The moment we heard the Smithsonian was opening a new “Latino” museum, we knew it would likely ignore history and become an exercise in leftist ideology. And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. Fortunately, the House has cut off funding for the ahistorical museum that attempts to portray Hispanic Americans as victims of America instead of the highly successful community that has achieved so much thanks to the freedom and opportunity the U.S. provides.
Mike Gonzalez reports in The Daily Signal:
House Won’t Fund Smithsonian’s New Latino Museum Painting Hispanics as America’s Victims
A congressional debate over funding a new Smithsonian American Latino Museum carried on for most of Wednesday afternoon, sometimes passionately, epitomizing a much larger national cleavage over whether America is to be viewed as the land of opportunity or through the lens of oppression, race, and gender ideology.
Behind this important national war of ideas lies another issue. Democrats are frantic to win back millions of Hispanic voters they have lost in the last few electoral cycles. The American Latino Museum debate showed, if anything, that they don’t really get why so many in this demographic are leaving the woke reservation in the first place.
Wednesday, they lost the battle. Republicans defeated, by a 27-33 vote during mark-up, a Democratic amendment to restore funding for building the museum and for keeping its first exhibit open. The Republicans had included a policy rider eliminating funding for both in the fiscal 2024 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Bill, which funds the Smithsonian.
A bigger question is the war of ideas. The museum’s initial exhibit is unrelentingly leftist and, frankly, insulting. It depicts Hispanics as America’s victims, as army deserters, drag queens, and traitors, even suggesting that there is honor in deserting a U.S. military post. “Whoever put the exhibit together was trying to make us feel ashamed of being American,” Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., said.
Republicans say the exhibit, officially called the Molina Family Latino Gallery, currently housed in the National Museum of American History, violates the 2020 law that approved the museum. The law, passed 349-33, promised that the museum would be impartial.
Some Democrats showed embarrassment about the direction the exhibit has taken. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-Fla.,, for example, repeatedly described it as “an admittedly offensive exhibit.” Texas’s Henry Cuellar, a Democrat, also showed dismay.
Others, however, clearly appeared to want more of what the exhibit is selling. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., who introduced the amendment to restore funding, treated the matter as if it were a difference over a small part of the exhibit or a difference with conservative Cuban-Americans from Miami, ignoring that Garcia and other Mexican-Americans were also clearly shocked.
Continue reading HERE.
I knew that this was going to happen. The “Brown and Down” image that Chicanos have been pushing for years. This is why it pisses me off that Cuban American Senator Bob Menendez vigorously fought for this museum.
One can only expect so much from Menéndez. Being a Dem, he will never be better than a mixed bag. He could be worse, of course (think Joe “Goldilocks” García, if you can bear it), but don’t expect trigo limpio.