The Mexican flag no longer flies above the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, after it's been used for more than 50 years as symbol of the organization’s bi-nationality.
The museum received complaints about the flag as many as two or three times a week, said spokesman Tim Vimmerstedt.
Mexican and U.S. flags have flown above the museum since 1954, Vimmerstedt said. Both flags were flown because the expanse of the Sonoran Desert includes both Mexican and U.S. territory.
The museum will now use other methods to convey to visitors the multi-nationalism of the Sonoran Desert, Vimmerstedt said.
The museums board of trustees, which has 18 members, voted on Sept. 26 to lower the flag, which came down today, Vimmerstedt said.
The complaints started escalating in the past year, Vimmerstedt said, but he stopped short of connecting the complaints to the growing debate surrounding illegal immigration.
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He said people — sometimes passionately — questioned why the Mexican flag was being flown on U.S. soil and that the museum could have done a better job conveying the organization's bi-nationalism.
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