Latino museum in San Antonio, Tex., that opened April 13] but that doesn’t mean we don’t want a national museum or to be in mainstream museums as well. We are simultaneously Latinos and Americans.”

The politics of place and space also play a significant and complex role in Latino representation in museums. Mainstream institutions and established museums are often perceived as unapproachable and unattainable places. In contrast, many centros (centers) and community spaces in Latino neighborhoods like La Galería de la Raza in San Francisco, El Museo Cultural in Santa Fe and El Museo del Barrio in New York City serve an integral purpose because they are affirming, comfortable and inclusive. Yet even these forums are not immune to difficulties such as political infighting, lack of compromise and scarce resources. Large and small, institutions addressing the Latino diaspora are often contested spaces where internal and external dialogues take place. Ethnicity is emotional. Multiple and divergent voices often lead to hurt feelings and exclusion if not harnessed and channeled in a constructive manner.

If a national Latino museum is to succeed, organizers and policy makers must tap into and connect the resources and infrastructure already in place. Cultural institutions such as the National Museum of Mexican Art (NMMA) in Chicago and my own institution, the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC) in Albuquerque, highlight demographic commonalities and differences. They reflect the people they serve and the communities in which they are located. Professional support organizations such as the American Association of Museum’s Latino Network Professional Interest Committee (AAM/LNPIC) and the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC) play an integral role in networking, mentoring and developing Latino museum and arts leaders. Both of these vibrant and active organizations evolved out of an intense need to find representation and inclusion. To ignore such organizations and institutions that have helped to blaze the trail is to again ignore Latinos’ contributions to art, culture and history. These organizations grew out of this very same struggle and need for place.

I have researched, written about and experienced enough Latino museums and cultural institutions to know about a common perception: Once the buildings are up and the place and space claimed, founding organizers, politicians, business people and funders get complacent and believe it is the end of the struggle. On the contrary, the dedication of a building and the festivities that accompany it are only the beginning. Along with a significant collection, research facility, education department, marketing budget, endowment, etc., a national Latino museum must have a well-thought-out and comprehensive master plan for the future, not just a building with “Latino Museum” on it. Many existing Latino museums and centros have had to put so much effort into opening the doors that the next-step and long-term planning are left for the next phase. That can’t happen with a national Latino museum.

There must also be substantial funding in the beginning for ambitious programs, especially if this is a national museum supported by federal funding. All Smithsonian museums in Washington are free to the public, and no admission fees means no revenue.

Perhaps the most important issue in the planning of any future national Latino museum is the same issue that all previous Hispano, Tejano, Chicano, Mexican American, Latino, Cuban and Puerto Rican cultural centers have faced. Having a place of our own, a space to find our stories and experiences, indicates that we have arrived—a place at the mesa (table) implies we have a voice. Everyone wants to be heard because in the past few of us have had a voice. But consequently, more often than not, so many individuals want to be heard that nothing moves forward and the process gets paralyzed. Everyone who has an agenda will need to check their envidia (envy or jealousy) at the door.

So the question remains: Can Latinos be represented in our own spaces and institutions, as well as mainstream institutions? I emphasize this must happen in order for our multiple experiences to be fully interpreted and conveyed. Museums have done a poor job addressing this complexity. We can and must do better. Because of the politics of representation and the lack of Latino curators and museum administrators, our mainstream museums continue, in large part, to neglect Latino experiences. Attempting to fit a national Latino institution into European museum constructs needs to be rethought. To truly succeed, we may need to create a different museum model. That model will need to use community or first-person curatorial practice and balance this approach with national politics, regional nuances, community activism and cultural awareness. This is no small task. Maybe what we really need is a nation of museums with Latinos before we open a National Latino Museum. Now, that’s no tan mal (not too bad).