Seven-String Barbed-Wire Fence
The Many Faces of Latino Immigration in the United States

 

A museum exhibit on the issue of immigration will document two recent national events and profile the lives of Latino migrants in the United States:

The first segment will feature the 2003 Immigrant Workers Freedom Rides that began in Houston, Texas. Calling attention to the hardships, emotions, and arguments of U.S.- migrants, the 80 Houston riders linked their struggle to historic movements for black civil rights and organized labor. Coordinated in part by the AFL-CIO, the event drew thousands of participants, who attended rallies and rode the freedom busses nationwide.

The second segment will show the armed civilian-patrol of nearly 1,000 Minuteman Project volunteers that guarded the Arizona border during April 2005. Highlighting participants' fears and frustrations concerning immigration, the controversial action garnered media attention, creating a platform to demand a stricter system.

A third focus of the project will present three qualities that characterize immigrant life: specifically, the diverse ways in which immigrants express themselves within their work context (including urban, industrial and agricultural locations); the types and nature of shelter that house immigrants as individuals, peers and families (including homes, public shelters and jails); and the border crossings by which they enter the United States (including the bridges connecting El Paso and Juarez and the vast desert boundary).

The multimedia exhibit will be educational and artistic, including photographs, large-scale collages, a 20-30 minute documentary and three-dimensional installations. The exhibit will focus on Hispanic migrants, the nation's largest and fastest-growing immigrant group, and the U.S.-Mexico border, the issue's most controversial region.

The exhibit is timely. Already garnering national headlines regularly, many predict immigration will be one of the most hotly debated issues through the decade's end. And while they may not agree on how to go about it, activists and politicians on the left and right are calling passionately for system reform - citing the death of more than 450 people crossing the Mexico-Arizona desert in recent years; the unauthorized (and therefore unprotected and accounted for) society of 11 million U.S.-residents; and the costs states incur to support and control them.

An informative, accurate, and comprehensive exhibit is important. One could not substantively change the immigration system without realizing its complexity - it is bound to U.S.-foreign policy initiatives, terrorism prevention plans and the international economy. Moreover, any shepherd of progress must also understand the issue's social dynamics - some say current policy is motivated by racism. Finally, how the United States reforms its immigration system is particularly consequential, especially because the issue is integrated politically. As the nation develops its immigration policies, so will it develop its global character. And the shape of such character - as the country is a world leader - is elemental to human progress.