Memorial for a Perilous Journey: Running to Racism
Memorial for a Perilous Journey: Running to Racism
Maquette for proposed project
The running figures in this piece are appropriated from California highway
signage intended to indicate the crossing of illegal immigrants. The
silhouettes are caricatures of a Mexican family; the man is short and squat,
the child in pigtails. Our state government has chosen to use these
symbols rather than the more generic and universally recognizable crossing
symbols. As informational signs they are useful but we find their
ethnic specificity problematic. One can imagine the equivalent crossing
signs in a predominantly African American, Hassidic or Arab community.
It is ironic that this flight from economic depression leads to a new set
of oppressive circumstances. The full scale version of this piece
is intended to be mounted on a raft and floated down the Tijuana River to
the Pacific Ocean where it will be sailed Northward to be placed on land
as a lasting monument to those who have perished in the crossing.
