The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Latino will open its first exhibit in June

Budget agreed by the US Congress includes proposal for Museo Latino 2:22

(CNN) --

From labor leader Cesar Chavez's decades of activism, to Roberto Clemente's momentous Major League Baseball career, to "Queen of Salsa" Celia Cruz's music with a message, the stories of prominent Latinos that made history will be displayed in a new Smithsonian exhibit.

The National Museum of the American Latino will debut its inaugural gallery at the National Museum of American History on June 18.

The new American Latino museum likely won't open in its own building for at least another 10 years, but the Smithsonian will roll out the exhibits until the museum finds its permanent home.

The opening exhibit, called "Present! A United States Latino History," is intended to "illuminate the historical and cultural legacies of American Latinos," the Smithsonian said in a statement.

Inside the interactive gallery, named after the family of late Smithsonian donor David Molina, artifacts are organized by themes such as "colonial legacies" and "immigration stories."

Celia Cruz, the "Queen of Salsa" and a noted Afro-Latina artist, will be honored at the American Latino Museum's inaugural gallery.

(Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic/Getty Images)

The gallery "Present!"

It will tell the stories of figures like Chavez, the Mexican-American founder of the United Farm Workers of America, who advocated for safer working conditions and higher wages for his fellow farmworkers.

Also highlighted is Clemente, a Puerto Rican baseball player who primarily played for the Pittsburgh Pirates and used his platform for 18 MLB seasons to advocate for Puerto Rican children and Afro-Latinos when segregation was still rampant in the United States.

Cruz, a legendary Cuban-born salsa artist, used the catchphrase "sugar!"

which became a rallying cry for black Cubans whose ancestors had been enslaved on the island's sugar plantations.

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Other significant people such as Luisa Moreno, a Guatemalan-born labor leader and civil rights activist, and Colombian-American drag artist José Sarria, who was the first gay person to run for public office in the United States, will also be included in the exhibit. he told the Smithsonian.

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All information found within the gallery will be available in English and Spanish.

And for those who can't make it to Washington, it will be available online through a "companion website" that showcases some of the artifacts and stories found in the exhibit in person, the Smithsonian said.

Robert Clemente, considered one of the greatest Major League Baseball players of all time, advocated for Puerto Rican children during his 18 seasons in the league.

(Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

Eduardo Diaz, interim deputy director of the American Latino museum, said 2022 was a "special year" for the gallery's opening: It's the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Latino Center, which was an initiative by the Smithsonian to better represent Latin Americans within of its walls.

But it wasn't until December 2020 that Congress approved the creation of the American Latino museum, as well as an American Women's History Museum.

Advocates had been asking Congress and the Smithsonian to establish the Latin American museum for years.

An estimate of the cost was presented through a presidential commission in 2011.

The process of submitting, approving, and opening a Smithsonian museum can take more than a decade: The bill calling for the creation of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture passed in 2003, but the museum itself did not open until 2016.

CNN's Leah Asmelash contributed to this story.

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