Since expanding its mission in 1994 to represent the art and culture of “Puerto Ricans and all Latin American in the United States” El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem has received praise and protest in New York City.   The museum’s mandate to develop programs for a diverse national/international Latino audience and maintain a connection and relevancy to its East Harlem constituency requires El Museo del Barrio to become an institution where local and international perspectives on Latino culture are displayed.  How has the museum faced this challenge and what can we learn from El Museo’s del Barrio’s experience? This paper will examine the critical responses both positive and negative that El Museo’s del Barrio’s exhibitions have generated over the last five years.  It further seeks to place El Museo de Barrio within the context of other community-based Latino galleries and museums in the United States that have expanded their missions in response to the growing diversity within their communities.  Foremost among the methodological questions this paper will examine is how can Latino museums like El Museo negotiate and perhaps ameliorate the evident political and economic inequalities between the Latino groups they are pledged to serve.