Last December, Dallas City Hall transformed from a government building into a vibrant art gallery when The Mexican American Museum of Texas hosted its first ever pop-up exhibition. The exhibition featured stories about the Mexican American tradition of making tamales during Christmas.
Showcasing Mexican American stories is the goal of the museum, which was founded a little over a year ago but doesn’t have a permanent home. The group is seeking funding from the city of Dallas’ 2024 capital bond to build one.
“There is no place in Texas where you can go and … experience all the various histories from pre-Texas indigenous [people] to the present,” said Gustavo Hinojosa, president of the museum.
Armando Lopez, a 65-year-old slam poet from Laredo, contributed to the pop-up exhibition at City Hall. Lopez said that a permanent museum about Mexican Americans in Dallas would help validate his culture to the wider world.
“A museum would document the participation of Mexicans in the history of Texas and colorize those images of Texas history that often don't include people of color,” he said.
Museum board members plan to approach communities in different regions of the state to write their own histories for the museum, like they did with their pop-up exhibitions.
“We think that it would be disingenuous for us to try to write the history of El Paso or Amarillo, or San Antonio. We just want to be a platform for them,” Hinojosa said.
Cindy Medina, who submitted an essay to the City Hall exhibition on tamales, said that even though she lives in El Paso, a museum in Dallas would be impactful.
“People should know that … Mexicans were in Dallas before. That's why the Trinity River was called El Rio Trinidad. … By the time the Americans got to Texas, we had societies. … We were already thriving for about 300 years,” Medina said.
The group’s aspirational goal is to secure a building at Fair Park, since the area represents different regions of Texas coming together.
Last month, the museum gave short presentations at the town halls each council district held to explain the city’s 2024 capital bond program to residents.
Dallas has around $1 billion in its capital bond program for infrastructure projects that will have a 20-year impact, like building new libraries, repairing streets and fixing drainage systems.
At the town halls, museum board members explained to city staff and residents that their museum is a unique candidate for bond funding because it would bring in tourism from all over the state. Unlike most bond projects that focus on maintenance, the museum would eventually bring in profits for Dallas.
There’s a long road ahead for the group’s bid to get bond funding. The town halls were a forum for city staff to get to know what projects residents feel the most strongly about. From now until the end of the year, subcommittees are assessing the technical requirements of different projects proposed to see what makes the final list. Currently, projects totalling $13 billion are in consideration for city funding. In May, citizens will vote on bond propositions.
Former City Council member Jennifer Staubach Gates is chair of the subcommittee that advises the City Council on critical facilities projects like building new fire department stations and arts and culture facilities in the 2024 bond.
Gates said that it's unlikely that the museum will get bond funding because repairs to existing arts and culture facilities have historically been preferred over building new ones. For example, in the 2017 bond program, funding went to the rehabilitation of the African American Museum at Fair Park and to the Dallas Museum of Art, among other arts and culture venues.
“There was a lot of talk years ago for an Asian American Cultural Center that never got funding because the needs of the city are so high,” Gates said.
Hinojosa said the museum board knows that getting bond funding is difficult, but board members will continue to advocate for their cause and have registered to speak at the Community Bond Task Force meeting at City Hall on August 15. The organization is also working on a parallel capital campaign to get funding from private donors.
