Black History Month, Women’s History Month, and, starting September 15, Hispanic Heritage Month are all good ways to celebrate the accomplishments of our country’s people and cultures. But when we considered doing a blog post on Latino endeavors at American Art, we began to realize we offer lectures, public programs, and bilingual tours throughout the year. We also have an assortment of online educational resources about artwork in our collection, such as ¡del corazón!.
We have numerous bilingual volunteers who work at the museum’s two information desks. Rosario, one of our Saturday volunteers speaks fluent Spanish and French. Linda, a retired Spanish teacher, is an American Art docent and gives tours of the museum's main galleries. Last spring, I attended a tour she gave to a bilingual elementary school from Virginia. It was wonderful to see the mixture of native and nonnative speakers.
In the Luce Foundation Center, we offer two scavenger hunts in Spanish, available all year. One is about the circus and the other is about celebrating Latino artists in the center. I would love to give tours in Spanish, but have yet to have anyone ask for one! If you are interested in learning more about the Luce Foundation Center, in English or Spanish, you should attend one of our Art+Coffee tours (which are in English) or, even better, set-up a tour in Spanish and be my first participant ¡en español!
By the way, do you know why Hispanic Heritage Month is September 15-October 15? September 15 is Independence Day for five Latin American countries (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras), and Mexico and Peru’s are a few days later.
