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\nThis is the inaugural blog on this platform about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. I will be reporting regularly about a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum\u2019s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, and pertinent political issues. The museum is a work in progress and we welcome thoughtful suggestions.<\/i><\/p>\n
The National Museum of the American People<\/b> is the most important museum in our country that doesn\u2019t exist … Yet!<\/p>\n
It could well be more valuable than any other museum in our country. The NMAP will tell the story about the making of the American People, a story that begins with the first humans in the Western Hemisphere and winds through millennia, centuries and decades to the present.<\/p>\n
This story encompasses every person in our nation, whether they or their ancestors over the centuries came from Europe, Africa, Asia or the Americas \u2026 or were natives long before. This story is about crossing oceans and continents, whether voluntarily, indentured or enslaved, to get here. This story is one of the most compelling stories in human history. \u00a0Yet we don\u2019t tell this full story anywhere.<\/p>\n
The recently opened National Museum of African American History and Culture<\/b> was the first major national museum to tell a part of that story in our nation\u2019s capital, and it does so brilliantly, covering a 500-year tale of oppression, slavery, segregation, discrimination struggle and glorious achievements. While the African American story is rightfully told, so must the story be told of all Americans \u2026 Americans whose ancestors came from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, East Asia and Pacific Islands, South Asia, Central and South America, Africa, and our neighbors Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n
It was George Washington who said, \u201cThe bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions.\u201d Following Washington\u2019s invitation and that of many of our nation\u2019s other founders, people came here from every land and nation and became Americans.<\/p>\n
Some 90 percent of Americans recognize their ancestry with a hyphenated attribute to an ethnic, nationality or minority group and, more and more, Americans have fascinating combinations of ancestry. We\u2019ve tried to forge an ideal nation based on the idea behind our original national motto: E Pluribus Unum \u2026 From Many, One!<\/p>\n
When you\u2019re in the U.S. military, you\u2019re an American soldier no matter where your ancestors came from. That unifying theme begins with the first words of our Constitution: \u201cWe the People.\u201d Those words are the basis of the first self-governing people based not on a race or ethnic or tribal or religious basis, but on an idea. Our founding documents, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, all helped to shape the American character.<\/p>\n
As that character is reshaped by each succeeding generation, we must continually renew and expand our commitments to our national ideals. The National Museum of the American People<\/b> will make that task easier for future generations.<\/p>\n
— Sam Eskenazi, Director, Coalition for the National Museum of the American People<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is the inaugural blog on this platform about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. I will be reporting regularly about a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum\u2019s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, … <\/p>\n