Huong, an artist, social activist, mother and former journalist, has spent a lifetime — since escaping the horrors of the Vietnam War, her baby boy in tow — contemplating freedom and what it means to flee a homeland and start over a world away.

She has spent a lifetime haunted by war and inspired by peace.

And for the last two years, the artist has worked on a project meant to bring the immigrant narrative, her own story, to life.

The result is IMMIGRATION Wall of Borders, an epic interactive work that contributes in its own way to the debate about the prickly issue of immigration reform. The mural, eight feet high and 200 feet long, at once subdued and powerful, features intaglio works and quotes from political and social leaders. Huong also left open spaces for viewers to add their own quotes, essentially facilitating a conversation about immigration.

“I was looking for way to capture the voices of history and to move the subject of immigration reform forward. I want to see the policies applied in a fair way to everyone,” says Huong, 62, a prolific self-taught artist. “Many years ago, this nation opened its doors for me and my son. I want others to have the same opportunity. This feels like a personal calling.”

The immigration mural — part of Huong’s tradition of painting history as it unfolds and the newest chapter in her larger Peace Mural — will be unveiled to the public Saturday at the Miami Art Palace, her nearly 11,000-square-foot, Taj Mahal-inspired home and studio. Afterward, she hopes to exhibit it at a public place in South Florida.

The bones of the project are works by the Joseph Demarais, a printmaker who died in 1971. In the mid 1990s, Demarais’ widow gave Huong some 500 of his prints. The artist began looking for the right way to showcase the collection, which uses intaglio relief techniques, and decided Demarais’ earth-toned images embodied the spirit of ancestry and the contributions immigrants have made to the United States.

Huong describes Wall of Borders as “a giant book” that combines Demarais’ life work with quotes that present “the different voices of America — from the first president to the newest immigrants, from the Constitution to the current debates on this critical national issue.”

Through it, she says, “I hope viewers will see where America comes from and consider where they want it to go and how today’s immigration policies will shape our future.”

Huong divided the mural into 70 panels, connected by 200 Demarais prints and 200 quotes she inlaid by hand. Among the voices: John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson, Mother Teresa, President Barack Obama and Janet Napolitano, U.S. secretary of Homeland Security.

After the Miami opening, Huong says she plans to travel with the exhibit across the nation, ending in Washington, where she hopes to present it to the Department of Homeland Security.

Huong’s art is rooted in her own story. In 1975, as a 25-year-old mother and journalist, she escaped Vietnam with her infant son in one of the last refugee boats during the fall of Saigon. The war had claimed her father, a colonel in the South Vietnamese army and a prisoner of war, and her two brothers.

Huong eventually settled in Kodiak, Alaska, where she was lured to the canvas by the beguiling frontier landscapes. She sold her paintings, which often depicted harbor life, to local fishermen. She has since had more than 100 solo exhibits in galleries and museums, universities and public spaces in the United States and Canada.