National Museum for Hispanics?
Ethnic politics has hit the national mall. First we added a museum for our first peoples .. the indigenous folks largely exterminated or trivialized as American culture spread across the country.
Fair enough … and even more so when we added a museum dedicated to the African American story. After all a notional debt is a noble part of a national history.
What comes next…. apparently a national Hispanic museum!
The problem is that there is only so much space for museums along the Mall. Now “Latino” legislators have drafted legislation to replace the Smithsonian ‘s museum dedicated to American industry with a Latino American Museum. Apparently the intent is to recognize folks ties together by a vowel at the end of their names … but excusing Italian Americans and Portuguese Americans as well as Philipinoes.
As a Sephardi Jew I suspect we are not included either … even though Spain is now offering us citizenship.
While I am unclear about what unites Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Venezuelans, and California’s grandees, Senator Robert Mendez tells us that “A Museum of the American Latino would officially acknowledge our great history in the United States, and educate
visitors about how the success of this country could not have been accomplished without the achievements of Hispanic Americans.” 
Of course the bill recognizes political reality … “We are in a new era in which Latinos are a much greater part of our national discourse … our numbers have grown as well as our significance to the story of America,” Menendez said. Menendez’s bill was backed by Democratic leader Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Xavier Becerra, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, and Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio. The cherubic Cubano said “This will be an enduring monument as much to the people who have found opportunity and refuge in America as it is a tribute to our exceptional country that has always welcomed people and helped them realize their dreams like no other place in human history,”
As a Sephard I do hope my Latino brothers will include us in their plans. After all I assume they will include Columbus’s crew of forcibly converted Jews, even though the Genoan was Italian, Sadly, even SCOTUS is confused on this matter, announcing that Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice rather than Benjamin Cardozo. I guess a Jewish heritage washed away Cardozo’s Hispanic roots?
There is another note of black humor in the notion that the Shoah .., the Holocaust .. also has acquired a presence on the Mall. We Jews have chosen instead to celebrate the Nazi’s death camps. Perhaps this is appropriate if we see the Mall as a place to celebrate America’s historic struggles with racism but what does this mean to any celebration of the role of Jewish Americans in the labor movement, physics, civil rights, art, or business? Are we only to be represented by the images of antisemitic Europe?
The fate of Jewish America is no different from that of other Americans badly represented by the increasingly ethnic national mall. Are Asians less important than Hispanics? As horrid as their European relatives were, should America not celebrate Eisenhower and the folks who gave us Bud? While we are at it … it seems to me that pizza and radio were pretty good contributions too!