What if we told you that one of the biggest movements to protect migrants in the history of the United States was led by people of faith? What if there was a movement that has been cultivated within religious spaces, dedicated to a radical hospitality - to live out the Gospel by welcoming the stranger?

In this first episode, Dr. Lloyd Barba and Dr. Sergio M. González, historians of Latino migration and religion, introduce this movement - one in which churches and synagogues transformed the way Americans understand the relationship between faith and politics. They explain how organizers deployed “usable sacred histories” in their development of the sanctuary movement, drawing upon scriptures and a centuries-old tradition to create and justify their protests and mobilizations. They also provide important context for understanding the violent Central American civil wars that created hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and led congregations to summon up the ancient idea of sanctuary in the 1980s.

Transcripts and Course Packs for Educators: https://linktr.ee/irmceorg

Additional Resources:

Benedictine Monks of Weston Priory - Sanctuary Page
Refugee Act 1980

Amherst College Sanctuary Website

Creators

Dr. Lloyd Daniel Barba is an Assistant Professor of Religion and Core Faculty in Latinx and Latin American Studies at Amherst College. He is the author of the award-winning book Sowing the Sacred: Mexican Pentecostal Farmworkers in California (Oxford University Press) and editor of Latin American and US Latino Religions in North America (Bloomsbury). His current research on the Sanctuary Movement includes A Refuge of Resistance: A History of the US Sanctuary Movement (under contract with Oxford University Press) and a volume edited with co-host Sergio González, Sacred Refuge: New Histories of the Sanctuary Movement (under contract with New York University Press).

Dr. Sergio M. González is Assistant Professor of History at Marquette University. He is the author of Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin (University of Illinois Press) and Mexicans in Wisconsin (Wisconsin Historical Society Press) and the co-editor of Faith and Power: Latino Religious Politics Since 1945 (New York University Press) with Felipe Hinojosa and Maggie Elmore. He is a co-founder and former organizer for the Dane Sanctuary Coalition and is currently completing a co-edited volume with co-host Lloyd Barba, Sacred Refuge: New Histories of the US Sanctuary Movement (under contract with New York University Press).

Funding for this series has been generously provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. Additional support was provided by the American Academy of Religion and Amherst College.

Executive Producer: Dr. Bradley Onishi (@bradleyonishi)

Audio Engineer: Scott Okamoto (@rsokamoto)

Production Assistance: Kari Onishi

Episode 1: Sanctuary in America