ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the results of interviews with ethnic museum professionals. It describes identity concepts, summarizes the literature about public relations (PR) history and ethnic museum history, and reviews a few studies concerning the PR field’s contributions to society. Ethnic museums are found worldwide, ranging from Norway’s Sami National Museum to Melbourne’s Chinese Museum. The terms ethnicity and culture are used interchangeably throughout to signify identification with a specific heritage, such as a national or regional origin. Some communication scholars have approached race and ethnicity with a post-positivist lens, focusing on the ability of individuals to function in majority-White environments. An ethnic museum is a ‘permanent institution open to the public that acquires, conserves, researches, exhibits and communicates material artifacts related to a particular racial, ethnic, or cultural group’. Some ethnic museums were formed during the 1800s to serve as community resources, corresponding to migration periods of European immigrants to the United States.
