Why A Group Of San Diegans Wants To Build A West Coast Statue Of Liberty

Speaker 1: 00:00 San Diego could soon be home to a west coast version of the Statue of Liberty. Right now, there is a fundraising campaign to raise $1 million to build a 40 foot monument of Mary mother of Jesus. As Lady Liberty organizers say, it will stand as a symbol to welcome a new generation of immigrants and refugees coming to the U S it's a move that sits in sharp contrast and messages coming from the White House. Here's acting director of US citizenship and immigration services. Ken Cuccinelli on NPRs morning edition last week, revising Emma Lazarus, his famous words on the Statue of Liberty, Speaker 2: 00:36 give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge. Speaker 1: 00:43 Cuccinelli was speaking about a new rule that targets legal immigration. Joining me or Jim Bli snare the artist and sculptor for this west coast monument and Ashley Servantez with the San Diego organizing project, which is leading the effort to build the statue. Welcome to you both. Speaker 3: 00:59 Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Speaker 1: 01:01 Thank you. So Ashley, first a, I want to get your thoughts on Cuccinelli's comments. What was your reaction when you heard Cuccinelli's revision of the famous inscription? Speaker 3: 01:10 So when I saw it, I thought though this is a joke and um, it felt like an attack specially to my community, you know, just like you have to make the comments and differentiate people like split them up, which is not what America is. Speaker 1: 01:28 And Jim, can you describe the design of the statute for ice and how you developed it? Speaker 4: 01:33 Well, the welcome the stranger sculpture. It's a memorial to the international migrant and their struggle, the body, the turgid forms of the robe, uh, symbolize the struggle that the migrant experiences in searching for safety and opportunity and the scattered colors on the robe represent moments of repose and comfort along the way. They uplifted torch. And the right hand is a symbol of hope. It mimics the statue of liberty and it pays attention to the poem by a mls or [inaudible] the new colossus, which specifically states that the flame is the imprisoned lightning. And Our name is a mother of exiles from her beacon hand glows worldwide Welker and her mild eyes command a. So Emma Lazarus had the worldwide oppressed in mind as did the sculpture who created the statue of Liberty and uses the torch as a beacon of hope. Speaker 1: 02:29 Why marry a mother of Jesus as Lady Liberty, Speaker 3: 02:33 Mary mother, like we said, mother of Jesus, I don't think is there is anything else more pure than a mother's love and the Catholic faith, me being Catholic, we turned to Marion moments of hope, moments of depression when we just need that small little glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel. I was actually, before coming here, we were talking about this and I told, it's like when you leave home, you come back and you look for your mom, you know? So Mary represents that, that warm love, hope for all of us. Speaker 4: 03:10 I was commissioned by the San Diego or organizing project to explore the concept of welcoming a stranger to change the narrative on the boarder. It sits on the border, it overlooks Tijuana River valley, and you can see all of Tijuana from the campus. And as we listened to the members of the congregation, it became clear that they were personally familiar with the experience of the migrant. And that emotional dialogue was what led to us doing the design. And of course, uh, in that culture, uh, Mary is almost called terminus with the statue of Liberty in terms of, uh, how it resonates, how it creates and how it, uh, manages to invoke hope in the midst of despair. Speaker 1: 03:57 And you know, as you, as you said, it's to change the narrative. And also the purpose behind this new statue is to welcome, you know, a new wave of migrants and refugees coming to this country, but doesn't the national monument already do that? Um, why do you think a second one is needed right here in San Diego? Speaker 3: 04:15 I think that it's very important to have one in San Diego because we are a border city. And, um, with everything that has been going on in these past few months, this past year with the attacks on the community, the deportations, the splitting the families apart. Um, just to me having gone through that as well, personally, I think there was no option when it came to having something, a symbol of hope. Speaker 4: 04:45 It's a message that deserves to be restated according to you and data. There's between 150 and 200 million people waiting in limbo, uh, trying to escape oppressive environments, oppressive government, suppressive economic circumstances. That's nearly three fourths of the population of the United States sitting in settlement camps. The severity of the problem justifies and requires a restatement of what our national policy is. Our national policy isn't ethnic stratification, which is what came out of the president's, uh, staff's comments. It's about being able to listen to and do what you can within your means within your national means to respond to this need and that statue, that meaning that hope should be stated and restated over and over again. And we're hoping that, uh, the sculpture will, will do that. Speaker 1: 05:49 Let me ask you both this, uh, what do you say to those who believe this country is a nation of immigrants, but it's simply can't welcome everyone. Speaker 4: 05:58 That's true. That's true. And it can fill up. The economic resources aren't infinite. We have to balance that against the economic potential that immigrants represent. Uh, we have to be aware of that and build it into modified immigration policies. You know, we also have a responsibility to deal with circumstances in the countries where that oppression's happening. And uh, you know, immigration policy just doesn't start and stop at the border. Speaker 3: 06:32 Adding on to what he says. I also think that there are, um, I agree there, there are ways to go about it though as well. And um, a way to go about it. It's not, for example, having a family that is here that by one reason or another, it hasn't been possible for them to be able to get residency and splitting them up. I don't think that's a way to go about it into like, oh, we don't all fit here, you know, because they deserve to be here just as much as we do. And once you start breaking families apart, then it's kind of like a domino effect. Speaker 4: 07:08 So Jim, talk about the fundraising effort and how is it going? When do you expect to break ground? Welcome the stranger.us is the place to donate a, we're selling bricks. We're building a beautiful patio at the base of the sculpture. It's costing as much as the sculpture and probably accounts for most of the permitting that we've had to do. We've been going through an exhaustive intensive permitting process with the city and the what the Federal Aviation Administration. We didn't just want to build a piece of art, a sculpture and set it at the corner of the parking lot. And so we have designed a patio. Uh, we will light it at night. It will be visible all across to wanna, uh, from the Ocean to OTA Mesa. You'll be able to see this beacon of hope and um, we hope to break ground by two months, three months. We're ready to go. All right. I've been speaking with Ashley Servantez and Jim [inaudible] who are both working to build a statue of Mary as lady liberty here in the West. Thank you both for joining us. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Speaker 5: 08:23 [inaudible].