Artifacts of Migration: Arizona Desert, Operation Pedro Pan, and Crafting Latino Representation.

Steve Velasquez, History Curator in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History

Twentieth-century immigration policies in the US tightened restrictions for some, opened doors for others, and continues to be a topic that polarizes groups across the United States. A reliance on cheap labor drove migrants to cross the US Mexico border as undocumented while Cold War politics of the 1950’s and 60's saw a rise in political refugee migration from Cuba. These two vastly different migration experiences highlight the difficulty to tell a unified Latino experience and history within a museum setting. What often gets left out is the human story of how individuals, families, and communities navigate these policy decisions. How can the National Museum of American History offer a more personal and humanizing version of migration and the Latino experience? Objects collected for both Operation Pedro Pan and material collected in the Arizona desert are examples of extraordinary migration journeys seldom told within a national context and reveal how individuals made sense of the everyday lived experiences of often violent and traumatic migration process.

L. Stephen Velasquez is a Curator in the Division of Home and Community Life, National Museum of American History. He curator for Corazón Y Vida: Lowriding Culture and co-curator for the exhibitions Food: Transforming the American Table 1950-2000 and the exhibit, Many Voices, One Nation as well as Entertainment Nation. He is currently involved in a research project on Mexican vineyard workers in Napa. Past projects include the Bracero Oral History Project and associated traveling exhibit, Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program 1942-196; the exhibit Mexican Treasures at the Smithsonian; as well as AZUCAR! The Life and Music of Celia Cruz; A Collector’s Vision of Puerto Rico; and Julia Child’s Kitchen at the Smithsonian. He holds a master’s degree in Anthropology from The George Washington University, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri.