Refugees, Religious Spaces, and Sanctuary In Wisconsin

Abstract

This chapter examines the process of religious placemaking, sanctuary formation, and social movement building in the Latinx Midwest. In the 1980s, Christian and Jewish communities in the region joined a national movement to offer sanctuary to hundreds of thousands of Salvadoran and Guatemalan asylees fleeing persecution in their homelands and arbitrary deportation from the U.S. Influenced by scriptural exhortations to offer safe harbor to those in need, sanctuary members transformed church spaces into places for both spiritual communion and political fellowship. Through an analysis of the organizational records of the activist organizations and congregations that joined the sanctuary movement as well as the testimonies of asylees finding hospitality in the region, this chapter charts how these religious sites have been crucial locations for a form of sanctified Latinx placemaking in the U.S. Midwest