The Gateways/Portales exhibition designed by Museum Environments wins the Smithsonian Honorable Mention Excellence in Exhibition Awards 2018. The two overall winners were from the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of American History, museums with staffs and budgets far beyond ours. ME is very proud to have contributed to this important and meaningful project. We congratulate the curator Ariana Curtis who created a new milestone in Latinx exhibits. 

Some of the judges comments:

• A very collaborative and timely exhibit on the rising importance and challenges facing the Latinx community 
• The topic itself is unusual so visitors experienced a subject and a perspective seldom covered by museums. 
• The use of bilingual exhibition texts is also important. In particular, section texts are clear, engaging, and well written. 
• Project also uses low-tech interactive effectively. 
• An impressive amount of collecting and original research into Latinx communities was done by the curator---and this work clearly will benefit the SI in the future.
• They worked closely with that community in creating the exhibit. Labels are in English and Spanish to make it more accessible to a diverse audience.