Monday, December 28, 2009

On Religion: Trying to Build Bonds With Immigrant Stories

by Samuel G. Freedman, New York Times
December 25, 2009

OAKLAND, Calif.--On the last Sunday before Christmas, from an altar flanked by Advent candles and potted poinsettias, the Rev. Clarence L. Johnson preached to the Mills Grove Christian Church about the Nativity. A precise and measured man, Mr. Johnson departed just once from his typewritten text.

In the midst of recounting a certain birth in ancient Judea, the minister placed his gaze a dozen rows back into the congregation and rested it on a dark-haired woman in a patterned blouse. He called her by name, Luz, and then he went back into his sermon, to words he had surely chosen with her in mind. [...]

Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/us/26religion.html

For more on Luz Dominguez, whose case is mentioned in the article, see David Bacon's Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants; for a review, see "The Immigration System: Maybe Not So Broken."

The important work of two immigrant rights organization is also discussed, East Bay Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice and Black Alliance for Just Immigration.

No comments: