Artist Statement: Chain Migration

Chain Migration is a steel sculpture built from a series of welded cubic and rectangular cut tubes with a chain running through them—simple and connected. Each form represents a family member: parent, child, grandparent, sibling…or possibly not even a family member at all. They vary in size, but are linked in proximity. What begins as a portrait of unity transforms into something more haunting. The same "chain" that brought families together is being used to drag them apart.

But the term "chain migration" carries an even heavier legacy. Long before it was twisted into a political talking point, Africans were literally chained and forcibly brought to America—ripped from their families, languages, and homelands. The Middle Passage was the original chain migration: not of hope, but of horror. That legacy—of forced migration, broken families, and state-sanctioned violence—lives on. This sculpture recognizes that today's immigration battles are inseparable from America's foundation in racialized displacement.

This tension is the lived reality of many: families torn apart at airports, detained in ICE facilities, deported without warning, often after decades of life in the U.S.—after paying taxes, raising children, and contributing deeply to the fabric of American society.

The cubes are intentionally unadorned. No faces. No language. No decoration. Because to the systems removing them, individuality doesn’t matter. Only status. Only documentation. Only control.