“America’s Making” Exposition, Part III: a Hispanic “Columbus Pageant”
Our third post about NYC’s pro-immigration, pro-pluralism exposition held in October and November of 1921 at the 71st Regiment Armory, Park Avenue between 33rd and 34th Streets. (See our November 4 post introducing the event here, and our November 8 post about “Negro Night” at the exhibition here.)
34th Street at the corner of Park Avenue. 71st Regiment Armory. Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) 1905. Museum of the City of New York.
New York Herald, 14 November 1921, p. 9. Library of Congress.
One hundred years ago today … The “America’s Making” exposition came to a close after a two-week run. It had been a “decided success,” said the Herald, “inasmuch as the purpose in holding it was educational…. thousands of grown persons and tens of thousands of school children have seen the permanent exhibits and witnessed the pageantry.”
The exposition ended with its first acknowledgment of Latinx people. The final night featured “tableaux, songs and dances given by the Hispanic group under the direction of the Marquesa Castro Xeriz (Mrs. Rosario Munoz de Morrison).”
These were at best a dubious tribute to Latinx culture, as they was part of “Columbus Pageant” meant to show:
how the veil of darkness was lifted in the fifteenth century, disclosing to the Old World the possibilities of the New World, and thereby paving the way for the multitudinous racial groups actually to take part in America's Making.
The first pictured the inspiration of Christopher Columbus that there was a land beyond what were then the limits of navigation. In the second tableau Columbus was shown at the court of Spain. The King had listened but had turned a deaf ear, Columbus was about to turn away when Queen Isabella, touched by his sincerity, declared she would pawn her Jewels in order that the necessary funds might be supplied.
This is in keeping with the treatment of Latinx world in the book published for “America’s Making”, all US residents of Spanish, Caribbean, Central and South American descent are included on the page for “Americans of Hispanic Lineage.”
America's Making, Inc. The Book of America's Making Exposition. City and State Departments of Education, 1921. Smithsonian Libraries.
As for Rosario Munoz de Morrison, she was a translator and theater director who made a career of bringing Spanish works to US audiences. Here she is pictured in 1929.
Hartford Courant, 14 July 1929, p. 48. Library of Congress.
– Jonathan Goldman, Nov 13, 2021
TAGS: Latin, Latinx, Latino, Latina, Hispanic, dance, education, ethnicity, festival, race