The Smithsonian Institution’s board is set to vote next Monday, August 31, on whether to house the National Museum of the American Latino (NMAL) in the Smithsonian’s recently reopened Arts & Industries Building, according to the Washington Examiner and confirmed by the New York Times. The proposal would give the young museum a path forward as the Trump administration threatens to defund the project entirely.
Placing the NMAL in the historic Arts & Industries Building would let the Smithsonian avoid the need for congressional approval, which had been required under the original plan to construct a new museum space on or near the National Mall. Those parcels are under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. Founded in 2020, the NMAL has since 2022 operated from a dedicated gallery inside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Described as a “permanent home to honor the stories, contributions, and impact of Latinos in the United States,” the NMAL has been repeatedly singled out amid the Trump administration’s attacks on the Smithsonian’s so-called “woke” ideology and programming. An unnamed source told the Times that, given the current climate, the museum decided that taking a chance on congressional approval for a new building site was not worth the risk.
Last August, several of the museum’s programs and didactics were cited in a memo backing the White House’s “comprehensive internal review” of Smithsonian public-facing content across all 21 museums, research centers, and the National Zoo. The president’s budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2026 also left out federal funding for the museum’s development, instead calling for the revival of the decentralized Smithsonian Latino Center to produce programming across the Institution’s network.
The Smithsonian also shut the NMAL’s gallery at the American History Museum from August 2025 — just before National Hispanic Heritage Month — through spring of this year to prepare for ¡Puro Ritmo! (2026), a salsa music-themed exhibition in the Institution’s Our Shared Future: 250 programming. Meanwhile, the American History Museum itself remains under scrutiny from the Trump administration.
Director Anthea Hartig, whose leadership was extensively examined in the White House’s 162-page report last month accusing the Smithsonian of promoting “extreme political activism,” also faced a two-day congressional hearing on multiple allegations laid out in the report. In the absence of federal support, the NMAL’s push for a permanent home has prompted the Smithsonian’s board to revisit the Arts & Industries Building as a possible solution.
Completed in 1881, the building first housed the United States’s first National Museum and is the second-oldest building in the Smithsonian system. Located between the National Museum of African Art and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gardens, it once served as the Smithsonian’s showcase for its growing natural sciences and anthropology collections.
After the National Museum of Natural History opened in 1910, the building became the Institution’s center for telling the history of American science and technology. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1971, though its role diminished as the Smithsonian continued opening more specialized museums.
Arts & Industries later became an incubation space for museums still awaiting permanent homes, hosting inaugural and temporary exhibitions, along with other programming, while also being adapted for collection storage and additional office space. The building’s mixed use caused structural damage, leading to its indefinite closure for renovation in 2004.
This summer, the building reopened to the public for the first time in 22 years with an exhibition marking the nation’s 250th anniversary.
