Iconic road sign nearly extinct
So many immigrants crossing illegally into the United States through California were killed by cars and trucks along the 5 Freeway that John Hood was given an assignment.
In the early 1990s, the Caltrans worker was tasked with creating a road sign to alert drivers to the possible danger.
Silhouetted against a yellow background and the word “CAUTION,” the sign featured a father, waist bent, head down, running hard. Behind him, a mother in a knee-length dress pulls on the slight wrist of a girl — her pigtails flying, her feet barely touching the ground.
Ten signs once dotted the shoulders of the 5 Freeway, just north of the Mexican border. They became iconic markers of the perils of the immigrant journey north. But they began to disappear — victims of crashes, storms, vandalism and the fame conferred on them by popular culture.
Today, one sign remains. And when it’s gone, it won’t be replaced — the result of California’s diminished role as a crossing point for immigrants striving to make it to America. For all the often vitriolic talk about illegal immigration, debates about sanctuary cities and U.S. President Donald Trump’s promise to build a massive — and “beautiful” — wall along the southern border, few places have seen the generational decline in illegal crossings like California.
In 1986, the San Diego sector recorded its highest number of border crossing apprehensions in a year: 628,000, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics. The area — geographically the smallest for Border Patrol — was once the busiest sector for illegal immigration in the U.S., accounting for more than 40 per cent of nationwide apprehensions in the early ’90s.
In fiscal year 2016, Border Patrol agents apprehended 31,891 people in the San Diego sector suspected of crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
And so the famous border crossing signs, Caltrans officials say, have become largely obsolete.
Over the years, the signs took on a fame and meaning that belied the utility that inspired them — popping up in TV shows and movies, in street art and T-shirts.
In 2011, British street artist Banksy reinterpreted the image while visiting Los Angeles, adding a kite to the man’s free hand, turning a frantic run toward an unknown future and destination into a whimsical scene.
Student immigrant rights activists adopted the sign as their logo, adding graduation caps, gowns and diplomas to the characters. Other parodies depict the characters wearing Pilgrim hats — a message intended to convey that the Mayflower’s passengers did not ask Native Americans for permission before settling in Massachusetts.
Those opposed to illegal immigration re-imagined the signs, depicting the family as a threat, with the man brandishing a rifle.
A photograph of the sign hangs at the National Museum of American History, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
Ageneration after they were installed, the last of the “running immigrants” signs stands on two wooden posts in a concrete median of northbound Interstate 5, just before a “Welcome to California” sign.