The comments below were shared at the Justice for Our Neighbors: Austin Chapter Gala this evening.

I come to this conversation as a second-generation Bolivian-American woman with light skin privilege, and I bear in mind the immigration story of my Mamita, my maternal grandmother, who traveled from Santa Cruz de la Sierra to Los Angeles with four small children in tow, in search of a better life in the early 1960s.  I ask that you keep the country of Bolivia, which is going through its own political turmoil in the wake of fraudulent elections, close to your heart this night.  My latinidad and women like my Mamita, who formed me in my faith, inform my approach to my work as a Catholic theologian.

Since I moved to Austin a little over a year ago, the reality of immigration has become a more integral part of my teaching and my research.  At the end of this summer, on a delegation to the Rio Grande Valley with other theologians, ministers, and members of mainline congregations, one of us came across the image that you see here.  I don’t know who this card belongs to, and I don’t know why she carried it.  But I imagine that it was dear to her, that it might have brought her solace, that it might have brought her hope. 

I did a little digging, and I learned that there are a number of possibilities about who is represented in the image.  It is possible that she is a representation of Catherine of Alexandria, a 4th-century Catholic saint who came into conflict with the emperor, Maxentius, who was intent on extinguishing the influence of Christianity.  Likely an educated member of the nobility, Catherine came to the emperor and denounced his cruelty to Christians.  He would not relent in this persecution and even urged her to abandon her position, proposing marriage to Catherine. She, in turn, refused.  Enraged, the emperor sentenced her to death on a breaking wheel, which you see her holding in her hands in the image shown.  Death by breaking wheel was torturous, as the victim’s limbs were threaded through the spokes of the wheel, an executioner shattering the bones of each limb, one by one.  As the story goes, when Catherine came before the wheel, she simply placed her hands on it, and it shattered.

My question for us tonight is this: What does it mean for us to follow the lead of those who are being persecuted by the US American empire?  What does it look like to refuse the will of a powerful political leader?  And what does it mean to work alongside those being persecuted to break the wheels of their torture and oppression?

To my mind, this theme tonight of walking together invites those of us with the privilege of citizenship papers to walk behind those who seek this privilege.  It invites us to center their experiences and their stories in conversations about the impact of unjust immigration policy on our communities.  To some degree, it involves us getting out of the way, so we can amplify these stories in the halls of power, to do what we can to break the wheel.

The pedagogy I choose to employ in teaching about immigration involves three steps.  First, be in relationship with those who are most intimately affected by immigration policy.  Volunteer with organizations like JFON and Grassroots Leadership here in Austin.  Bring donations to Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.  Make regular monetary donations to organizations like JFON and RAICES who are doing important legal work on the part of our migrant kin.  Second, discern what role, large or small, you have to play in walking together, in the work of solidarity, in the long term.  Talk with your loved ones, your neighbors, the organizations and faith communities of which you are a part, and discern next steps together.  Foremost and finally, get in the way of the wheel.  Policy change will not happen without putting these voices at the center of these conversations and amplifying them—not only in the halls of power, but also at our Thanksgiving dinner tables.  I invite each of us in this room tonight to be in right relationship with our migrant kin, to discern our next steps, and to get in the way of the wheel.  Thank you.