For eagled-eyed museum hunters, Washington D.C. is a treasure trove of culture and history, with the Smithsonian Institute being the lynchpin to our national narrative.

Some Latino visitors to our nation's capital will be surprised to know that there is a museum dedicated to us, The Smithsonian Latino Center. The Center's focus is directed on our several hundred year history in the United States and our deep and continuing contributions to American culture at large. Today, Latinos and people who claim Latin American heritage make up nearly 18 percent of the population or 56 million people that have a claim and stake in that history.


Being born out of a study detailing the lack of Latino representation in the complexes of the Smithsonian, the Center for Latino Initiatives was created in 1997 to right those wrongs and place a highlight on Latino voices and faces present in the story of our nation.

Now renamed the Smithsonian Latino Center and celebrating its twentieth year in existence, the center is making strides in reaching out to Latino youth with its STEM programs, art exhibitions by Latino artists, and emboldening the next generation of Latin American academics and cultural ambassadors.

The cultural center as it exists currently lacks a physical space and shares with other centers of the Smithsonian, but hopes to have a space built to permanently house the collections and education centers in the near future.

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