Border Crossing: Cruzando el Rio Bravo
Luis Jiménez
1989
Fiberglass and urethane finish
127x34x54
Located in the Art on Campus Collection at Iowa State University.

Working Class Heroes, Images from the Popular Culture
Michael Brenson, contributing essayist

"(The) walking man, with his wife on his shoulders sheltering their child, suggests St. Christopher, the Christian saint who carried Christ on his shoulders across a river and then devoted himself to saving, in a similar fashion, the poor and weak."

This sculpture commemorates hundreds of thousands of Mexicans who have responded to the pull of the southwest United States, including Jiménez's farther who entered the United States in 1924. This image of stamina and solidarity is a celebration of the immigrant and Chicano family as a unit that is at once ceremonial totem pole, family tree, and infinitely adaptable home.