The Silent March for Immigrant Rights

Oaxacan artist Alejandro Santiago decided to do his own take on the immigration debate: 2,501 Migrantes now at the city’s Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca. It’s a haunting display, hundreds of abstract clay figures (he’s only completed about 400 of the 2,501) made from the soil of his homeland, filling rooms and lining corridors and stairways. Some are in a hideous pile and others are in coffins. There are men, women, children, all naked and many with their arms crossed in front as if to protect themselves.
No two are alike.
They are Santiago’s metaphor for those who have been forced to abandon their towns and families in search of work, and his manifestation of the reluctance on both sides of the border to work together for a solution.
Santiago himself experienced the effects of migration: first as a child leaving his pueblo, Teococuilco, when his parents moved to the city of Oaxaca for work, and later as an artist trying to understand the phenomenon by hiring a “coyote’’ to help him cross the border into the United States.
According to news reports, Santiago plans to take the 2,501 figures, when completed, to his home village and – reminiscent of the Bulgarian-born environmental artist Christo – stand them in yards and public places to “repopulate’’ a town devastated by the massive move north.