A week after coming up with the title for this site-specific
installation, I thought I might rename it Brassing Into the
Earth. Because brassing isn’t a word, I decided to
stick with my original title. But “brassing in” was
a common phrase in the mining industry. Before heading down
the shafts and into the stopes, the miners—poor laborers
from Europe and Mexico—were given numbered brass tags.
When their shift was completed, they would return their tags
to the brassing in board, signifying that they had made it
out of the ground for another day.
An anonymous author wrote in the January 1910 issue of Mines
and Methods that “of professional men, probably there
is no class more blind to the call of . . . humanity than
most mining engineers.” According to historian Lynn
Bailey, “the American mining industry was [also] marked
by an appalling indifference to human life.” There
was “a general callousness toward the value of human
life” and “that value was often weighted according
to nationality.” It comes as no surprise that accidents
occurred almost daily within the Copper Queen and the Calumet & Arizona
Mines.
A few months ago, in preparation for this exhibit, I took
a tour of the Copper Queen Mine.
Our tour guide—an experienced Hispanic miner—explained
how mules were also part of the underground culture within
the mines. They worked in darkness until they went blind.
The callous treatment toward these animals became, for me,
an analogy of the callous treatment toward the immigrant
laborers, both historically and today.
