El Museo del Barrio New York

A collaboration with New-York Historical Society

In an historic partnership, the New-York Historical Society and El Museo del Barrio are collaborating on the organization of Nueva York, a major special exhibition that will offer for the first time a dramatic exploration of the vital role that Latinos and Spanish-speaking countries have played from 1624 through World War II in making New York the most culturally vibrant city in the world. Conceptualized by Pulitzer-Prize winning author Mike Wallace and modeled on the Historical Society’s acclaimed two-year initiative on slavery in New York, the project will tell the little-known story of how the Spanish-speaking world has played a key role in the City’s culture and prosperity. The project will also advance understanding of New York City’s ongoing Latinization, from having a tiny Hispanic community after the Revolution to the growth of a community that today makes up one-third of the city’s population. Using documents, paintings, prints, decorative arts, printed books, and artifacts from the collections of the New-York Historical Society—and augmented by loans from other distinguished institutions and archives—the exhibition will draw upon new research of the last three decades conducted here and abroad to uncover the previously hidden history of New York’s Spanish-speaking peoples.