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I count 39 museums and galleries in the Washington DC’s Official Visitor’s Guide, and I read that the Smithsonian alone has 19 separate museums. It is my last day here, and I have only one afternoon to see something of this city. When I was in DC two years ago, we visited the Mall, the White House, the Natural History Museum, and walked Constitution Avenue. With the “basics” covered on this rainy afternoon, the obvious selection was a museum. I just had to choose from those 39+ options. Looking at the map in the city’s visitors guide, I discover the National Museum of American History (one of the Smithsonian’s museums), and I decide to visit when I  read that Julia Child’s kitchen and Kermit the Frog are there.

I am a first generation immigrant in the United States of America. I have lived in the US for a few years now and have American friends. I like Thanksgiving the most of all the American traditions and my son, who was born here, is American. But I never had the feeling of being or understanding what it is to be American.

So, with a non-American mind, I enter the museum. The collection is so big I know I won’t be able to see it all, but the Star-Spangled Banner Hall seems like a good place to start. I was not aware of the Banner’s size and am really surprised when I see it. It is lying in a dimly lit room at an angle so people can see it behind the glass. George Armistead, who was the commander of Fort McHenry when he ordered it, specified “a flag so large that the British would have no difficulty seeing it from a distance.” He was not thinking of all of us at the exhibit, of course, but the size comes in very handy when you want to exhibit the banner in a museum for all to see.

After this room, I visit the African American History and Culture Gallery. I was attracted there by the Greensboro Lunch Counter. It looks as if the museum’s cafeteria has been displaced to the entrance of this gallery. The counter reminds us of four North Carolina A&T college students who began a sit-in that was important for the American civil rights movement. I like this story of such a simple and peaceful act that started such a major change in society.

I almost feel at home when I see a very old house from Ipswich, MA that was moved piece by piece to the museum from Massachusetts, showing the daily life of New England over the time period when five different families occupied it. I see this New England style every day at home, and it gives me a warm feeling to see it in a museum.

Last, I decide to visit Julia Child’s kitchen. Julia Child and her husband Paul moved into a house in Cambridge, MA in 1961. The house was sold when she retired to California for the last few years of her life, but the kitchen was removed from the house and sent to the museum in 2001. That kitchen is now in front of me. The counters are taller than in a regular kitchen because Julia Child was so tall (6ft  2 in) that when they moved to that house, they customized the kitchen and adjusted it to her size. Besides those details, the kitchen looks like any other kitchen. (If you think that a regular kitchen will have 60 or more pans hanging on the walls, that is.) There are jars in the corners filled with trinkets and a red towel hanging from the oven door. It even has an electric mini-oven like the one I have in my own kitchen. Everything looks so “normal.” I vow to visit her old house in Cambridge once I’m back at home. It’s not that far from the bookstore anyway!

By now the museum is closing, and I still have not visited the gift shop. I promised my son that I would bring him a present from my trip. A very cute horse and a green man look at me from the shelves, and I decide to take the horse, because my son loves farms and horses lately (next month it will be something else, but for now this will do). Back at work on Monday, everybody knows the toy’s name: Pokey, from Gumby. I didn’t know it and took it just because it seemed like the best present. It turns out that many American children have played with it before, just like my son is doing now with his new favorite.

I will always be an immigrant. My accent doesn’t let me forget it. But my visit to the Museum of American History showed me that I can relate to the feelings of how this nation was made and how people see it and make it everyday.  And to me, that is a journey to remember.

Read more: History, Museums, Travel, United States, Washington DC


Cecilia

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