Juan and Ricardo Compean, Immigration Cup/Copa inmigración a.k.a. deport-a-mex foosball, 2008.

Chicago’s March 2006 protest on behalf of undocumented workers and immigrants was one of the largest demonstrations in the city’s history. The following year, Elvira Arellano’s campaign against deportation made national headlines. The NMMA recognizes Chicago’s central role in the United States’ immigration debate with three years of related programming, starting with this sprawling show.

More than 70 artists’ posters, videos, paintings, photographs and other works—as well as family heirlooms lent by the city’s cultural centers—remind viewers that almost every American is an immigrant or the descendant of immigrants. Hee Jin Kang’s photographs of her Korean family’s deli in Queens, New York, portray American-born children struggling to communicate with their parents across linguistic and cultural gaps. Yet by focusing on her parents’ collections of Korean and American kitsch, Kang conveys their pride in both their children and their adopted community.

Many pieces address U.S.-Mexico border tensions, including Delilah Montoya’s panoramic photographs of the watering holes and discarded backpacks that dot the Southwestern desert. Mid-20th-century ex-voto paintings depict hopeful Mexicans envisioning the American cities that await them, but Marianne Sadowski’s contemporary versions emphasize the loneliness and fear involved in immigration. The show strengthens the convictions of visitors who sympathize with immigrants of all kinds. Those who subscribe to stereotypes of “illegal aliens” stealing American jobs will find their views challenged at every turn.