By Emily Zimmern, Levine Museum of the New South

As participants in the inaugural Innovation Lab for Museums sponsored by AAM’s Center for the Future of Museums and EmcArts, Levine Museum of the New South, Atlanta History Center and Birmingham Civil Rights Institute joined forces to launch the Latino New South Project.  Since January 2012, our three institutions have worked together to explore how to engage Latino audiences in meaningful, sustainable ways.  As a result of this initiative, I was invited to participate in the Smithsonian’s Latino Partners Forum last fall and met Eduardo.  He was intrigued by our collective work and decided to pay a visit to our three museums.  Here is his account of what he discovered (read below for an excerpt).

…The Birmingham area was the third stop on my recent Southern swing. I began in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a visit to the Levine Museum of the New South. The Levine is the lead museum in a tri-party collaboration that is looking at what is now commonly referred to as the Latino New South (El Nuevo South). The other participants are the Atlanta History Center and the previously mentioned Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. What unites these institutions is that they are cultural flagships in major “receiving communities,” committed to “immigrant integration,” no small task given the legacy of racial discrimination in the deep South, and nagging anti-immigrant fervor and legislation…. click here to continue reading