The Importance Of The Smithsonian American Indian Museum
Preserving Native Voices: The Smithsonian National Museum Of The American Indian
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian has become the latest flashpoint in the Trump administration’s push to scrutinize how America tells its story.
With more than a billion dollars in federal funding flowing to the Smithsonian each year, the administration has called for a review of exhibits across the institution. This has raised alarms among Native leaders, educators, and visitors who see the museum as one of the few national spaces where Indigenous history is told on Indigenous terms.
On a recent visit, Jesse Pablo, a teacher from the Tohono O’odham Nation, said the museum gives his students a chance to see their people reflected in the nation’s historical record, something he never experienced growing up.
“For Native kids, to walk in and see our story, not as a side note but as the story, that’s powerful,” Pablo said.
Taylor Fitts, a school facilities planner, agreed, noting that the museum is just as crucial for non-Native audiences who rarely learn about Indigenous histories in school. “If you take this away or water it down, you erase the chance for people to even begin to understand the country’s real past,” Fitts said.
That concern is echoed by Tracy Goodluck, executive director of the Center for Native American Youth, who warns that filtering or politicizing exhibits would have profound consequences for young visitors. “These are stories that have already been silenced for centuries. Young people, Native and non-Native, deserve to learn history in its fullness, not through a partisan lens,” she said.
For now, Smithsonian officials say no decisions will be made until Congress finalizes the fiscal year 2026 budget. But the debate has already touched off a deeper reckoning over cultural authority and has sparked questions over who gets to curate memory and who decides which histories are preserved, diminished, or erased. At stake is not just one museum, but the bigger question of how America chooses to remember itself.
Naiya Brown is a senior journalism major at Howard University. She has reported on politics, education, and community issues across Washington, D.C. She is passionate about political reporting and amplifying underrepresented voices in media.
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