Border Art Installation Sends Message about Migrant Deaths

may 13, 2004  11:08 pm
A gigantic metal wall dissects Nogales, a city in Arizona and the state of Sonora, Mexico. On the Mexican side, huge figures press up against the wall. One figure depicts a green-skinned Border Patrol agent chasing some migrants with a big stick, another a migrant returning home to Mexico with an American washing machine loaded onto his back. Other representations warn of the dangers in the desert: the saguaros growing out of a cluster of skulls, the fiery desert curling like a rattler underfoot, Mexicans carrying home the body of a dead compaƱero in a shroud. Margaret Regan reports on this controversial art and the message its creators hope to spread.