New Jersey Unveils Monuments Honoring Immigrant Labor

New Jersey has three new monuments to its immigrants. This summer, the New Jersey Monuments to Migration and Labor project (NJMML) inaugurated monumental outdoor commissions by artists Michelle Angela Ortiz, Chat Travieso and Immanuel Oni at sites across the state.

The works took shape through consultations with more than 1,000 community stakeholders. Their locations — spread between North, Central and South Jersey — reflect the culturally specific experiences of the prominent immigrant demographics in each region.

One of Ortiz's contributions is a pavilion honoring the Nouri brothers and the Fattal family, two immigrant families who have become staple retail grocers in Paterson.

The NJMML project frames the commissions as a deliberate counterpoint to the present climate. The initiative, its organizers state, comes amid a swell of vilification, exploitation and brutalization directed at immigrants of all demographics residing in the United States. Against that backdrop, the public art program carves out space to celebrate the cultural diversity and contributions of New Jersey's own immigrant communities.

NJMML Project Director Andrew Urban made the case for the monuments' urgency in a press statement. "I think the three monuments are distinguished by an awareness that celebration and reflection, which the pieces encourage, are not just secondary pursuits that can be sacrificed during times of crisis," Urban said.

He also credited the community participants, praising stakeholders for their willingness to "share their time, perspectives, and incredibly personal stories related to being migrants and laborers."

The installations are not the project's only output. A symposium on New Jersey Monuments to Migration and Labor is scheduled for Friday, October 16, at Rutgers University's Zimmerli Art Museum.

That gathering will give scholars, artists and community members a venue to extend the conversation the monuments began — a test of whether public art grounded in 1,000 personal testimonies can hold public attention beyond the inaugural summer.