Editor’s Letter

Museums. They are the destination of school field trips, a place to explore your own culture and a great place to run around and explore. They are exciting or boring, a collection of objects or a powerful glimpse into other worlds.

Until recently—with the exception of these school field trips—museums in Latin America and the Caribbean (and the United States and elsewhere) have been oriented toward the collections, and not the audiences.

Now that is shifting.  Museums in Latin America, the Caribbean and Latinx communities in the United States face many new challenges, including defining what a museum actually is and who it is for. That also holds true for museums in the United States and elsewhere that have Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx collections. This Fall 2022 issue of ReVista looks at how community participation and diversity play increasingly important roles in museum culture. It also provides a space for the voices of many museum directors and curators, especially of smaller museums, throughout the Americas. And what they’re saying is that community matters, that museums are more than just a collection of objects but are bridges to understanding society and history.

This issue is certainly not the first time ReVista has looked at museums, particularly in the magazines on Memory and Monuments and Counter-monuments, which influenced our current selection.

Dear reader, consider this issue a panorama of voices. Our authors have an interesting and powerful collection of viewpoints. Museums are creating compelling narratives about Latin America, the Caribbean and Latinx communities—and that’s a conversation that must be continued. Here’s a start.