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Has the short-handled hoe been on exhibit?

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Transcript

The Chavez hoe has been on exhibition. At least once before we had a small case on Cesar Chavez and the Chavez jacket was in that exhibition as was the hoe. Our second hoe has not been on exhibition and it's certainly something that we look forward to sharing. Any curator that has a good object in that collection sort of really seeks to get-- to find an occasion to put it on an exhibition. It's like having a dollar in your pocket and being in a candy store, that you want to use it. You could put this hoe in many different exhibitions. And that's actually always a fun game to play is given three extraneous pieces, what exhibition could you create out of this and it's a good exercise. Everybody should try it because there're many different answers. One could do clearly a biography of Cesar Chavez, a really interesting and very dimensional personality. One could obviously do something on agricultural traditions. One could do a story. This could be a big chapter and a story on immigration and migration. One could look at Latinos in the United States. I think the list of possible exhibitions and stories of which this sort of innocent little hoe could be a major player really are great. There're lots of different things and that's what you want to do as a curator is collect those objects that are not single purpose, that can be used in many different ways.

Source

Interview with Peter Liebhold, National Museum of American History, May 31, 2006.