Plans underway for Latino heritage museum

Plans underway for Latino heritage museum
By Leonor Villasuso Rustad | Contributor | May 2024

If all goes as planned, Harriet Island will be the site of a new museum focused on the arts, history and cultural heritage of Minnesotans of Mexican and Latin American heritage. Heading the project is Aarón Johnson-Ortíz, an artist, muralist and cultural manager who began the arts program at CLUES in 2019 and managed it for three years. CLUES is a social service agency that serves the Latino population in the Twin Cities.

Johnson-Ortíz has been working on the museum project since 2015 and has created his own nonprofit, (Neo)Muralismos de México in Minnesota, to oversee it. In recent years, (Neo)Muralismos organized a series of meetings entitled “Imagining Futures” seeking feedback from directors of Latino and Mexican museums and cultural centers from across the United States, local artists and members of the West Side community. The National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago offered much advice on museum design and its collection, and many local artists have offered to donate work to the museum. Several Latino businesses and individuals have already donated funds to support construction of the proposed $28 million project.

Museum plans call for two spacious art galleries to present exhibitions by local and visiting artists; an outdoor sculpture park and mural garden; public programming for music, folk art, poetry and dance classes; historical displays with an emphasis on the West Side Flats; gardening spaces; and a greenhouse with interactive exhibits about medicinal plants, crops, and culturally specific flowers and plants.

During Hispanic Heritage Month last year Rep. María Isa Pérez-Vega (DFL, 65B) announced that she had submitted a proposal for state funding for the museum. She described the museum to other legislators as a place where visitors would be able to learn about the rich history and culture of the Latino community in Minnesota and how it has enriched the state, while also being a place where all Minnesotans can gather.

The proposal calls for the museum to be located on public land, specifically Harriet Island Regional Park. The park is on the West Side Flats, where the first Hispanic immigrants in St. Paul settled and later were displaced from their homes in the 1960s after the City of St. Paul condemned the area due to constant flooding and poor living conditions found there.

“Latino artists have made significant contributions to art and culture in Minnesota, but their work is underrepresented in museums and galleries,” said Pérez-Vega in a recent interview. “We must establish the first Museum of Latino Art in Minnesota to close that gap and give Latino artists the recognition they deserve.” Pérez-Vega was raised on the West Side by parents of Puerto Rican heritage. She is a hip hop artist and owns the record company SotaRico. She was elected to the State House in 2022.

St. Paul-based 4RM+ULA is leading the design of the building. The company is owned by Paola Sánchez-Garret, an Afro-Latina architect of Dominican descent. The initial design was completed last March for the 25,000-square-foot museum and is expected to be finalized in 2025. If the funding materializes, construction would begin the following year and be finished in 2027. For more information, or to donate to the project, visit mnlatinomuseum.org.

The Latino community in Minnesota is the largest minority group in the state. According to the 2020 Census, 345,640 people identified as Hispanic/Latino, about 6% of the state’s population.

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