Man Behind The Image

Interesting profile of the Navajo CALTRANS graphic artist:

"Here it is," says John Hood, riffling through a portfolio. The drawing he pulls out was done as a prototype; it is crude and a bit frayed. But its characters, captured in silhouette, are instantly recognizable.

There is a father, leading the way with a clear sense of urgency, bent at the waist. A mother, running behind him, despite the prim dress that hugs her knees. A little girl, holding her mother's hand, unable to keep pace, her feet barely touching the ground, her pigtails -- everyone knows the pigtails -- flowing behind.

In 1990, the image would be projected onto black vinyl, traced with a knife blade, glued onto yellow signs, topped with one word -- CAUTION -- and placed on the shoulders of freeways, mostly along Interstate 5 north of the Mexican border.

The sign served as a warning that drivers could encounter people racing across the interstate -- most of them trying to get from Mexico into the United States. It would become one of the most iconic and enduring images associated with the nation's war over illegal immigration. And it would leave John Hood, now 59 years old and preparing to retire, conflicted and ambivalent about his strange legacy.

"What does it mean," he asked the other day, after sifting through his work, "to live a meaningful life?"

Hood was always an artist, always an observer.

A Navajo, he grew up on a reservation in a corner of New Mexico where people lived 7,000 feet above sea level, amid junipers and cedars, mountain lions and coyotes. His parents were illiterate; his home had no electricity or running water, and he slept on a pile of sheepskins.

"My childhood," he said with a smile, "was fulfilled in every dimension."

...The signs, which went up in 1990, have been stolen, vandalized and -- increasingly obsolete as immigration routes have shifted to Arizona and Texas -- taken down. There are just a handful left today; few people attempt to cross I-5.

But the image has never been more prevalent -- or relevant.

It has been seized upon by people on all sides of the immigration debate. Anti-immigration groups offer T-shirts that depict the same family -- being chased by a man with a gun. On Olvera Street in Los Angeles, the image is used as a symbol of immigrant pride.

Then there are those who have adopted the image simply because of its notoriety, including shops that offer T-shirts showing the same family carrying surfboards. In a signature installment of his TV show "Mind of Mencia," comic Carlos Mencia -- whose family immigrated to East L.A. from Honduras when he was an infant -- filmed a segment based on the sign. "Maybe," Mencia says at one point in the segment, "it's telling them: 'Run across the freeway. Just do it really fast.' "

A photograph of the sign is hanging at the National Museum of American History, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

"In museums, we are constantly looking for objects that transcend their own history," said Peter Liebhold, chairman of the museum's Division of Work and Industry. "This is, without a doubt, an icon of the current immigration debate. It's taken on meaning that was never intended."

Here is an openly-racist video game that takes inspiration from the image, showing the vitriolic nature of the immigration "debate."