At a time when immigrants are a major political issue, one local artist is putting them front and center in her gallery.

Mona Adisa Brooks, owner and curator of The Art Source at 8 Grove St. in Peterborough, has created an exhibition to honor the people who have come to these shores via images and stories shared by individuals from the Monadnock region. 

The Art Source offers a variety of works, from a copper sculpture and wood carvings to textiles, charcoal sketches and paintings, but “I Am An Immigrant” is a project that is evolving in a dedicated space.

“This is my response to the fears pending,” she said on a recent Friday.”It’s an homage to our heritage. Most Americans are immigrants or descended from them, people who sought opportunity and freedom on our shores.” 

According to the National Park Service, which oversees Ellis Island, the major intake point for most immigrants arriving from Europe, 40% of the U.S population are descendants of immigrants who came through the site in New York. Angel Island in San Francisco was the entry point immigrants from Asia faced on the West Coast; 18% of those who crossed the Pacific seeking entry to the United States were turned away. At Ellis Island, the rejection rate was 2%.

The exhibition includes photographs as old as a century and more, many with several generations of proud families standing before their storefronts or in their Sunday best for more-formal family portraits. Some have austere faces, perhaps trying to mirror the unsmiling titans of the Gilded Age or the presidents they had seen on American money. One well-preserved image from 1883 in what appears to be an industrial lumber yard shows two young women in white dresses. Some have names in the caption, while others do not.

One caption under a photograph provided by a granddaughter explains how two adults in it came from different parts of Italy through Ellis Island made new lives in New York. The man was a stonemason who helped dig the Lincoln Tunnel. The woman cooked, and they had two sons, one of whom was the father of the local individual who shared this photo with Brooks. Of the grandparents and the two boys in the image, the caption concludes, “They loved America.”

“I’m trying to raise awareness that we’re all here together, now. All those people who risked coming here on all those boats,” said Brooks, pointing at various images on a wall. “They made it, in brave attempts, like Icarus, who actually flew before the wax in his wings melted.”

The ICE raid at a the Mi Jalisco Mexican restaurant in Peterborough a few months ago is a raw subject with her.

“Immigrants and their families are under threat in America,” she said. “Immigrants continue to become Americans and make the United States wealthier, freer and safer.” 

Brooks has been creating for over 40 years, has works at a Smithsonian in Washington and is also an educator who teaches in her gallery. She believes that artists have a responsibility to society.

“Artists are advocates who foster empathy for others and a sense of community. We’re documentarians, and raise awareness about issues that threaten freedom,” she said.

One creation she’s enamored of is the Statue of Liberty, which at its base has the words of poet Emma Lazarus: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

“I Am An Immigrant” continues to grow. Brooks is extending an invitation to anyone with images related to a story of coming to these shores at any time in history.

“I want people to send me black-and-white photographs of ancestors who came here and helped to build the country. Include the name of the family members,” she said, adding that some who have contributed to the project have preferred to remain anonymous. 

Brooks' own story is one for which she is very thankful. She was given her middle name, Adisa, by her grandfather. It means “next to God” in Lebanese, and is a name that will become part of her enterprise in the near future.

“I never had to think about what I was going to do,” she said in discussing her art, and she revels in teaching it to others in her classes.