Some Latino star power will lead the effort to establish the Smithsonian American Latino Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

"American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music," is a traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian. Focusing on five major centers of Latino popular music production - New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, San Antonio and San Francisco - the exhibition explores how Latino musical innovations since the 1940s helped shape American popular music.

Seven years after opening its National Museum of the American Indian, and four years before the scheduled unveiling of its museum of African-American history, the Smithsonian Institution is being urged to create another ethnic museum on the National Mall, this one to recognize the history and contributions of Latino Americans. A federal commission has spent two years asking Latinos what they would want in such a museum, and next month the commission will report its findings to Congress, which would have to approve a new museum.