Sanctuary Movement Research Articles

The sanctuary movement and the smuggling of undocumented Central Americans into the United States: Crime, deviance, or defiance?

We introduce the concept of defiant behavior: actions that, although often defined politically as crime, are defined by their actors as necessary, legitimate, and morally appropriate. We then link this concept to two distinct substantive subfields of sociology: (1) criminology and the sociology of deviance and social control, and (2) political sociology and the sociology of social movements. A review of the literature on organized defiance suggests a clear theoretical confluence between the microstructural concept of biographic availability, drawn from the resource mobilization and political process perspectives within the sociology of social movements, and social control theories of crime and deviance. Likewise, there is a similar confluence between the socialization effects of prior activism, also from the resource mobilization perspective, and differential association/social learning theory in criminology. Finally, we present results from a study of the defiant activities of some members of the sanctuary movement. The form of defiance examined here, the smuggling of undocumented Central Americans across the United States‐Mexico border, provides a unique test of the scope and power of both social control and social learning theories. Based on self‐report survey data collected from a sample of 141 participants in the Tuscon, Arizona, sanctuary movement, our findings provide strong support for social learning theory but fail to support social control theory. In fact, the observed effects of the control theory variables are generally in a direction opposite to that predicted by the theory. Implications of the study for the theoretical development of criminology and deviance and for the sociological study of social movements are discussed.

Miriam Davidson Convictions of the Heart: Jim Corbett and the Sanctuary Movement

Miriam Davidson Convictions of the Heart: Jim Corbett and the Sanctuary Movement

The "Other" Civil Religion and the Tradition of Radical Quaker Politics

In 1981, an Arizona Quaker named Jim Corbett established the Sanctuary Movement,1 and used his church's involvement in the Un derground Railroad as precedent. In defending his illegal aid to Cen tral American refugees entering the United States, Corbett articulated a vision of American society that differed profoundly from the tradi tional civil religion identified by Robert Bellah two decades ago.2 Rather than seeing the U.S. as a divinely destined nation whose institu tions and leaders were acting out God's plan on earth, Corbett saw the American government as perpetrating evil. Its institutions and leaders, he argued, were acting against God's desire for peace. In Corbett's own words:

The culture of protest: religious activism and the U.S. sanctuary movement

Part 1 Crossing borders: constructing a movement the meaning of crossing borders transformations. Part 2 Sanctuary: alienation the refugee prosecution. Part 3 The culture of protest: a social critique practicing change rituals of resistance.

Women in the Sanctuary Movement. Robin LorentzenRachel's Daughters: Newly Orthodox Jewish Women. Debra Renee Kaufman

<i>Women in the Sanctuary Movement</i>. Robin Lorentzen<i>Rachel's Daughters: Newly Orthodox Jewish Women</i>. Debra Renee Kaufman

Women in the Sanctuary Movement

Acknowledgments 1. Introduction Sanctuary as a Women's Movement Sanctuary as a Political Process 2. A Natural History of the Chicago Movement Origins and Development Stages of Involvement 3. Ideological Splits Tucson and Chicago Leaders Local Men and Women Laywomen and Women Religious 4. Patterns and Conflicts in Women's Activities Leadership Outreach Translating Civil Disobedience Travel to Central America Caretaking The Impact of Background on Activism 5. Stages in Activist Women's Lives Humanitarian Path Religious Path Political Path Integration of Paths 6. The Effects of Life Structure Family Conflict and Support Women's Views of Liberation 7. Conclusion Women in Social Movements The Future of Sanctuary Appendix Notes Index

Women in the Sanctuary Movement.

Women in the Sanctuary Movement.

The Role of Religious Organizations in Social Movements

Preface Introduction by Barbara M. Yarnold Public Interest Lobbies Versus Minority Faction by Andrew S. McFarland The Role of Religious Organizations in the U.S. Sanctuary Movement by Barbara M. Yarnold The Role of Religious Organizations in the Peace Movement Between the Wars by William R. Marty The Role of Religious Organizations in the Gay and Lesbian Rights Movement by Steven H. Haeberle The Role of Religious Organizations in Evangelical Political Activity: The Moral Majority and Evangelicals for Social Action by Mel Hailey Bibliography Index

Women in the Sanctuary Movement

Women in the Sanctuary Movement

Goatwalking: A Guide to Wildland Living; A Quest for the Peaceable Kingdom by Jim Corbett

Reviews 243 Goatwalking: A Guide to Wildland Living; A Questfor the Peaceable Kingdom. ByJim Corbett. (New York: Viking, 1991. 237 pages, $19.95.) From the premise that it is possible for individuals with sufficient knowl­ edge of range-goat husbandry and edible plants to depend only upon a couple of milk goats for the nourishment and liquid necessary for survival in desert wildlands, Jim Corbett draws dramatic implications for the practice of a viable land ethic and the wholesale restructuring of society upon communitarian and ecological principles. In the process, Corbett somehow manages to deliver an intriguing autobiography, detail nuances of desert survival, challenge and rein­ terpret Western and Eastern philosophic traditions, negotiate convergences of Catholic liberation theology and Quaker belief, and depict the struggle of the sanctuary movement to assist political refugees from El Salvador during the mid 1980s. From pastoral nomadism to political activism, Corbett explores the possibility of discovering, adopting and maintaining a right way of being in the world. Though Larry McMurtry once called Edward Abbey “the Thoreau of the American West,”Jim Corbett may perhaps be more deserving of the title. At any rate, Goatwalking can certainly be read as a western Walden: Corbett’s rumina­ tions upon wilderness and natural history lead as inevitably as those of the New England sage to thorny issues of ethical judgement and social action. Corbett, however, even manages to work beyond Thoreau’s curmudgeonly isolationism and symbolic civil disobedience to articulate the dynamic workings of what he calls the “covenant community”and a process of “civil initiative”as foundations for healthful identity, revolutionary involvement, and a right relation with the earth. Goatwalking is a difficult book, dense with data, speculation, and moral imperative. The text defies taxonomy, but one recognizes—among other inter­ woven genre—the continuity of the confessional. Corbett’s severe self-scrutiny of a life lived in the demanding and fragile landscapes of the Sonoran desert and the American Southwest challenges attentive readers into honest confron­ tation with the social and ecological contradictions of their own existence and points to no easy way out. Though the terrain is treacherous, Corbett is at least a competent, if exacting, guide, and the example of his personal quest for a peaceable kingdom should serve to inform and inspire fellow travelers. MARK SCHLENZ University of California, Santa Barbara ...

Public Goods, Alienation, and Political Protest: The Sanctuary Movement as a Test of the Public Goods Model of Collective Rebellious Behavior

This study refutes an underlying assumption of many analyses of political protest: the fundamental alienation of protesters from the governmental system and political institutions of their country. Using the Sanctuary Movement as a case study, this research tests a recent modification of rational choice theory of collective action. While many of the findings support those of the Public Goods Model of Rebellious Collective Behavior (Muller and Opp, 1986), they contradict its basic assumption: that protesters are politically alienated. Overall this study contributes to the expanding literature concerning perceptions of the legitimate repertoire of action available to a democratic citizenry.

The Costs and Risks of Social Activism: A Study of Sanctuary Movement Activism

This study challenges thefrequent characterization of social movements as homogeneous webs of activity. Such a view distorts the activist experience and blinds scholars to the daily realities of activism. We use the concepts of and to distinguish activist experiences within a single social movement. Data obtained from 141 participants in the sanctuary movement show: (1) individuals engage in a variety of movement activities; (2) cost and risk are empirically distinguishable, along with their personal correlates; and (3) of the varables drawn from two dominant explanations of movement participation, biographical availability factors best predict high-cost activism (more hours devoted to the movement), while socialization factors best differentiate highrisk (direct contact with Central American refugees) from low-risk activists (no refugee contact). Two research questions have long dominated the sociological study of social movements: the macroquestion of movement emergence: Why do movements emerge in the first place?, and the microquestion of movement recruitment: Why do some individuals, but not others, join social movements? Our research is concerned with the latter question of social movement recruitment. In some ways, our study is concerned with issues preliminary to the question of recruitment. We ask, What are individuals being recruited to do? While this question may appear to be an obvious one to ask about movement recruitment, social movement scholars have paid minimal attention to it. We approach the study of social activism in several ways. First, we depart from the usual approach of studying recruitment. Rather than searching for factors that differentiate activists from nonactivists, we investigate variation between activists in the same movement. Next, we call into question a view often implied in the sociological study of social movements, a view that distorts the activist experience by depicting social movements as homogeneous webs of

The Costs and Risks of Social Activism: A Study of Sanctuary Movement Activism

The Costs and Risks of Social Activism: A Study of Sanctuary Movement Activism

Interpreting international and domestic law concerning refugees: The U.S. Government vs. the sanctuary movement

In order to assess the relative merits of these two contrasting views about U.S. obligations under international and domestic law concerning refugees, this article first examines briefly the relevant international law (the 1951 U.N. Convention and 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees and the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War) and the U.S. 1980 Refugee Act. Next it reviews the policy of the U.S. government concerning Central Americans who have come to the United States since 1980 and critiques U.S. policy based on the views of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the lawyers for the defense in the Jack Elder case, the General Accounting Office (GAO) and other recent research on Mexican and United States refugee policy. The article then assesses recent developments concerning Central American asylum applicants in southern Texas and the significance of court cases related to their treatment by the INS. Finally, it concludes with a look at some policy options available to the United States government that would bring its treatment of Central American migrants more in line with international and domestic legal expectations.

The sanctuary movement: A study in religious confrontation

This essay examines the clash between the sanctuary movement and the United States government regarding the admission to the United States of Central. American refugees. By using a Burkeian dramatistic approach, the study shows how different scenes operating for the two sides motivate opposing rhetorical agencies. Burke's concept of identification serves as the framework for analyzing the agencies.

Living Borders/Buscando America: Languages of Latino Self-Formation

My grandparents didn't get special language instruction in school. In fact, they never finished high school because they had to work for a living. Latinos hear this and similar statements every time the question of bilingual education comes up. Such statements highlight an important difference the maintenance of another language and the development of interlingual forms-between this new immigrant group and the older, ethnic immigrants. The fact is that Latinos, that very heterogeneous medley of races, classes and nationalities' are different from both the older and the new ethnics.2 To begin with, Latinos do not comprise even a relatively homogeneous ethnicity. Latinos include native-born U.S. citizens (predominantly Chicanos Mexican-Americans and Nuyoricans mainland Puerto Ricans) and Latin American immigrants of all and national combinations: white including a range of different European nationalities Native-American, black, Arabic, and Asian. It is thus a mistake to lump them all under the category racial minority,3 although historically the U.S. experiences of large numbers of Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans are adequately described by this concept.4 Moreover, both of these groups unlike any of the European immigrant groups constitute, with Native-Americans, minorities.' If not outright conquered peoples, other Latin American immigrants, heretofore inhabitants of the backyard over which the United States claims the right of manifest destiny, have migrated here for both political and economic reasons, in part because of U.S. intervention in their homelands. From the time of Jose Martf, who lived in New York for over one third of his life during the 1880s and 1890s, slowly establishing the foundations for the Cuban independence movement, to the 1980s sanctuary movement for Central American refugees, U.S. actions (military incursions as well as economic sanctions) in Latin America have always generated Latin American migrations. The policies of U.S. finance institutions (supported by the U.S. government and, at times, by its military), moreover, have brought enormous foreign debt to Latin America and with it intolerable austerity programs that have induced many to seek a living in the United States.6

Convictions of the heart: Jim Corbett and the sanctuary movement

Convictions of the heart: Jim Corbett and the sanctuary movement

Sanctuary movement: A difference of opinion

The history of man is a record of human migration. Since human beings first appeared on earth they have been moving from place to place. As hunting-gathering societies became agrarian, the nomadic life required by the former abated somewhat, and boundaries between societies increased in importance. Although migration slowed, it never completely stopped. There have always been undesirable situations, such as wars, famine and persecution, which have served as a push to cause individuals and groups to leave their homeland. In addition, there have always been promises of something better elsewhere, such as peace, prosperity and freedom, which have served as a pull to lure them to foreign lands. This has not changed. Persons crossing international borders may be classified into four general categories: refugees, migrants, asylum seekers and safe-haven seekers. Refugees are aliens who are generally recognized as having fled their homeland because of persecution or civil strife. Migrants are aliens who are seeking to improve their lives economically or socially. As such, they are often unskilled laborers with little formal education. Their presence in a given country may be legal or undocumented. Asylum seekers are aliens whose refugee status has not been determined. Safe-haven seekers are a marginal category of aliens who are seeking a temporary safe-haven from civil strife or natural disasters. It is believed that the total number of individuals in these four categories exceeds thirty million worldwide (Ford Foundation 1983:5-6).

Dead Kachina Man by Teresa VanEtten

238 Western American Literature The Port Townsend locus of the book—it was published there, many of its contributors are associated with that city, and Port Townsend has a sister city in Nicaragua—and the strength of the Sanctuary movement in the North­ west, help to explain the Northwest origins of the book, as does “the humane impulse of passion,” in Daley’s words, which motivates it. Contributors include Central American revolutionary artists and such Northwest notables as Giovanni Costigan, well-known emeritus professor of history at the University of Washington, and Brent Shirley, a Reagan Repub­ lican and mayor of Port Townsend who spent 15 days in Nicaragua. Short of going to see for ourselves, we can grasp something of Central American conditions by reading this book. GLEN A. LOVE University of Oregon Dead Kachina Man. By Teresa VanEtten. (Santa Fe: Sunstone Press, 1986. 131 pages, $10.95 paperback.) The central problem of this story is supposed to be who killed a celebrated carver of kachina dolls. Most readers, however, will be praying—vainly—for the killer to eliminate many more of the stereotypical figures confusing what may loosely be called the plot. Locals and strangers, drug dealers and black­ mailers enter and fade away rather arbitrarily, while our hero, Dominique Rios of the Jerez, New Mexico police force, plods gamely through the deep sand of Ms. VanEtten’sprose trying to solve meaningless mysteries. This is not the very best introduction available to life and death in Pueblo cultures, but at least it is difficult for me to imagine a case of insomnia this book couldn’t cure. KARL KROEBER Columbia University The Zarahemla Vision. By Gary Stewart. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986. 280 pages, $15.95.) If you’re looking for stereotypes vividly displayed in the most unselfcon­ scious of ways, this is the book for you. In this, the second in a series of private eye Gabe Utley murder mysteries, not only does the Mormon church fall prey to stereotyping, but Utah Native Americans emerge as either stupid and ...

More on the Sanctuary Movement

My thanks for your publication of Sheila D. Collins' article "The New Underground Railroad." Yes, I am writing in order to cavil about part of the article, but I also think it a valuable summation of the current state of the sanctuary movement. I feel I must object to the brief characterization of an internal debate within the movement: whether it should keep an explicitly humanitarian orientation or move toward an explicitly political orientation.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.