Democracy and Museum Difference and Conflict in the Narratives of the Museo de América in Madrid

Abstract

America has been a basic and permanent ingredient in the definition of spanish national identity during the Franco’s Regimen: «Spain was considered mother of nations that brought language, religion and culture to that continent in the past and that was able to create a community that can recognize itself in that shared past and can aspire to a common future in the present». This sort of naturalization of a historical event as a foundational element of the spanish national identity can be trace along the Franco’s dictatorship in the political discourse and in the foreign relations as well. In fact America was not the point but a symbolic capital with which the Regimen could magnify his image and increase his impoverish bargaining power. America appeared as an excuse in order to glorify the spanish colonial past. But, What happened with the myth of America after the restoration of democracy? The new political system made any difference in the way the myth of America was organized? I will try to find out this in one public institution, the Museo de América in Madrid.