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Senator Cornyn Speaks In Favor of National Smithsonian American Latino Museum

Louisa Jonas
/
Texas Public Radio
Senator John Cornyn and supporters of the proposed museum at Centro de Artes

The National Museum of the American Latino Act is legislation to authorize the Smithsonian to create a museum honoring Latino Americans similar to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. While speaking at San Antonio’s Centro de Artes museum this morning Senator John Cornyn said the museum is needed. And the history and culture of American Latinos is ingrained in the fabric of America.

 

“The contributions of Latinos to not only the culture here in Texas and in San Antonio but nationally, I think needs to be recognized and remembered,” Cornyn says. “Because we’ve had conflicts along the way, if we don’t remember it, if we don’t recall it, and if we don’t put it in a museum, then people will make the same mistakes over and over again.”

 

Supporters are working to build the museum on the national mall. And they say it would celebrate the contributions of Hispanic Americans. It was almost ten years ago that a commission was established to study the creation of a National Museum of the American Latino.

Louisa Jonas is an independent public radio producer, environmental writer, and radio production teacher based in Baltimore. She is thrilled to have been a PRX STEM Story Project recipient for which she produced a piece about periodical cicadas. Her work includes documentaries about spawning horseshoe crabs and migratory shorebirds aired on NPR's Weekend All Things Considered. Louisa previously worked as the podcast producer at WYPR 88.1FM in Baltimore. There she created and produced two documentary podcast series: Natural Maryland and Ascending: Baltimore School for the Arts. The Nature Conservancy selected her documentaries for their podcast Nature Stories. She has also produced for the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s Distillations Podcast. Louisa is editor of the book Backyard Carolina: Two Decades of Public Radio Commentary. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her training also includes journalism fellowships from the Science Literacy Project and the Knight Digital Media Center, both in Berkeley, CA. Most recently she received a journalism fellowship through Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where she traveled to Toolik Field Station in Arctic Alaska to study climate change. In addition to her work as an independent producer, she teaches radio production classes at Howard Community College to a great group of budding journalists. She has worked as an environmental educator and canoe instructor but has yet to convince a great blue heron to squawk for her microphone…she remains undeterred.