Told through heart-wrenching testimonies, photographs, and artwork of refugees fleeing their homelands, Desperately Seeking Asylum describes firsthand accounts of the harrowing and dangerous journey immigrants are willing to endure knowing that they might not even make it onto US soil. Desperately Seeking Asylum prioritizes the testimonies of refugee families and unaccompanied children who are seeking asylum in the United States from Central America, primarily Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Their desperate and heart-wrenching stories disclose why they fled their homelands, their experiences along the treacherous overland journey, and the harsh reality of how the United States treats these families and children upon arrival to the United States. It critiques US complicity to the violence they are fleeing and discloses how national leadership shapes US immigration policies and practices, including the blatant documented violations against asylum seekers at the US–Mexico border. Most notably, it offers transparency on US immigration practices at the US–Mexico border which violate existing US and international laws that are intended to protect asylum seekers, including the current official practice of blocking bridges with “turnbacks” to prevent “inadmissibles” from applying for asylum in the United States. It explains protections mandated by US law for unaccompanied children who are in US custody, and discloses violations which keep these children detained excessive lengths of time in substandard for-profit facilities which are overseen by the government and funded by taxpayers. Boursier also deconstructs the complicated asylum process, including examining the credible fear for asylum procedure, showing how technical terms and language are used to justify injustice at the border. Desperately Seeking Asylum offers hope for a new vision with alternative options and practical actions which assist migrants through humanitarian aid on both sides of the border. The witness for compassionate and responsible response by people of conscious becomes an antidote to injustice against asylum seekers. Instead of the current administration manipulating US laws to support its ulterior motives and political agenda, Boursier asks readers to hold US elected officials accountable to the same “Rule of Law” that the United States demands of refugees. Ultimately, Boursier suggests a spectrum of options for practical ways to make the political personal through public witness and civic engagement to transform the broken immigration process for refugees who are desperately seeking asylum.
Using ethnographic research, Willful Ignorance: Overcoming the Limitations of (Christian) Love for Refugees Seeking Asylum examines the attitudes of clergy and lay leaders regarding their (in)attention to racism as it intersects with the harsh reality of U.S. immigration policies and practices. This multi-faceted work begins with a reality check on the scope of forced migration and its intersection with the historical legacy of racism in America, including testimonies from displaced migrants and immigration advocates who help to alleviate state-inflicted suffering at the U.S.-Mexico border. Helen T. Boursier examines the rationales Christian leaders use to justify the local church’s nominal response, including the discursive buffers and stall tactics they use to deflect their lack of preaching, teaching, leadership and/or ministry with displaced migrants who are their near neighbors. The Christian church’s firm foundation to embody love as social justice provides a historical rebuttal, while case studies of congregations that offer displaced migrants compassionate hospitality model exemplary contemporary response. Closing with practical suggestions for how to begin building bridges with migrants, Boursier argues for a philosophy of religion that embraces resistance to racism and exclusion from asylum, through a missiology of compassion that exemplifies an ecclesiology of love.
Borders are places of collision. People and politics, compassion and cruelty, law and lawlessness, hope and despair, idealism and ideology, life and death--all collide at the border. But these collisions have human faces. North and south, rich and poor, nuns and nones, desperation and courage--a spirit draws all these poles together and a spirituality animates their encounter.? Precious Precarity examines the spirituality that emerges between life and death, when vulnerable raced migrants must leave their homelands and traverse harsh environments to seek safety in an often-unwelcoming foreign land. The spirituality of displaced people mingles with that of volunteers, advocates, and environmentalists at the southwestern US-Mexico border, creating a unique and distinct spirituality in the borderlands. It's a spirituality shaped by the reality of death and the passionate quest for safety and for life. Informed by interviews, activism, scholarship, original art, and a practiced compassion, Precious Precarity takes readers beyond the headlines, policy debates, good intentions, and bad faith that too often dominate our understanding of the borderlands to reveal the ways in which human experience endures life's travails, transcends its vagaries and vanities, and persists in the face of danger and even death.
Art As Witness is an invitation for professors, researchers, clergy, educators, students, and activists to creatively integrate the arts in theology and religious studies for a practical theology of arts-based research that prioritizes public witness. This methodology challenges the traditional written word as being the privileged norm, arguing that this emerging research genre is an excellent, viable, and necessary option for research that supports, promotes, and publicizes liberating theology for the marginalized, victimized, and oppressed. It includes a detailed case study of “Art Inside Karnes,” the all-volunteer arts-based ministry of presence the author facilitated inside a for-profit immigrant family detention center that became the Power of Hope traveling art exhibit for education, advocacy, and public witness. This primer covers practical ethical, legal, and political matters; includes pedagogical examples for how to use arts-based research for student assessment in theology and religious studies; and provides an overview of arts options, including literary genres, visual arts, fabric arts, theater, filmmaking, and new media with digital content. Art as Witness features 40 illustrations, several case studies, and multiple contributing theologian-artists who engage the arts in themes that include immigration, HIV/AIDS, biblical studies, political protest, gender equity, gun law reform, racial justice, and more.
Set against an ethical-theological-philosophical framework of the role of love in the Abrahamic tradition (Islam, Judaism, and Christianity), The Ethics of Hospitality highlights the personal witness of refugee families seeking asylum from the Northern Triangle in Central America to the U.S. Their heart-wrenching stories include why they fled their homelands, their experiences along the arduous overland journey, and their inhospitable reception when they arrived to the U.S. and requested asylum. It includes an overview of the systemic connections between the U.S. and the violence which catapults these families to seek safety. The voices of the families join the witness of interreligious volunteers of greater San Antonio who assist the refugee families in diverse capacities and who testify to the mutual blessing they receive when love of God, expressed as love of neighbor, becomes central to the immigration conversation. Ultimately, the proposal is that the interreligious community has the privilege and responsibility to respond in love with refugees seeking asylum, while also leading the outcry in the public square for their radical welcome.
Art As Witness is an invitation for professors, researchers, clergy, educators, students, and activists to creatively integrate the arts in theology and religious studies for a practical theology of arts-based research that prioritizes public witness. This methodology challenges the traditional written word as being the privileged norm, arguing that this emerging research genre is an excellent, viable, and necessary option for research that supports, promotes, and publicizes liberating theology for the marginalized, victimized, and oppressed. It includes a detailed case study of “Art Inside Karnes,” the all-volunteer arts-based ministry of presence the author facilitated inside a for-profit immigrant family detention center that became the Power of Hope traveling art exhibit for education, advocacy, and public witness. This primer covers practical ethical, legal, and political matters; includes pedagogical examples for how to use arts-based research for student assessment in theology and religious studies; and provides an overview of arts options, including literary genres, visual arts, fabric arts, theater, filmmaking, and new media with digital content. Art as Witness features 40 illustrations, several case studies, and multiple contributing theologian-artists who engage the arts in themes that include immigration, HIV/AIDS, biblical studies, political protest, gender equity, gun law reform, racial justice, and more.
Using ethnographic research, Willful Ignorance: Overcoming the Limitations of (Christian) Love for Refugees Seeking Asylum examines the attitudes of clergy and lay leaders regarding their (in)attention to racism as it intersects with the harsh reality of U.S. immigration policies and practices. This multi-faceted work begins with a reality check on the scope of forced migration and its intersection with the historical legacy of racism in America, including testimonies from displaced migrants and immigration advocates who help to alleviate state-inflicted suffering at the U.S.-Mexico border. Helen T. Boursier examines the rationales Christian leaders use to justify the local church’s nominal response, including the discursive buffers and stall tactics they use to deflect their lack of preaching, teaching, leadership and/or ministry with displaced migrants who are their near neighbors. The Christian church’s firm foundation to embody love as social justice provides a historical rebuttal, while case studies of congregations that offer displaced migrants compassionate hospitality model exemplary contemporary response. Closing with practical suggestions for how to begin building bridges with migrants, Boursier argues for a philosophy of religion that embraces resistance to racism and exclusion from asylum, through a missiology of compassion that exemplifies an ecclesiology of love.
Borders are places of collision. People and politics, compassion and cruelty, law and lawlessness, hope and despair, idealism and ideology, life and death--all collide at the border. But these collisions have human faces. North and south, rich and poor, nuns and nones, desperation and courage--a spirit draws all these poles together and a spirituality animates their encounter.? Precious Precarity examines the spirituality that emerges between life and death, when vulnerable raced migrants must leave their homelands and traverse harsh environments to seek safety in an often-unwelcoming foreign land. The spirituality of displaced people mingles with that of volunteers, advocates, and environmentalists at the southwestern US-Mexico border, creating a unique and distinct spirituality in the borderlands. It's a spirituality shaped by the reality of death and the passionate quest for safety and for life. Informed by interviews, activism, scholarship, original art, and a practiced compassion, Precious Precarity takes readers beyond the headlines, policy debates, good intentions, and bad faith that too often dominate our understanding of the borderlands to reveal the ways in which human experience endures life's travails, transcends its vagaries and vanities, and persists in the face of danger and even death.
Set against an ethical-theological-philosophical framework of the role of love in the Abrahamic tradition (Islam, Judaism, and Christianity), The Ethics of Hospitality highlights the personal witness of refugee families seeking asylum from the Northern Triangle in Central America to the U.S. Their heart-wrenching stories include why they fled their homelands, their experiences along the arduous overland journey, and their inhospitable reception when they arrived to the U.S. and requested asylum. It includes an overview of the systemic connections between the U.S. and the violence which catapults these families to seek safety. The voices of the families join the witness of interreligious volunteers of greater San Antonio who assist the refugee families in diverse capacities and who testify to the mutual blessing they receive when love of God, expressed as love of neighbor, becomes central to the immigration conversation. Ultimately, the proposal is that the interreligious community has the privilege and responsibility to respond in love with refugees seeking asylum, while also leading the outcry in the public square for their radical welcome.
Told through heart-wrenching testimonies, photographs, and artwork of refugees fleeing their homelands, Desperately Seeking Asylum describes firsthand accounts of the harrowing and dangerous journey immigrants are willing to endure knowing that they might not even make it onto US soil. Desperately Seeking Asylum prioritizes the testimonies of refugee families and unaccompanied children who are seeking asylum in the United States from Central America, primarily Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Their desperate and heart-wrenching stories disclose why they fled their homelands, their experiences along the treacherous overland journey, and the harsh reality of how the United States treats these families and children upon arrival to the United States. It critiques US complicity to the violence they are fleeing and discloses how national leadership shapes US immigration policies and practices, including the blatant documented violations against asylum seekers at the US–Mexico border. Most notably, it offers transparency on US immigration practices at the US–Mexico border which violate existing US and international laws that are intended to protect asylum seekers, including the current official practice of blocking bridges with “turnbacks” to prevent “inadmissibles” from applying for asylum in the United States. It explains protections mandated by US law for unaccompanied children who are in US custody, and discloses violations which keep these children detained excessive lengths of time in substandard for-profit facilities which are overseen by the government and funded by taxpayers. Boursier also deconstructs the complicated asylum process, including examining the credible fear for asylum procedure, showing how technical terms and language are used to justify injustice at the border. Desperately Seeking Asylum offers hope for a new vision with alternative options and practical actions which assist migrants through humanitarian aid on both sides of the border. The witness for compassionate and responsible response by people of conscious becomes an antidote to injustice against asylum seekers. Instead of the current administration manipulating US laws to support its ulterior motives and political agenda, Boursier asks readers to hold US elected officials accountable to the same “Rule of Law” that the United States demands of refugees. Ultimately, Boursier suggests a spectrum of options for practical ways to make the political personal through public witness and civic engagement to transform the broken immigration process for refugees who are desperately seeking asylum.
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