Somebody pushed over an assemblage honoring Latin American immigrants on Thursday afternoon, leaving the artwork crumpled over the roof of El Museo Cultural.

Neil Bernstein, who recently finished Golden Gates Bridge Over Troubled Borders, said he suspects the vandalism was the work of the same anti-immigration activists who sabotaged his artwork several times earlier this year in southern Arizona.

But an initial investigation revealed no indications of that.

Although there is no proof of a political motive, the destruction "speaks to the state of our community," said Museo Director Tom Romero, who invited Bernstein to put up the work in early July. "I didn't think this would happen here in Santa Fe. I knew people would take sides and have a lot of discussions."

Museo officials first noticed the vandalism about 4:30 p.m. Thursday.

Someone had cut through a nylon strap on a gate in the chain-link fence around the work, unbolted the lock on another nylon strap supporting the structure and then pushed it over onto the building's metal roof.

Bernstein said he had only recently put the finishing touches on the 40-foot-high assemblage of gold-painted plastic pipe, metal scaffolding and flowing gold curtains. The artwork also includes a winged javelina, found objects from migrant trails through the desert, a white metal coffin with images of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the flags of both the United States and Mexico.

"We had had a complaint from someone who called anonymously (to say) that the American flag was not higher than the Mexican flag, so we raised (the U.S. flag) up to a higher level," he said.

Bernstein, who was planning a grand opening Aug. 9, said he will leave the work like it is for a few days, then begin looking for volunteers to help him resurrect it. "I'm not going to take this sitting down," he said.

The Santa Fe Railyard Community Corp., which manages the 40 acres of city land including El Museo's building, recently asked Romero to obtain a construction permit for the piece and put a fence around it so no one would try to climb it. Other Railyard tenants have complained about Bernstein's leaving pieces of the work strewn about the property and the aesthetics of the finished work.

Bernstein, 49, is a former New York City commodities broker who says he narrowly missed being inside the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. He compares that incident with the current situation along the U.S.-Mexican border. He figures he has invested about $30,000 in the piece so far with no financial aid except for $1,000 from El Museo for fencing and structural support.

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