What is the United States?

Traveling around LA this week, my class and I have seen a lot of the history of oppression and injustice in this country. In particular, we spoke to Japanese-Americans interred during World War 2, and saw a museum dedicated to their history, as well as hearing from Latino immigrants who are currently the victims of a serious wave of hatred in this country. Some of the horror stories were enough to prompt one of my classmates to say that they hated the US – a sentiment I completely understood after having just heard about black ops ICE raids that were tearing families apart.

One thing I have noticed at many of the immigration rallies I have attended, though, and also in talking to Japanese-Americans who fought in WW2, is how patriotic and pro-America they are. Through all of these experiences, they still love to wave the Stars and the Stripes. And I could never figure out why, given how poorly Americans have treated minorities throughout our history. But I am starting to think the answer revolves around the question, What is the United States?

Is the USA the people who have come here from all over the world, seeking to find a better life for their families? Working hard to ensure that their kids, and their grandkids, are able to get an education and take advantage of the opportunities they find here? Is it people coming to a place where they have a new sense of hope and a dream for future generations? Or is it, on the other hand, the systems that have exploited that optimism and idealism? Is it the politics of fear that has used the differences of these people – whose diversity is truly our strength – to get themselves elected on platforms of hatred? Is it the corporations that see, not the strength of these immigrants, but the chance to turn them into cheap and easily exploited labor to help feed their bottom line?

The answer to that question is so important. Because, if the US is defined by those systems, and the people who support them, then yes, anger is well deserved. That side of our country is very real, and absolutely horrific. But if the US is the immigrants, and the hope and opportunity they represent, then by all means – God bless America.

Faith Speaks Out For Immigrants

Check out http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1986320,00.html – a great article in Time about the work of faith leaders to bring about immigration reform. (My thanks to Hal for sharing this.)

This is what we need to be doing in our church – recovering and expressing the true “prophetic tradition.” This was people like Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Jesus who would speak out against the injustices of their society, regardless of whether or not people wanted to hear it – or, for more contemporary examples, what people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jr., and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have done. And it’s an encouragement that, eventually, when we choose to stand outside these systems and call them out for what they are – “a racial and social sin,” as Wallis called SB 1070 – we can be heard, and we can start to have an impact. So my heartfelt thanks to Cardinal Mahony, Bishop Kicanas, and all people and leaders – of faith or otherwise – who are standing up for humane immigration reform. May SB 1070 become a turning point for our churches and for our country on the issue of immigration reform, showing us how desperately we need to address the grip of fear on our country.

(Steve)

Prayer for the immigrant

I (this is Heather) love California, but for just this one weekend, I wish we lived near Washington D.C. That’s because on Sunday, thousands of people will be marching in D.C. to show Congress and the President that we want immigration reform now! This was supposed to be one of the main focuses of President Obama’s presidency, yet it has been completely eclipsed by the never-ending circus of health care reform. So hopefully this march will encourage Congress and the President to action.

Probably what Sunday will look like...

Catholic social teaching has a lot to teach Protestants about immigration. The heart of this message is that Christ himself was an immigrant as he and his parents fled to Egypt to escape the coming massacre. He too was mistreated and looked down upon because he came from backwoods Galilee. And he too went through horrible abuses and humiliation as he hung on the cross. We should be reflecting on things things as we think about immigrants and what reform should look like in our country. As Christians we should be thinking about how we should be responding: not just as citizens of this country, but first and foremost, citizens in Christ’s kingdom.

We bought a booklet from a Catholic bookstore called The Way of the Cross of the Migrant Jesus. This is a retelling of the stations of the cross from a migrant’s perspective. It designed for a church to use this during lent in place of their normal stations of the cross, but I thought I’d share some of these stories from this book over the next few days as a devotional.  Immigration reform is a topic that people get very emotional and angry about, and I think we should all be seeking Christ in how we should be responding as He would.

Day 1 from The Way of the Cross of the Migrant Jesus: Matthew 2:13-15

How many times have we casually read Matthew’s narrative? When we open our eyes and begin to relate this story to what is happening now in our countries, we realize that the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt is not just a pretty painting that we like to hang in our homes. Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus are the thousands and thousands of parents and children who have to leave their homes in order to survive, to protect their own lives, and to search for a better future. The Holy Family is the migrant family we see in the city streets.

The flight to Egypt also reminds us that the majority of migrants do not leave their homelands as tourists. They flee their own country because the situation in which they live leaves them no other choice. War, violence, and discrimination of all types- social, economic, political and racial- are forcing millions of people to leave their countries, and often their own families, to search elsewhere for security and a better future. As Christians we have to look for concrete ways to transforms these unjust realities, so that no one is forced to migrate.

Beloved Jesus, who in the company of your mother Mary and Joseph learned the trials of migration in your exile in Egypt, we pray for the countless migrant, refugee, and dispaced children who are so much like you. May their parents find work, food, and shelter. May they be received everywhere with love and find ministers and teachers who will work with them. May all those who come from afar find in us brothers and sisters who love them, in the same way that you do. Lord Jesus, free them from all spiritual and bodily danger. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.