SIMI VALLEY : Library Show Honors Immigrants

An art exhibit honoring 100 years of American immigration makes its debut today at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near Simi Valley.

The exhibit, entitled “Journey’s End: A New Beginning,” is the result of a competition sponsored by the U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1991 to celebrate the agency’s centennial.

The national competition drew more than 200 submissions of artwork. After judging, the collection was narrowed to a 36-painting exhibit that opened at the Georgetown University Art Gallery in November, 1991. The artwork has also been displayed at Ellis Island in New York and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.

“I think that the immigrant art is a fascinating collection, especially in a place like Los Angeles, where you have so much ethnicity and so many ethnic groups,” library Director Ralph C. Bledsoe said.

The library will display about 20 of the paintings through May 24, Bledsoe said. They can be viewed by library visitors at no extra cost.

Bledsoe said the exhibit’s variety of topics reflects the important role that immigration has played in shaping the country.

Among the pieces on display is Erica Miller’s “100 Years of Helping Hands,” which took the grand prize in the INS competition. The entry includes four separate paintings of hands shaking, grasping and holding.

Beth Grossman of Oakland painted her bright-red “Entrance to America” on an actual wooden door. The piece depicts her great- grandmother, Bella, arriving in the United States after fleeing Russia.

Each of the paintings is hung in the library’s gallery section next to short explanatory passages written by the artists. Other subjects in the exhibit are an Italian couple on their wedding day in 1901, a butcher in Chinatown, farm workers in the fields, a group of escaped slaves in Virginia and an overhead view of Ellis Island.

“The idea of what our country is really based on, the bringing of people together, is really exemplified in the art,” Bledsoe said.

The library, 40 Presidential Drive, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.