“Migrant Crisis and Faith” (Link Below)
As a Jamaican American, who is a member of a transnational family, immigration is not only a topic I teach about or conduct research on. The immigrant narratives and realties are also personal. Far from being an impediment, this further sensitizes me to the lives that are behind the news reports, the immigration statistics and images we often see with the media and the public sphere.
In the past couple years, we have been inundated with images of migrants at the border and on the streets of many cities. Framed as a crisis, these views of migrants give very little room to uncovering the factors (historical, economic, political, spiritual and socio-cultural, etc.) that continue to drive migration locally and globally or the “triple win,” that is, the fundamental benefits, migration produces within cities and nation states (sending and receiving) and among the migrants themselves.
In this short seminar, utilizing a multipronged approach, we will consider some biblical approaches to migration, interrogate some of the reasons why migrants leave their countries, examine some of the different visa statuses migrants have in the US and finally discuss potential next steps in growing in both our knowledge and engagement with a topic that will be a major talking point in the next presidential election.