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Show DAILY Sunday, April 6, 2008 1 r A3 mmtm Mm waraiig sifp ims Scott Gold artist, with an eye for delicate detail, for the interface of light and shadow. Shortly before he married a second time, he was s, hired as a graphic artist at the state transportation department, f His portfolio would soon start filling up with routine projects: the cover of the department's phone directory, photo manipulations showing what freeways would look like with new carpool lanes. Then, in the 1980s, pedestrians started getting killed on California interstates with alarming regularity. The state declared two "danger zones" along Interstate 5. The first was in the San Ysidro area, just north of the border. There, in just a few years, 100 people had been struck by cars and killed as they attempted to race into the United States. The second was an eight-mil- e stretch between Oceans-id- e and San Clemente, near the immigration checkpoint There, coyotes human would order traffickers migrants to spill out of cars and trucks and run into the surrounding hills, a route that often took them across lanes of traffic. Another 30 people had been killed. The dead were typically the last ones across the road: the very young'and the very old. The state hurriedly assembled a task force, which included several agencies. Drivers, the state decided, needed to be alerted to the possibility of migrants running across traffic lanes. There were just a few graphic artists in the San Diego office; the task fell to Hood. "It was just part of the job," he says, though he knows it's more complicated than that. There were several versions, some stuffed in the envelopes of residential electric bills, other posted at rest LOS ANGELES TIMES ;. HERALD On the fifth floor of Building ;TwoM the state Department CAUTION I Cal-tran- I of Transportation's San Diego J compoimd, a bear of a man with a quiets voice sits in a cu- bicle straight out of "DUbert." He is surrounded by pf overpasses and vtrucking lanes. There are pho--Jto-s 0f his son, training semi-- l nar Jpertif icates, cups of Jell-and bottles of Tabasco, the remnants of 27 years at the same job, 27 years of eating y lunch at his desk, 27 years of unremarkable government bu-with one notable reaucracy ij exceptiqa "Here it is," says John Hood, I rifling through a portfolio. The drawing he pulls out was done ' t 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, CAUtopped with one word TION 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 most of them tryinterstate ing 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 immigratioa 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 g asked the other day, after through his work, "to live a meaningful life?" Hood was always an artist, always an observer. A Navajo, he grew up in the northwest corner of New Mexico on a reservation where fewer than 3,000 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." Hood went to boarding school, but much of his educa-- v tion came at home. His grand-- mother showed him how to ; shear their sheep and spin the wool into yarn. His grandfa- ther showed him how to pick I medicinal herbs land how to the gather bright pollen from tra-in use to cornstalks ) of tips ditional ceremonies. Hood illustrated many pieces ' of his life, sometimes etching his drawings on the walls or ; ) his family's barn. "1 used to watch the animals ' too," he said. "A horse will be he staring away from you, but his .'' can see ears; with you you can see his ears going back and forth. It sounds weird, but You you can learn from that. can You aware. be to can learn : learn to see." ' Before he finished high school, he enlisted in the Maa Within 1968. was It rines. His year, he was in Da Nang. . ' tour in Vietnam was terrify-- ;' ing and defining. He often volunteered to walk "point" on ' and carried C4 plastic ' patrol, explosives to blow up booby , traps. His platoon called him blue-sprin- ts 0 " ;;" 5O f . I : , ; .... .. SCOTT QOLDLos Angeles Times In this 1 993 photo, a worker sets a post for a fence in the median near San Clemente, Calif. Another danger zone was identified in that area. sual tool that made it easy to demonstrate the idea of motion, of running. The signs, which went up in 1990, have been stolen, vandalized and increasingly obsolete as immigration routes have shifted to Arizona and taken dowa There Texas are just a handful left today; few people attempt to cross Interstate 5. ple." But the image has never In the end, he thought about or relbeen more prevalent family. evant. "When you think about a little girl, you are more sensi- . It has been seized upon by tive to something horrific," people on all sides of the imhe said. Plus, he said,'he could migration debate. a vi groups offer give the girl pigtails stops. In some, the characters had eyes and other features; officials felt those would be too detailed for motorists to discern at high speed. In another, the mother juggled a baby and a sweater, but that too was deemed overly complicated for the freeway. "People are going fast," Hood said. "It had to be sim- Hood knows something about foreigners coming onto your land; his people were rounded up and marched from their homes after the Civil War. He also knows something about poverty, about taking risks and leaving behind what you know in pursuit of a better life. in Washingtoa "I heardm commentator Hood does not fit tidily on on talk radio the other day," either side of the immigraHood said. "He said: T want tion debate. He is a registered Democrat, though he has my country back!' American Indians hve been saying the voted for Republicans. He is torn about the upcoming presi- same thing for a long time. dential election. He does not Really, whose country is this? or political abide bigotry Why is there so much hatred in this world?" correctness. that depict the same family being chased by a man with a gua On Olvera Street in Los Angeles, the image is used as a symbol of immigrant pride. . A photograph of the sign is hanging at the National Museum of American History, part of the Smithsonian Institution , ;ue gift sift-,in- V .1.50 or more " - ' . ? - , ;:t,.'.- - f . v n .. A . K - I I 1 v-- . 1 ' ": -- 's - ainC'jck tag Your choice of coimetics in pink or purple I , J f j j p, clin:que j i Vf .' . "Chief." came Being an infantryman natu-l naturally to him, or asSome of as it can come. FOR YOUR PURCHASE, MAY WE SUGGEST: NEW! Almost Powder Makeup SPF 15. rally the tricks he used to survive had roots back home the I way, for instance, that he could often locate the enemy f Ltter- by studying the sunlight 'J ing through the jungle canopy. He was in, he estimates, at C least 20 firefights. Many of his comrades didn't make it. "I lost a lot of things there, I he said. "Friends. Youth." At the end of his tour, he was sent back to the United States and stationed at Camp Pendleton in Southern California. He was sure the war fcaH tpft him with no enduring 2 wounds, but he was wrong. He began navuig iluailuvg Provides sheer, natural-lookin- g Available in 8 shades. 22.50. the magic of ivmacys rhnsinirhim.aman helpless against. He s he WasAWOL and caught. got e 5 He started drinking. His (efl apart. he Through the G.I. Bill " started taking classes in fine o con nireo State. He :: was a particularly fine graphic k went coverage. macys.com mar-triag- CllnlqurAINyWIO '" - ...1 |