The above sign has become as recognizable as the "stop sign."

There is a father, leading the way with a clear sense of urgency, bent at the waist. A mother, running behind him, despite the prim dress that hugs her knees. A little girl, holding her mother's hand, unable to keep pace, her feet barely touching the ground, her pigtails -- everyone knows the pigtails -- flowing behind.

In the LATimes there was a recent article about John Hood, a Navajo, a Vietnam vet, and artist behind the "running immigrants" sign.

The story behind the image started in the 1980's. Over those years there were so many pedestrian deaths along the California interstate, the state declared two "danger zones" on I-5. The state decided there had to be some way to alert and warn drivers of the people racing across the highways. The victims tended to be the very young and very old. The task fell on John Hood, as one of the few graphic artists employed in the San Diego office.

"It was just part of the job," he says, though he knows it's more complicated than that.

People are going fast," Hood said. "It had to be simple."

In the end, he thought about family.

"When you think about a little girl, you are more sensitive to something horrific," he said. Plus, he said, he could give the girl pigtails -- a visual tool that made it easy to demonstrate the idea of motion, of running.

The signs were first put in place in 1990, and since then have been stolen, vandalized, and taken down. With the immigration issue becoming more volatile each passing year, the image is even more important and prevalent than it was back then. Both sides of the immigration issue have used the image.

Anti-immigration groups offer T-shirts that depict the same family -- being chased by a man with a gun. On Olvera Street in Los Angeles, the image is used as a symbol of immigrant pride.

And what does the original artist, John Hood, think of it all? As a Native American, Hood knows a thing or two about foreigners taking over.

"I heard a commentator on talk radio the other day," Hood said. "He said: 'I want my country back!' American Indians have been saying the same thing for a long time. Really, whose country is this? Why is there so much hatred in this world?"

Hood hopes to retire soon and go back to his home on a New Mexico reservation.