San Antonio is getting the nation’s first Mexican American Civil Rights museum somewhere west of downtown — but officials still need to decide where exactly it will go.
The Mexican American Civil Rights Institute on Friday announced five possible sites along the inner West Side, which were identified through a site feasibility study and community feedback.
Several leaders gathered at Texas Public Radio to hear the news, including former District 7 Councilwoman Ana Sandoval, whose office was the birthplace of the idea for the museum; as well as Former Mayor Henry Cisneros and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro.
The 10-month feasibility study determined the museum could go near the MACRI Visitor Center on Buena Vista Street, or it could replace the AutoZone on Buena Vista Street, go next to the McDonalds on Houston Street across I-10 on the near West Side, next to Milam Park and Historic Market Square, or next to Texas Public Radio downtown.
An official site will be selected within six months by MACRI. Next steps include acquisition of land, planning and design, fundraising, construction, and programming.
“We kept coming back to this West Side corridor,” said Nathan Perez, Architect for Ford Powell & Carson Architects, who conducted the study. “Along Commerce and Buena Vista Streets … all the way east where we’re sitting now, which is the Historic Mexican downtown.”
MACRI will launch a capital campaign for the project once it acquires a site. The cost of the new museum is still undetermined. The museum project could require expanding an existing building, or a new build, but MACRI is aiming for a 10,000- to 15,000-square-foot museum in either case.
The museum will tell the story of the contributions of Mexican Americans and expansion of civl rights and “pieces of history left out of the story,” MACRI Executive Director Sarah Zenaida Gould said.
“Over and over again, Mexican Americans have had to file lawsuits, organize the community, in order to get basic things,” she added.
Zenaida Gould nodded to San Antonio’s historic struggles of floods and drainage issues that affected Mexican American families on the city’s West Side, as well as its history of organized labor and advocacy for voting rights.
“For us to bear witness to the creation of the nation’s first Mexican American Civil Rights Museum which will be here in San Antonio, the cradle of Mexican American Civil Rights, and the Mexican American cultural capital of the U.S., this is a big moment,” Zenaida Gould said.
The announcement came on the weekend kicking off Hispanic Heritage Month. In the U.S., Hispanics are 20% of the population and one of every five of Hispanics identify as a Mexican American or of Mexican heritage, said Erika Prosper, National Advisory Council Vice-Chair for MACRI.
“This is the right step in a direction that is going to set the stage, not just for Mexican American children, but children that are starting to identify as multicultural with some Latino aspect,” she said. “This means kids that are both Black and Latino are going to see some of their history here.”
The importance of the museum can’t be overstated, Castro said: “If people don’t understand your contributions, they only see your deficits. They only understand the negatives and you’re defined not by your contributions and your positives, but by your stereotypes.”