Under Trump, the future of U.S. Latino history preservation is uncertain

The future of Latino history is in peril.

President Trump’s proposed 2026 budget, which is currently under congressional review, could halt plans for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Latino to expand on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The president’s budget would not provide funding for the long-awaited Latino museum, which was signed into law by Trump during his first term. News of the 2026 budget proposal came after he issued a March executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which alleges a “divisive, race-centered ideology” at the core of the Smithsonian Institution.

Instead, the FY26 budget requests $5.8 million to fund and revert back to a Smithsonian Latino Center model, which shares U.S. Latino history and culture collections, programs and educational content throughout other Smithsonian Institutions. This is in lieu of developing a Latino museum on the National Mall, modeled after the National Museum of the American Indian or the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

On June 6, the Republican-led Congressional Hispanic Conference submitted a letter urging the Senate and House appropriations committees to fund the museum.

“We also understand, and support, efforts to root out anti-American sentiment and DEI over merit-based ideology across our government,” the letter stated. “That is why the leadership and membership of the Congressional Hispanic Conference have taken proactive steps to ensure the National Museum of the American Latino remains unbiased.”

The Democrat-led Congressional Hispanic Caucus followed suit with a letter of its own, in support of the museum.

“Curtailing these efforts through inadequate funding would be a setback not only for the Latino community, but for all Americans who benefit from a more complete and inclusive historical narrative,” stated the letter.

Currently, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Latino is rotating its temporary exhibits in the 4,500-square-foot Molina Family Latino Gallery at the National Museum of American History.

It recently closed out its popular exhibit, “¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States,” which garnered nearly 1 million visitors across its three-year stretch. Now, the museum is collecting artifacts and installing its next spring exhibit, “¡Puro Ritmo! The Musical Journey of Salsa.”

“ I always tell everyone I’m trying to represent over 63 million people in the United States,” says Jorge Zamanillo, director of the National Museum of the American Latino. “But when we open a museum that’s gonna have over 100,000 square feet of public spaces … imagine the kinds of stories you could tell.”

Jorge Zamanillo speaks with Young Ambassadors Program visitors at the Molina Family Latino Gallery at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino.

(Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino)

For Zamanillo, a permanent site on the National Mall would make all the difference, not just for the preservation of Latino stories but for generations of Latinos to feel represented on a national scale. “ We served in every military conflict in the United States since the American Revolution,” says Zamanillo.

“When you start really studying our presence here over the centuries, it’s amazing,” he adds.

Following Trump’s proposed budget, the Smithsonian Institution submitted its budget justification to Congress. No funding decisions will be finalized until Congress passes a final FY26 appropriation.

Zamanillo knows that the process to secure a prime spot on the National Mall might take longer than expected, but he calls it a “generational project” that once enacted will allow for Latino stories to exist in perpetuity.

“ We’re doing this for our kids and our grandkids, to make sure that they won’t have the same issues [with] feeling underrepresented,” says Zamanillo.

Latinos heritage sites at risk

However, with the Trump administration hammering down on all diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, including equity-related grants, the future of Latino history preservation could face setbacks.

On May 2, Trump proposed a $158-million cut to the federal Historic Preservation Fund, effectively eviscerating its funding, including the Underrepresented Communities grant, which has played a significant national role in supporting more inclusive preservation efforts.

The National Park Service has requested zero funds for the upcoming fiscal year. The Times reached out to NPS for a comment on the phasing-out of the grant program but did not hear back.

Early this year, Latinos in Heritage Conservation, a national network focused on supporting Latino preservation efforts, conducted an equity study that reviewed how many of the 95,000 National Register of Historic Places across the U.S. were associated with Latino heritage. The results were grim.

LHC found that only 0.65% of the current registered sites in the U.S. reflect Latino history after analyzing survey data from state historic preservation offices as well as public information on the National Park Service’s Historic Preservation Fund website.

Historical sites can be any culturally or spiritually significant emblems and spaces — including a house, a monument or a cemetery — that are deemed worthy of preservation.

In Los Angeles, for example, Church of the Epiphany in Lincoln Heights is listed for its importance to the Chicano civil rights movement. Meanwhile, Boyle Heights’ Forsythe Memorial School for Girls, a Protestant missionary school that sought to Americanize Mexican girls, is also on the list of historic places.

Church of the Epiphany in Lincoln Heights.

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

However, the lack of historical site representation is even more harrowing when considering the fact that Latinos make up roughly 20% of the United States population. “ That’s why we have to do this work,” says Sehila Mota Casper, executive director of LHC.

Since 2014, LHC has worked to preserve and catalog Latino histories that might have gone overlooked by mainstream textbooks, museums and the federal government.

With no national inventory of Latino heritage sites, they remain invisible to organizations that may otherwise fund and protect them. LHC has designed its own conservation grant, the Nuestra Herencia Grant, which the organization says is the nation’s first grant program dedicated to funding Latin Heritage Projects. Its inaugural cycle will fund a traveling exhibit for the Blackwell School in Marfa, Texas, which was the only public education institution for the city’s Mexican American students from 1909 to 1965.

LHC also launched its Abuelas Project in 2021— which pays homage to grandmothers, often the culture bearers in Latino families — to help fill gaps in folk knowledge. The national digital library consolidates 26 oral histories, 700 photographs and other community-submitted materials.

“ We wanted to create something that allowed us to look outside of those parameters [in museums and libraries], and acknowledge that colonization has erased our history,” says Mota Casper, who has championed Latino preservation for over a decade.

One of the Abuelas Project includes an interactive website focused on the Bracero program, the temporary program that brought over Mexican workers due to agricultural and railroad labor shortages between 1942 and 1964. The program played an integral role in shaping national identities and communities, as well as U.S. relations with Mexico.

“The purpose [of the Abuelas Project] is to find sites and stories that someone knows to be true, but it wasn’t in the local newspaper, it’s not online, not in the history books,” says Mota Casper about the Abuelas Project.

Today, however, only one remaining historical site, Rio Vista Farm, is left to tell its story. The processing center, formerly Rio Vista Bracero Reception Center, was designated a National Historic Landmark by the secretary of the Interior in 2023, through the Underrepresented Communities Grant.

“This history is not only important for us just to tell a truthful story, but it’s also to ensure that our contributions are seen and felt for generations to come,” says Mota Casper.