Immigrant-led Movements HTE615 / B
Many Christians serve immigrants by providing hospitality, help, and solidarity. But how can people relate to immigrants in ways that center immigrant lives and processes for justice? How can we move beyond the helper/helped relationships that make one group hosts/insiders and the other group outsiders/guests? This class will think with voices from immigrant-led processes about the troubling assumptions embedded in the helper/helped relational pattern that is at the center of traditional models for serving immigrants, from the church sanctuary movement to nongovernmental organization advocacy efforts. We will also think with interlocutors from immigrant-led movements about what it means for people from outside such processes 鈥� such as Christians from dominant White cultures, among others 鈥� to join them. The course will explore biblical, historical, theological, Global South feminist, sociological, and peace studies texts together with voices from immigrants who are engaged in organizing. We鈥檒l seek to understand how popular processes open new relational models of nonviolent protest and transformation.