Afro-Latinidad in the Smithsonian’s African American Museum Spaces

The nearly fifty-year gap between the establishment of Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum (ACM) and the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) created a difference in the museums’ central narratives about Blackness and the inclusion of Afro-Latinidad. The Anacostia emerged in 1967 as part of the Black museum movement. It has historically framed Blackness as DC-based African Americanness with periodic inclusion of Afro-Latinidad. The first object in the collection of the NMAAHC is from Ecuador, signaling an inclusive representation of Black identities that foundationally includes Afro-Latinidad.