These holdings include a comprehensive collection of pre-Columbian ceramics with the best representations from West Mexico, the Valley of Mexico, and pre-Columbian Peru (with special strengths in the art of the Moche). The Fowler also possesses a cohesive collection of Guatemalan costumes; an extensive collection of Mexican clothing; textiles of Peru; and a comprehensive representation of field-collected market materials from Michoacan, Mexico. Complementing the pre-Columbian collections are field collections of the Warao and Yecuana Indians of the Orinoco Delta of Venezuela and contemporary Latin American popular arts including Mexican trees of life, Day of the Dead figures, and masks from Metepec, Oaxaca, Michoacan, Jalisco, Peubla, and Guanajuato.

Native American materials from the U.S. and Canada are a small but significant part of the collection. Materials from the United States and Canada include well-known Northwest Coast material, as well as a notable cross section of late nineteenth-century Inuit art and material culture.