On the future of El Museo del Barrio and who it belongs to. A working document.
The recent events unfolding at El Museo del Barrio has stirred up furious debates about the direction the museum has taken. A direction that attempts to morph the museum, founded by Puerto Rican teachers, artists, parents and community organizers, from a museum reflective of the community who founded it, to an elitist institution for Latin American art. A market driven endeavor. While a cursory glance at this maneuver might not find cause for alarm, and might even be seen as an impetus to celebrate “latinidad,” unpacking the intersections of this dilemma is necessary.
It requires us to first contend with “El Barrio’s” identity. While Puerto Ricans were instrumental in the foundation of the museum, it is not strictly a Puerto Rican museum. It is a museo “del Barrio.” Further, demographic changes in East Harlem and the overall growth of the Latinx diaspora in the last 50 years render the nationalist led push to make El Barrio mean “Puerto Rican” null. If El Museo is to be resuscitated, we must lay these claims to rest and set about addressing who we mean when we say El Barrio.
If El Barrio means neighborhood, or enclave, and we are defining the institution as encompassing a diasporic latinidad, then what we are contending with is what is now being called “Latinx.” Loosely defined, this is the Nuyorican, the Dominiyorker, the first, second, and third generations of Mexicans, Colombians, Ecuadorians, and Hondurans that make up a barrio in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and New Jersey. It is the El Salvadorian and Guatemalteco kids in Silver Springs, Maryland, the Cubans in New Jersey, the Tejanos, the Chicanos. It is the dreamers and the migrants who identify with a U.S. lived experience. It is the children of immigrants at the border and the children of recently arrived Puerto Ricans in Orlando and Pennsylvania Post- Maria, that have and will grow up here.
This is distinct from Latin America and should not be confused. For too long, this ambiguity has rendered Latinx artists invisible. Latinx artists continue to be marginalized, underrepresented, and erased. El Museo has shamelessly latched on to this ambiguity and forfeited its original mission. It has done very little as an institution to foster and cultivate Latinx Art.
The museum has failed to launch a studio residency program, it has failed to create an environment where intellectual work for us, by us, can be incubated. It has failed to cultivate diverse board members that represent the Latinx community. It has failed to expand board members beyond funding/development needs, or made sure to its boards’ institutional actions, partnerships, and programs correspond with its mission. Instead, it has responded to shallow market trends forcing Latinx artists who are struggling for visibility to try to function under the blanketed term Latin American art by virtue of their last names.
Given the continued failure of El Museo del Barrio to fully embrace its responsibility to the many diasporas that make up the Latinx communities in NYC and across North America, generations of Latinx artists pouring out of BFA, MFA, & PhD programs have come to see the El Museo as irrelevant.
Recent calls to steer the institution back towards its intended mission therefore have remained unanswered. In order to reinvigorate working and emerging Latinx artists to invest their energy in an institution that has gone out of its way to communicate that it cares nothing for their cultural production, the institution must take radical steps to more clearly define what it is. EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO MUST BE EL MUSEO DE LOS BARRIOS. It must fulfill its original mission or relinquish control to the community of Latinx scholars and artists to steer it back on course. It must DECOLONIZE.
Latinx artists, cultural workers, scholars and concerned residents reject the elitism, white washing, LGTBQIA exclusion and anti-blackness perpetrated in the museum against its own museum goers and community of artists.
-We reject the old-fashioned cultural nationalism that wants to mimic colonial hierarchical structures placing all other Latinx diasporic communities in second-class stakeholder roles ( i.e., Puerto Ricans vs. the rest ). We also call El Museo to respect and expand its collection of Puerto Rican art, and ensure this history and collection is not erased as it expands its mission and collection.
-We reject the institution’s fetishization, classist, and hollowed oversimplification of Latin American art for branding and funding purposes, particularly when these market-driven dynamics result in the systemic exclusion of Latinx art, artists and cultural workers.
-We demand the museum dedicate substantial resources to implement a residency program for emerging contemporary Latinx artists.
-We demand that the Chief Curator should be a Latinx art historian and Latinx curator, (whether this expertise is gained from an academic program, or from direct experience and recognition in the field), and that all curatorial staff at El Museo be equipped to mount exhibitions that speak to the Latinx experience.
-We demand the implementation of a decolonizing commission to independently review the collection and to make recommendations on the necessary structural changes that must be made to carry the institution into the future.
-We demand that the staff mirrors and represents the diverse Latinx communities, and that it is racially diverse. The Board of Trustees’ willful disregard of the mission of El Museo del Barrio is self-evident by their decision to hire a Director and a Chief Curator from Latin America who have no experience living in the United States and little knowledge of the art and social struggles of Puerto Ricans and Latin Americans in the United States.
-We demand that the board of Directors also mirrors the community and is racially diverse. If after 50 years, The Board of El Museo del Barrio only has 1 member that lives in East Harlem and no members of Dominican or Mexican- American descent, no members from the African American community is because this Board of Trustees does not want Latinx and people of color at the table and on the staff.
-We demand this public institution either be held accountable to its public mission, or else call the city to stop the public funding of a board practicing exclusion.
The current board must be restructured with members that are committed to the mission of El Museo del Barrio and reflect the Latinx population in New York and the United States.
The future belongs to the generations of Latinx artists emerging in more disparate pockets throughout the US, poised to shape U.S. culture and to present a vision not yet materialized. El Museo Del Barrio must comply or be rendered irrelevant.
Finally — Decades ago one could make the case that El Museo Del Barrio had a responsibility to exhibit art from Latin America because no other museums in New York were doing so. However, thanks to the patronage of wealthy Latin American collectors, Latin American art has generous institutional support in New York’s most prestigious museums. The Museum of Modern Art is home to the Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Latin American Art; the director of the institute serves as MOMA’s curator of Latin American art and there are endowed curatorial positions at The Metropolitan Museum. Given that art from Latin America is well represented and supported in New York, it is timely and necessary for El Museo del Barrio to re-dedicate itself to its unique mission of exhibiting and collecting art by Puerto Ricans and Latin Americans living in the United States—in other words, that it focuses on Latinx art and artists.
Our children, young artists, and arts professionals want and need to see a future for themselves at El Museo del Barrio. That will not happen if El Museo del Barrio is demonstrating that only upper class people from Latin America will gain employment there, and that art made in Latin America is more important to exhibit than art made by Latinx peoples in the United States. Monthly entertainment programs such as Super Sábado are not substantive community engagement strategies. Unlike other major museums in the city and beyond, El Museo del Barrio does not offer artists residencies or have professional development programs for young curators and scholars.
How can we abide the absurdity that El Museo del Barrio was the first Puerto Rican/Latinx museum in the USA and after 50 years lags behind other museums that are increasing their collections of Latinx art and employing Latinx arts professionals?
We need change now.
Signatures in alphabetical order as of 11:00am, Tuesday, March 28, 2019.
The list of signatures will be updated throughout the day.
| Adrián Rivas | Owner | Form Follows and Twin Palms Exhibitions | Los Angeles, CA |
| Adrián Román | Latinx Visual Artist | Viajero | New York, NY |
| Adriana M Garriga-López | Associate Professor of Anthropology | Kalamazoo College | Kalamazoo, Michigan |
| Adriana Zavala | Associate Professor | Tufts University | Medford, MA |
| Alan Aja | Associate Professor, Department of Puerto Rican & Latino Studies | Brooklyn College (CUNY) | Brooklyn, NY |
| Aldo A. Lauria Santiago | Profesor | Rutgers University | New York, NY |
| Alejandra Estrada | Student | New York University | New York City |
| Alejandro Gonzalez y Zurbano | Creative Director |
| New York, NY |
| Alex D. Fernández | Artist/Educator/Activist/Scholar | Fdezart | Bronx, NY |
| Alex Gil | Digital Scholarship Librarian | Columbia University | New York, NY |
| Alexis Duque | Artist |
| New York, NY |
| Alicia Grullón | Artist |
| New York, NY |
| Amalia Mesa-Bains | Mac Arthur Fellow and Professor Emerita | California State University Monterey Bay | San Juan Bautista, CA |
| Amy Crum | Graduate Student/Independent Curator | Tulane University | New Orleans, LA |
| Ana De Orbegoso | Visual Artist |
| New York, NY |
| Anabelle Rodríguez | Artist-Curator | The ~curARTorial Lab | Philadelphia |
| Ananda Cohen-Aponte | Associate Professor of Art History | Cornell University | Ithaca, NY |
| Andrea Gordillo |
|
| New York, NY |
| Andrew Viñales | PhD Student |
| New York, NY |
| Anima Correa | Artist |
| New York, NY |
| Arlene Dávila | Professor, Anthropology and SCA | NYU | New York, NY |
| Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé | Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature | Fordham University | New York, NY |
| Asere Bello | CHE De Mundo | Crystal HoUse | New York, NY |
| Bertie Ferdman | Associate Professor | CUNY | New York, NY |
| Bettina Pérez | Curator and artist |
| Montréal, Qc |
| Blanka Amezkua | Artist | AAA3A | Bronx, NY |
| Bonafide Rojas | Poet & Musician | Grand Concourse Press | Bronx, NY |
| Brenda Cruz Díaz | Artist |
| Madrid, Spain |
| Brooke Edgecombe | English Learner Teacher/Department Chair | District of Columbia Public Schools | Washington, D.C. |
| Carina del Valle Schorske | Writer & Doctoral Candidate | Columbia University | New York, NY |
| Carla España | Bilingual Education Clinical Doctoral Lecturer | Hunter College, CUNY | New York, NY |
| Carlos D. Nazario Jr | Partner | Consultants | White Plains, NY |
| Carlos Jesús Martínez Dominguez | Artist Edicator | Various including El Museo del BARRIO | New York, NY |
| Carlos Manuel Rivera | Professor and Performance Artist | Bronx Community College, City University of New York | Bronx, NY |
| Carol Correa | Associate Director Muliticultural Affairs | Trinity College | Hartford |
| Catherine Gund | Filmmaker | Aubin Pictures | New York City |
| César Ortiz | Manager | CCNY | New York, NY |
| Charlene Villaseñor Black | Professor | UCLA | Los Angeles, CA |
| Chelsea Ramirez | Artist |
| Brooklyn |
| Cheryl Finley | Associate Professor of African American Art | Cornell University | Ithaca, NY |
| Chris Yong-Garcia | Founder | LatinLover Food & Travel Magazine | New York, NY |
| Christina Fernández | Artist/Professor | Cerritos College | Norwalk, CA |
| Cindy Bautista-Thomas | Associate Director |
| New York, NY |
| Coco López | Artist |
| New York, NY |
| Constance Cortez | Professor & Director | School of Art, UTRGV | Edinberg, TX |
| David Antonio Cruz | Artist/ Assistant Professor of Painting | SMFA at Tufts University | Brooklyn, NY |
| Deborah Quiñones | Founder | Friends of Art Park | New York, NY |
| Devin Kenny | Artist |
| Houston, TX |
| Dr. Ariana Hernández-Reguant |
|
| Miami, FL |
| Dr. Marta Moreno Vega | President | Creative Justice Initiative | New York, NY |
| Dr. Vanessa K. Valdés | Director, Black Studies Program | The City College of New York-CUNY | New York, NY |
| Ed García Conde | Editor / Founder | Welcome2TheBronx | Bronx |
| Eddie Marrero | Actor |
| New York, NY |
| Edgardo Miranda-Rodríguez | Creative Director | Somos Arte | Brooklyn, NY |
| Elena Machado Sáez | Professor of English | Bucknell University | Lewisburg, PA |
| Elisa Istueta | Consultant |
| New York |
| Eliud Martínez | Artist & writer | En Foco | New York, NY |
| Elizabeth Ferrer | Curator and author |
| Brooklyn, NY |
| Emilia Quiñones | Assistant professor | University of Puerto Rico | Rincón, PR |
| Emmanuel García | Co-founder | Vives Q | Chicago |
| Eugenia Vargas Pereira | Artist | Independent | Santiago, Chile / Miami, Florida, USA. |
| Eva Mayhabal Davis | Curator, Advocate, Cultural Producer |
| New York, NY |
| Felix Peres | Small Business Owner |
| New York, NY |
| Firelei Báez | LatinX Artist |
| New York |
| Francisco Casablanca | Architect |
| New York, NY |
| Francisco Esteva | MD, PhD |
| New York, NY |
| Frank Romagosa |
|
| San Francisco, CA |
| Fred Myers | Professor of Anthropology | New York University | New York, NY |
| Gabriel Fantauzzi | CEO | Ngozy.com | Mount Vernon |
| Gerardo Cotto |
| FEMA | New York, NY |
| Gi Gaskin | Retired nyc public school teacher | blackandwanderlust.com | brooklyn ny |
| Gina Goico | Artist, Educator, Activist |
| Bronx, NY |
| Giselle Mercier | Deputy Director Department of Culture and Citizen Education ofbthe Mayor’s Office in Panama | Mayor’s Office, Panama, Republic of Panamá | Panamá |
| Gloria E. Rivera | MA | Bronx, New York | |
| Glorya F. Cabrera | Chicana/Latina/Indigenous Entreprenuer | Gloryalicious HandCrafts | New York, NY |
| Grant Aumell |
| Mott Haven | |
| Guillermo Rodríguez | Artist |
| San Juan, PR |
| Hatuey Ramos-Fermín | Artist |
| Bronx, NY |
| Iliana Emilia García | Artist | Brooklyn, NY | |
| Ivan Sikic | Artist |
| Brooklyn, NY |
| Ivelyse Andino | CEO | Radical Health | Bronx, NY |
| Jaclyn I. Torres | Artist and Organizer | Palante NYC | New York, NY |
| James Barbosa | Student |
| New York |
| Jan Calloway | New Yorker |
| New York, NY |
| Javier Bosques | Artist | Artista Independiente /director Produce Model Gallery | Chicago, IL |
| Jerry Philogene | Associate Professor | Dickinson College | Carlisle |
| Jessica Enriquez | NYU Undergraduate Student |
| Brooklyn |
| Jesús-Papoleto Meléndez | Poet Laureate of El Barrio |
| El Barrio, New York |
| Joevenelly Peralta |
|
| Bronx, NY |
| John Jota Leaños | Artist/Professor | University of California, Santa Cruz | San Francisco, CA |
| Jorge Irizarry |
| Bronx, NY | |
| José Coello Sr. | President | NYSAMC | Brooklyn, NY |
| José Ortiz | Cultural Educator |
| New York, NY |
| Juan Antonio Casañas | Systems Engineer and Maker |
| Colmar Manor, MD |
| Juan Pinon | Associate Professor | New York University | New York |
| Juan Sánchez | Visual Artist:/ Professor of Art | Hunter College, CUNY | New York, NY |
| Julissa Santiago | Artist |
| Brooklyn, NY |
| Kahlila Chaar-Pérez | PhD |
| Pittsburgh |
| Karen Abraham | Historian |
| Brooklyn, NY |
| Karen Jaime | Assistant Professor | Cornell University | New York, NY |
| Karen Mary Davalos | Professor and Chair, Chicano and Latino Studies | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | Minneapolis |
| Karen Taylor |
|
| New York, NY |
| Kevin Santos | Artist |
| Bronx |
| Kevin Taylor |
|
| NewYork |
| Kiara Ventura | Independent Curator | Artsywindow | Bronx, NY |
| Laura Bristol | Retired educator |
| Yonkers |
| Leon Anthony James | Photographer |
| Baltimore, MD |
| Lesley A. Wolff | Postdoctoral Fellow | Norton Museum of Art | West Palm Beach |
| Lillian Jiménez | Executive Director | Latino Educational Media Center | New York, NY |
| Lina Puerta | Artist |
| New York, NY |
| Linda Fernández | Founding member | Amber Art and Design | Philadelphia, PA |
| Lisa C Soto | visual artist |
| New York, NY |
| Lisette Nieves | Organizer | MUEVETE! | Bronx, New York |
| Lizette Garza | Program Manager & Activist |
| Chicago, IL |
| Luis Carle | Photographer Artist | Arts | New York, NY |
| Luis Fernando Coss | Professor | University of Puerto Rico | San Juan, PR |
| Luz Marquez Benbow | Founder | #IamNegrx | Grew up in El Barrio live in Troy, NY |
| María Alexandra Garcia | Former El Museo worker |
| New York, NY |
| Maria Berrio | Artist | Maria Berrio studio | New York, NY |
| Maria Dominguez | Artist |
| New York, NY |
| Maria Nieto | Writer |
| Brooklyn, New York |
| Maria Osorio | Deputy Chief Operating Officer | NYC DYCD | Bronx, NY |
| María Patricia Slee | Sound Designer |
| Brooklyn, NY |
| Mariel Rolwing Montes |
|
| Brooklyn, NY |
| Marilisa Jiménez | Assistant professor | Lehigh University | Bethlehem, PA |
| Marina Ortiz | Founder | Virtual Boricua | New York, NY |
| Marina Reyes Franco | Curator |
| San Juan, PR |
| Mary K. Coffey | Associate Professor of Art History | Dartmouth College | Hanover, |
| Mary Valverde | Commissioner ( Sculpture Seat ) | Public design Commission of the City of New York | New York, NY |
| Melissa Castillo Planas | Assistant Professor of English | Lehman College | New York, NY |
| Melody Capote | Director | CCCADI | New York, NY |
| Mercedes Estrada |
|
| New York, NY |
| Mikhaile Solomon | Director | PRIZM | Miami |
| Mireya Loza | Assistant Professor | NYU | New York, NY |
| Miriam Jiménez Román | Executive Director, AfroLatin@ Forum |
| New York, NY |
| Monxo López | Assistant Adj. Professor | Hunter College – South Bronx Unite | Bronx, NY |
| Myrta Cuadra Lash | Retired Executive Director Sinergia, Inc | Non profit for assistance and advocacy for people with disabilities | New York, NY |
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| |||
| Nancy Raquel Mirabal | Associate Professor, American Studies Department and US Latina/o Studies | University of Maryland, College Park | College Park |
| Natalia Olivares | Social worker /photographer |
| Bronx, NY |
| Natalie Marrero | Executive Director | Viver Brasil | Los Angeles |
| Natasha Acevedo | Litigation Paralegal |
| Orlando |
| Nayda Collazo-Llorens | Artist |
| Kalamazoo, MI |
| Nelson Maldonado-Torres | Professor of Latino and Caribbean Studies and Director, Rutgers Advanced Institute for Critical Caribbean Studies | Rutgers University, New Brunswick | New Brunswick |
| Nelson Santiago | Host |
| Bronx, NY |
| Néstor David Pastor | Writer/Editor/Translator |
| Queens, NY |
| Nestor Ramos | Social Worker | City of NY-MICSA | Brooklyn, NY |
| Nicholas D Mirzoeff | Professor | NYU | NYC |
| Nicole Mouriño | Artist |
| New York, NY |
| Nilda Ortiz |
|
| Brooklyn |
| Norma Guzmán | Museum Studies graduate student |
| New York, NY |
| Pablo Delano | Professor of Studio Art, Co-director, Center for Caribbean Studies | Trinity College | Hartford, CT |
| Papo Colo | Director | Pangea Art Republic | New York, NY |
| Pat Zavella | Professor Emerita | University of California | Santa Cruz |
| Patricia Arteaga | Curatorial Assistant |
| Washington, DC |
| Paula Sanchez-Kucukozer | Manager | SonJarocho.MX | Bayside, NY |
| Pepe Coronado | Artist |
| New York, NY |
| Rachell Morillo | Artist and Educator |
| New York, NY |
| Rachelle Mozman | Artist | Tufts University | New York |
| Rafael Velez Mercado | Artist/instructor |
| New York, NY |
| Randy Caban | Educator | DA | New York, NY |
| Raul Martínez | Chief Creative Director | Condé Nast | New York, NY |
| Raymond Perez | Community advocate | WERELBARRIO | New York, NY |
| Raymond Perez | Founder | We R El Barrio | New York, NY |
| Rey Parla | Artist |
| Brooklyn, NY |
| Rhett Lee García Figueroa | MR | Tranki Inc | San Juan, PR |
| Rich Villar | Poet |
| Pearl River, NY |
| Richard Morales | Manager of Community Partnerships | The LGBT Community Center | New York, NY |
| Ricky Flores | Photojournalist |
| Cortlandt Manor, New York |
| Ryan Mann-Hamilton | Community |
| Ridgewood |
| Sagrario Oquet | Artist and art organizer | Edge Zones | Miami Beach, FL |
| Samuel Nemir | Activist | Queeramisu- LGBTQ Leaders of Color for Progress | New York, NY |
| Sandra Pérez | Former Executive Director | AHA! Latino Arts | New York, NY |
| Sara P. Álvarez | Assistant Professor |
| Jackson Heights |
| Sarah Guillet | N/a |
| New York, NY |
| Sasha Dees | Curator / Writer |
| New York / Amsterdam |
| Scherezade García-Vázquez | Visual Artist and Educator |
| New York, NY |
| Shellyne Rodriguez | Artist, teacher, community organizer |
| Bronx, NY |
| Simón Ventura Trujillo | Assistant Professor | New York University | New York City |
| Sol Aramendi | Artist |
| Queens, NY |
| Stephanie Mota | Educator |
| Bronx, NY |
| Stephanie Ospina |
|
| Brooklyn, NY |
| T. Urayoán Noel | Associate Professor, writer, and artist | New York University | Bronx, NY |
| Takara Estes | Culture killer |
| Brooklyn |
| Tanya Torres | Artist |
| New York, NY |
| Teresa Basilio | Director | Resilient Just Technologies | Brooklyn, NY |
| Teresita Fernández | Artist |
| Brooklyn, NY |
| Tiffany Ward | Curator and Scholar |
| Baltimore |
| TreZure Empire | Musician and Diaspora Music Educator | Diaspora P.L.A.Y. | Bronx, NY |
| Vanessa Diaz | Asst. Prof. | Loyola Marymount University | Los Angeles, CA |
| Veerle Poupeye | Art Historian, Independent Curator and Writer |
| Kingston, Jamaica |
| Victoria Delaney | ABD | Binghamton University | Binghamton |
| William García Medina | PhD Student | University of Kansas | Lawrence |
| Wilson Valentín-Escobar, Ph.D. | Associate Professor of American Studies | Hampshire College | Amherst, MA |
| Xavier Cázares Cortéz | Artist |
| Los Angeles, CA |
| Yaraní Del Valle | Actor-Educator-Cultural Promoter | Caicu inc. | NYC |
| Yarimir Cabán Reyes | Musician | MIMA/IFE | SanJuan |
| Yasmín Ramírez | PhD | Independent Curator | Brooklyn, NY |
| Yolanda Andrade | Photographer | Independent | Mexico |
| Zaire Z. Dinzey-Flores | Associate Professor | Rutgers University | Brooklyn, NY |
| Zuleyka Alejandro | Education Coordinator | Loisaida Inc. | New York, NY |
Mirror Manifesto 