On Friday morning, August 22, illustrator Felipe Galindo Gómez opened his email to find a note from his friend. “Have you seen this?” the message read, and linked to the White House’s bullet-pointed list targeting Smithsonian artworks and exhibitions. There it was: an image of his 1999 illustration “4th of July from the south border.”
Since 2022, Galindo’s work had been reproduced on a label about anti-immigrant prejudice as part of ¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States in the National Museum of American History’s (NMAH) Molina Family Latino Gallery. Over the last three years, the gallery space has served as the temporary location of the nascent National Museum of the American Latino, which is currently facing an uncertain future under the Trump administration. Now, the Molina gallery has quietly closed for the next nine months, Hyperallergic confirmed.
After the White House featured his work in its hit list, Galindo, who also goes by the name “Feggo,” said he traveled from New York City to Washington, DC, to see whether it was still up. When he arrived at the museum on Tuesday, he found the exhibition closed. A sign said it would reopen in spring 2026. According to the Smithsonian’s website, ¡Presente! was scheduled to close at the end of November, in preparation for programming marking the United States’s 250th birthday. But the exhibition was shuttered on July 20, four months sooner than expected. The decision notably follows Trump’s March executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution and the release of his Fiscal Year 2026 budget, which excluded funding for the NMAL.
The Molina Family Latino Gallery’s early closure means it will remain shuttered throughout Hispanic Heritage Month this fall, and marks a lengthy period of inactivity for the fledgling National Museum of the American Latino’s only current physical gallery, which the museum’s director, Jorge Zamanillo, has referred to as the institution’s “first iteration.”
Reached by Hyperallergic, a spokesperson for the institution cited preparations for the Smithsonian’s Our Shared Future: 250 programming as the reason for the exhibition’s premature closure.
“The National Museum of the American Latino is participating in the Smithsonian’s celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary and wanted to meet the spring 2026 deadline for opening the Puro Ritmo exhibition in support of the Smithsonian’s institution-wide plans,” the spokesperson said, referring to the upcoming show ¡Puro Ritmo! The Musical Journey of Salsa at the Molina gallery. “The Molina Family Latino Gallery is closed to visitors because museum staff need the space to safely de-install Presente and then transition the exhibition space into a staging area to prepare for the renovation and installation of Puro Ritmo.”
The institution reportedly adopted the salsa-themed exhibition as a softer alternative to a planned exhibition on Latino youth movements that garnered significant conservative backlash. Before Trump’s crackdown on the Smithsonian began, that exhibition was widely criticized by conservatives who disagreed with its focus on colonization and threatened to withhold federal funding for the forthcoming museum in 2023.
The Smithsonian spokesperson did not directly answer a question about whether Trump’s museum reviews or executive action influenced the decision to close the Molina Gallery in July. Trump has repeatedly pushed the Smithsonian to promote “unity, progress, and enduring values” in time for the country’s 250th anniversary next year. Earlier this month, the administration demanded that Smithsonian museums submit their 250th anniversary plans to “align messaging” with the White House Salute to America 250 Task Force.
Three of the works named on last week’s White House list were created by living artists who were born in Mexico, including Galindo, raising questions about how the institution will protect its Latino artists under pressure from the federal government.
When Galido learned from a staff member that the museum was “rotating” the exhibition, he told Hyperallergic he remembers thinking, “Is that a new word for censoring?”
The administration has already launched a review of exhibitions planned for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence as part of its larger probe. Trump’s government referenced the US’s 250th anniversary nine times in its letter to the Smithsonian announcing its review and forthcoming “content corrections.”
Galindo told Hyperallergic his 1999 illustration appeared in the 2010 book Manhatitlan: An Intertwining of Mexican and American Cultures.
“It’s something that reflected, in my case, how I saw immigration at that time,” Galindo said. In the 1990s, former President Bill Clinton’s administration had cracked down on border crossings, including by installing fences. Galindo’s work contended with the increasing militarization of the border, featuring a boy peering over a red and white-striped fence at blue and white fireworks.
“I know art is very powerful and makes people ponder. That’s the idea. It’s not threatening,” Galindo said. “It’s very disheartening to see [this] from people who are in power.”
