Artist's monument to migrants finds trouble in Santa Fe

Structure's completion in Railyard delayed by safety concerns

Tom Sharpe | The New Mexican

7/21/2008 - 7/22/08

Neil Bernstein calls his sculpture, Golden Gates Bridge Over Troubled Borders, a memorial to Mexican immigrants who risk their lives illegally crossing the border.

Railyard officials call the 40-foot-tall jumble of gold-painted plastic pipe and flowing metallic fabric, which began going up this month next to El Museo Cultural, a potential hazard.

Richard Czoski, director of the Santa Fe Railyard Community Corp., has asked that work cease until a construction permit has been obtained and that a fence be erected around the artwork to prevent people from climbing it.

"We're not in the business of judging art," he said. "We're just in the business of making sure that it's safe and structurally sound and engineered correctly."

Bernstein, however, maintains the rejection of his artwork is connected to the prejudice against Latino immigrants.

"They've got a big commercial space here, and I don't think they're happy seeing this," he said. "They're seeing some resistance because, you know, people like to come to Santa Fe to have a nice luxury weekend and experience million-dollar paintings. They don't want to see this."

El Museo Cultural director Tom Romero, who invited Bernstein to "resurrect" his artwork in the Railyard, agrees.

"That's what our government is doing — putting up fencing to keep out people," he said. "So it ought to raise some commentary at least."

Bernstein, 49, was a commodities broker in New York City who narrowly missed being in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, when 28 of his coworkers were killed. The next year, he left for Tucson, Ariz., where he began to learn about the ordeal that Mexicans face trying to find a route into the United States.

"The tragedy that happened at ground zero is very similar to the tragedy that's happening at the border," he said. "It's one big Holocaust with a capital H."

At the urging of some Arizona artists, he said, he began building Golden Gates along a migrant trail near Arivaca, Ariz., "as a passageway for hopeless people. ...

"When you're out in the desert near the border, there's no line in the sand, there's no entry port. What I wanted to do is create a monument where migrants could feel welcome."

On a practical level, the plastic pipe holds up to 1,500 gallons of water that can be tapped by thirsty immigrants. The weight of the water also provides some structural stability to the piece, Bernstein said.

Soon after he finished the first piece this spring, he said, two men who identified themselves as Minutemen told him they were going to destroy it because, "We don't want no Jews from New York down here putting stupid art up in our territory." The next day, someone used two pickups to pull his piece apart and left it strewn around the desert, he said.

Bernstein, who said his father was Jewish but he is Christian, like his mother, said he rebuilt the piece several more times in other locations, only to have it torn down each time. Just last week in Santa Fe, he said, his Mercedes was pelted with rocks by men who yelled obscenities at him.

Among the items Bernstein planned to add to the piece are a winged javelina, a white steel casket with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and debris from the migrant trails. But those will have to await the construction permit. Romero has arranged for a chain-link fence to be erected Wednesday.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.