God's heart has no borders [electronic resource] : how religious activists are working for immigrant rights / Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo.

Cover image for God's heart has no borders [electronic resource] : how religious activists are working for immigrant rights / Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo.

ISBN:

9780520942448

Title:

God's heart has no borders [electronic resource] : how religious activists are working for immigrant rights / Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo.

Author:

Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette.

Personal Author:

Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette.

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 251 pages)

Contents:

Welcoming the alien? -- Redeeming citizens. Muslim American immigrants after 9/11 : the struggle for civil rights ; The moderate mainstream -- Worker justice. Take your Good Friday to the streets! ; Faith in the union -- Faith sin fronteras. Enacting Christian antiborderism ; Jesus would stand at the border and would not accept it ; Religious rule or religious voices?

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Subject Term:

Religion and state -- United States.

Faith-based human services -- United States.

Social justice -- Religious aspects.

Religion and justice.

Geographic Term:

United States -- Emigration and immigration -- Religious aspects.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2008

Publication Information:

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
201.7 22	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

In this timely and compelling account of the contribution to immigrant rights made by religious activists in post-1965 and post-9/11 America, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo provides a comprehensive, close-up view of how Muslim, Christian, and Jewish groups are working to counter xenophobia. Against the hysteria prevalent in today's media, in which immigrants are often painted as a drain on the public coffers, inherently unassimilable, or an outright threat to national security, Hondagneu-Sotelo finds the intersection between migration and religion and calls attention to quieter voices, those dedicated to securing the human dignity of newcomers. Based on years of fieldwork conducted in California's major centers as well as in Chicago, this book considers Muslim Americans defending their civil liberties after 9/11, Christian activists responding to death and violence at the U.S-Mexico border, and Christian and Jewish clergy defending the labor rights of Latino immigrants. At a time when much attention has been given to religious fundamentalism and its capacity to incite violent conflict, God's Heart Has No Borders revises our understanding of the role of religion in social movements and demonstrates the nonviolent power of religious groups to address social injustices.

Author Notes

Hondagneu-Sotelo Pierrette :

Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo is Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California and the author of Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Immigration and Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence, both from UC Press. She is also the editor of Gender and U.S. Immigration: Contemporary Trends (UC Press)

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

Hondagneu-Sotelo (sociology, Univ. of Southern California) is interested in how "faith-based activists" (Christians, Muslims, Jews) challenge "taken-for-granted definitions" of migration issues, especially when the nation-state is defined in rigid and fundamentalist terms concerning immigration issues, and when abusive practices against migrants are tolerated or exercised by a capitalist labor market. She undertook ethnographic research and interviewing within organizations in which "religious people" are working for immigration rights in three arenas: civil rights in the post 9/11 climate, low-wage workplaces, and the "increasingly dangerous" US-Mexico border. Primary research data are mostly from events and organizations in southern California in recent years. The book notes and briefly compares historical antecedents of religious activists' involvement in social action movements, but with positive consequences for its interpretations of current situations. The author shows how religion can be useful to social movements by (1) providing moral justification for actors, (2) serving as a social movement language, and (3}} supporting motivation and claims of the movement for authority on a transcendent level. One of Hondagneu-Sotelo's conclusions may surprise some readers: "The pendulum of religious activism in the US is swinging from right to left ... in promoting social justice and inclusion." Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, practitioners, and general readers. R. L. Herrick emeritus, Westmar University