Episode 3: Sanctuary Goes Mainstream

Sanctuary: On the Border Between Church and State

Sanctuary-mania? Perhaps that’s a stretch, but by the mid-1980s, thousands of Americans had pledged their support for a faith-based movement to offer safe harbor to Central American asylum seekers, even if it meant they might have to go to jail. In episode three, Barba and González delve into the dramatically rapid growth of the sanctuary movement as it matured into a transnational phenomenon. They focus on two major geographic hubs that moved sanctuary beyond the borderlands, the San Francisco Bay Area and Chicago. Houses of worship joined the movement at a blistering pace, thanks in large part to the work of migrants themselves who shared their testimonies about political and religious repression across the United States. Chicago’s rise to prominence as the de-facto orchestrator of the underground railroad to transport refugees away from the border areas came with sharp disagreements within the movement. The rift over mission and strategy was demonstrated in the tensions between the Chicago and Tucson hubs of the movement.

Additional Resources:

• San Francisco East Bay Oral Histories, provided by the Graduate Theological Union
• “Basta! Chicago Religious Task Force on Central America, 1983-1992 (online collection),” provided by the Wisconsin Historical Society.
• Presbyterian Historical Society (PHS) LIVE: Sanctuary and Accompaniment (2022)
• PBS Frontline, Sanctuary (1983)

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