Museums are special places for learning and reflection. Artifacts can help us learn incredible stories. This module is an overview of the Smithsonian Institution’s collection of Filipino history and a short guide on how to appreciate a museum object. The remaining modules focus on five objects in the Smithsonian collection that help us understand Filipino American history as a part of US history.

The practice of collecting artifacts has a long history that stretches back thousands of years, but the modern museum emerged in the 1600s as Europe rose as a global center for power and knowledge through colonization.

Museums of all sizes were being created by individuals, corporations, scientists, religious organizations, and governments. People collected objects from expeditions, wars, missions, and scientific studies and displayed them in cabinets, galleries, and museums. Collections could contain everything from fossilized insects to items used to decorate a home.

As the world became more connected due to trade, travel, and colonization, museums played a central role in educating collectors, their patrons, and audiences. However, museums often assigned names to people, places, and things in these collections, usually without guidance from local or Indigenous communities. The information we gather from museum labels, wall descriptions, and catalogs often reflects the worldview or training of curators, conservators, collections managers, educators, administrators, board members, and other officials.

Instead of thinking of museums as conveying knowledge which is timeless, unchanging, and the last word on any particular subject, we should understand these institutions as both influencers of, and influenced by, social, political, and cultural forces. In other words, museum collections, and the ways that those objects are interpreted, are not neutral.