Strangers and Priests

326 Pages·2016·2.72 MB·English

Strangers and Priests:

Latino Activists and Contested Communities in a Movement for

Immigration Reform

BY

STEPHEN P. DAVIS
B.A., Augustana College, Rock Island, 1992
M.A., Environmental and Urban Geography, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2001
M.A., Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2006

THESIS

Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology
in the Graduate College of the
University of Illinois at Chicago, 2016

Chicago, Illinois

Defense Committee:

John Monaghan, Chair and Advisor
Mark Liechty
Molly Doane
Nilda Flores-González, Sociology
R. Stephen Warner, Sociology
This thesis is dedicated to my son, Galahad Anthony Davis, who with a kind heart,
sharp wit, and brave countenance has been my stalwart companion
and sounding board on many an ethnographic, geographic, and interdisciplinary expedition,
and to my beloved Lisa Ann Barca who alternately, along many a divergent ‘road not taken’ in
many a forlorn terrain, has been my chief academic inspiration and muse, most trusted critic,
most peculiarly challenging ‘gift of energy,’ and most assured and caring font of encouragement.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to extend sincere appreciation to my thesis committee members---John Monaghan,
Mark Liechty, and Molly Doane in the Department of Anthropology, and Nilda Flores-González and
R. Stephen Warner in the Department of Sociology---each of whom shaped this research in valuable
ways. Many others at the University of Illinois at Chicago aided my work, including Mike Lieber, Waud
Kracke, Melanie Kane, Brian Bauer, James Kollenbroich, Amalia Pallares, Kathy Rizzo, Joel Palka,
Laura Junker, Rebecca Deeb, Nicola Sharratt, Ellen Kang, Laura Nussbaum-Barberena, and Ruth
Gomberg-Muñoz. I received key support from the Chicago Area Study, the Immigrant Mobilization
Research Project, the Chicago Area Group for the Study of Religious Communities, the editorial staff of
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., and the researchers at SmartRevenue, Inc. I am bound in experience and
spirit to my earliest UIC grad-school mentors Siim Soot, Gary Fowler, and Jim Blaut, just as I am now
indebted to colleagues in Interdisciplinary, Organizational, and Liberal Studies at Arizona State
University. Yet I owe the totality of these pages to Chicago’s immigrants, especially in the parish
communities of St. Pius V and Our Lady of Lourdes. Special thanks to Alma Silva, Antonio Guzmán,
Alberto and Martha Sanchez, the other intrepid members of UFA / Acción Social, and to Father Charles
Dahm, Father Brendan Curran, Father Michael Shanahan, Father Larry Dowling, and the rest of the
Priests for Justice for Immigrants, as well as the Sisters of Mercy, the St. Toribio Romo Migrant Center,
and The Resurrection Project. The strong roots of extended family also inspired these pages, from
Pilgrim, Franklin, Davis, Barca, Cramer, McKechnie, and Sonnenschein to each of the supportive
Bedoya, Kayser-Bedoya, Carrión, Jordan, and Rodriguez branches. Profoundly, ever-inspirational was the
undocumented story of my great-grandfather Donchoff from Bulgaria who chose the surname “Davis” for
us in England, on the way to America. Above all others I thank my dearest friend and partner, Lisa Ann
Barca. Others made this work possible, yet any errors, omissions, or shortcomings remain my own.

SPD
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

1. INTRODUCTION………………………………………..…….…………1
1.1 Vignette: March 10, 2006.…….....…………..…..….….……....…2
1.2 Anthropologies of Religion and Social Movement Activism..........5
1.3 Frameworks.....................................................................................7
.
1.4 Conceptualizations of Roger Lancaster.........................................10
1.5 Conceptualizations of Marc Edelman............................................13
1.6 Conceptualizations of Simonelli and Earle....................................15
1.7 Overview of the Immigrant Rights Movement..............................17
1.8 Research Setting ............................................................................22
1.9 Methodological Note .....................................................................23
1.10 Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Key Terms....................................26

2. LOCAL ACTIONS....................................................................................32
2.1 Civil Disobedience: A Broadview Vignette ..................................41
2.2 In the Grip of an Organizer............................................................44

2.3 A Bus Runs Through It: Currents of Activism..............................46
2.4 Speaking, Fear, and Faith...............................................................49
2.5 Not Resisting Arrest.......................................................................51
2.6 Rules of the Road...........................................................................54
2.7 Faithful Action: Verbalizing the Kingdom....................................55
2.8 Recent Trends: Mexicans and Catholics in Chicago.....................58
.
2.9 The Sanctuary Movement..............................................................61
2.10 Amnesty: IRCA in 1986................................................................63
2.11 Politics of Hope and Comprehensive Immigration Reform..........64
2.12 The Mobilizations of March 10 and May 1, 2006.........................70
2.13 Handcuffed in the Capitol..............................................................71
2.14 Radio and Word of Mouth.............................................................72
2.15 Summer and Fall of 2006................................................................76
2.16 Tactics in 2007-2009......................................................................80
2.17 Calling the White House................................................................84
2.18 Enforcement or Advocacy..............................................................85
2.19 The Archbishop’s Speech that Almost Wasn’t: Cross Purposes...87
2.20 Posadas, Census, and 2010 Activism............................................95
.
2.21 UFA: From Parish Group to Community Organization................99
2.22 Community as American Dream.................................................102
2.23 Procession for Arizona: Signs of Death and Hope......................104
2.24 The Archbishop’s Visit to Broadview.........................................111
2.25 Future Leadership........................................................................114
2.26 Chapter Conclusion….................................................................116

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TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued)

2.26.1 Activism within the Institution....................................................116
2.26.2 Discourses of Progressive Catholicism.......................................121
.
2.26.3 Discourses and Actions: The Procession for Arizona.................126
2.26.4 Discourses and Actions: Posadas and the Census.......................127
2.26.5 Discourses and Actions: Archbishop or Congressman...............128
.
2.26.6 Discourses and Actions: Broadview............................................131
2.26.7 Discourses of Liberation Theology..............................................138

3. PRIESTS FOR JUSTICE FOR IMMIGRANTS.....................................141
3.1 Meeting Material and Spiritual Needs.........................................149
3.2 The History of the PJI..................................................................152
3.3 Support or Silence in the Hierarchy.............................................157
3.4 A Church for Justice for Immigrants?..........................................160
3.5 Why Do Priests Become PJI Activists?.......................................162
.
3.6 Social Teaching: Not Liberation Theology in Name...................168
3.7 Converting the Converted: More than Nominal Catholicism......172
3.8 Conversion as an American Contribution....................................175
3.9 Between a Rock and a Tea Party..................................................178
3.10 Vectors of Influence.....................................................................179
3.11 Influences from Parish Community.............................................182
3.12 Entrepreneurial Risk-Taking........................................................184
3.13 Cultural Entrepreneurs, Prophets, or Creatives?..........................190
3.14 Entrepreneurial Autonomy: Democratic Risks............................192
3.15 Bridging and Coalition Building: Priests and Outside Groups....197
3.16 Prophetic Fears, Theological Protections....................................198
.
3.17 Refocusing on Prophets...............................................................200

3.18 Chapter Conclusion......................................................................202

4. WOMEN AND OTHER LEADERS.......................................................209
.
4.1 Once I Believed............................................................................216
4.2 Self-Estimation:Who Are You?..................................................219
.
4.3 Social Action‘in the River’..........................................................227

4.4 Organizers as Rivals and ‘Expert Students’.................................229
4.5 Gendering the Real Work............................................................231
.
4.6 Pan American / International Festival..........................................235
4.7 Cross Pollination..........................................................................236
4.8 Women as Preachers and Ministers.............................................238
4.9 Women Religious Facing the Vatican.........................................243
.
4.10 Gendering Speech, Work, and Silence........................................246
.
4.11 Playing, Praying, and Family Actions.........................................248
.
4.12 Guadalupe and Marianismo.........................................................250
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TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued)

4.13 The New Versus the Traditional Guadalupe................................253
4.14 Gender Regimes in Machismo and Marianismo..........................255

5. CONCLUSION........................................................................................259
5.1 Activism within the Institution....................................................260
.
5.2 Progressive Catholicism...............................................................264
5.3 Clerical Activism and Church Practices......................................269
.
5.4 Claims to Authenticity.................................................................275
5.5 Women and Other Reformers......................................................282
5.6 Inclusivity, Segmentation, and Local Power...............................288
5.7 Epilogue: Civil Rights, Immigrants, and Good Samaritans........291
.

CITED LITERATURE...................................................................................297

VITA...............................................................................................................315

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CIR Comprehensive Immigration Reform

CS Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Charles (the Scalabrinians)

IAF Industrial Areas Foundation

ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement

ICIRR Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

IMP Immigrant Mobilization (Research) Project (later called IMRP)

IMRP Immigrant Mobilization Research Project

INS Immigration and Naturalization Service (later formed into ICE)

IRCA Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

OFM Ordo Fratrum Minorum (the Franciscans)

OLOL Our Lady of Lourdes parish

OMI Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate

OP Ordo Fratrum Praedicatorum (Order of Preachers, aka the Dominicans)

PADRES Priests Associated for Religious, Educational, and Social Rights

PJI Priests for Justice for Immigrants

SWOP South West Organizing Project

TRP The Resurrection Project

UFA Unión, Fuerza y Acción (Union, Strength, and Action)

UIC University of Illinois at Chicago

USCCB United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
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SUMMARY

Immigrants and their supporters filled Chicago’s streets on March 10 and May 1, 2006, to protest
legislation aimed at banning “aid and comfort” for undocumented immigrants. The largest street
mobilizations in the city’s history, these events were part of an unprecedented level of activism
throughout the U.S. on the part of immigrants and their families, churches, labor unions, and schools.
Chicago was a major locus of activism because of its Latino immigrant population and its Catholic
infrastructure which, at the parish level, includes priests and nuns influenced by liberation theology.

This research examines aspects of the immigrant rights movement from 2005 to 2016, including a period
of intensive participant observation (2006--2011) among the Priests for Justice for Immigrants (PJI)
organization and among the laity of Latino immigrant parishes on the southwest and north sides of the
city. The movement is analyzed as locally led and fortified by deeply held Christian beliefs, as well as an
inclusive, ecumenical approach to social-justice activism. This progressive, parish-based focus is
maintained despite the tendency in Catholic and mainstream media to privilege top-down views from the
Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and despite a wider tendency among conservative
Catholics to frame their worldviews as “authentic Christianity” while framing progressive Catholics as
inauthentic and effectively “politicizing religion.” In this ethnographic project, discourses and behaviors
surrounding progressive Catholicism are examined as grounded in theology and the experiences of
numerous individuals, groups, and communities, with attention to the following questions: What happens
when novel types of activism emerge within an institution that in many ways is deeply conservative?
What types of discourses arise that are both progressive and Catholic? How does clerical activism on
behalf of immigrants transform practices in the Catholic Church? And how do progressive Catholics
make claims to authenticity while supporting immigrant rights? This project also examines ways in which
women have led and reinforced Latino activism, both in support of the Church and in opposition to it.

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1. INTRODUCTION

Every religiously grounded unworldly love and indeed every ethical religion must, in
similar measure and for similar reasons, experience tensions with the sphere of political
behavior. (Weber 1963: 223)
There is nothing mysterious or natural about authority. It is formed, irradiated,
disseminated; it is instrumental, it is persuasive; it has status, it establishes canons of taste
and value; it is virtually indistinguishable from certain ideas it dignifies as true, and from
traditions, perceptions, and judgments it forms, transmits, reproduces. (Said 1978: 19-20)

Community-based activists have taken the immigrant rights movement through diverse cultural, physical,
and philosophical landscapes in recent years, ranging from localized protests at churches and city halls to
mass mobilizations aimed at comprehensive political reforms. Until 2006, however, undocumented
immigrants had not typically participated in these actions owing to fears of stepping from the shadows
and attracting attention from government agents. That customary discretion was abandoned, for a time at
least, after determinedly anti-immigrant bills appeared in the U.S. Congress. In the wake of that
legislation, as well as accelerated deportations of undocumented immigrants and stricter border
enforcement, the United States witnessed an unprecedented level of activism on the part of immigrants
and their families, churches, labor unions, and schools. Chicago was a major locus of activism, not only
because it has a sizable Latino/Hispanic immigrant population but also because of a strong Catholic
infrastructure and influential activist priests, nuns, and laity. In the social movement for immigration
reform and immigrant rights, their activism builds on religious and political traditions legible to
immigrants from the predominantly Catholic countries of Latin America, although only a fraction of the
new arrivals had participated directly in social activism in their sending countries. While engaging in
hybrid frames of collective movement action, their Chicago-area organizing articulates with
distinctive worldviews and political-religious segmentation within the Catholic Church.

In this situation, faith communities engage in social activism, which generates key questions for
anthropological research, including the following: What happens when novel types of activism emerge
1
2
within an institution that in many ways is deeply conservative? How does clerical activism on behalf of
immigrants transform practices in the Catholic Church? What types of discourses arise that are both
progressive and Catholic? How do progressive Catholics make claims to authenticity in the face of
conservative resistance? And what do women contribute to Latino activism through, or possibly in
opposition to, the Church?

This dissertation addresses the preceding questions in chapters focusing, respectively, on the urban and
Midwestern context for this study and the ethnographic methods supporting it, on the prevalence of local
leaders and community-based activists within the U.S. Catholic Church, as well as the historical context
for the immigrant rights movement, and on the Chicago-based group called the Priests for Justice for
Immigrants, as major influences on the national movement. The parochial and diocesan leadership of
women, as well as other laity in the Chicago area, are also allotted chapter-length treatment.

1.1 Vignette: March 10, 2006
On March 10, 2006, between 100,000 and 300,000 immigrants and pro-immigrant activists marched
through Chicago, shutting down major avenues and intersections in the Loop and filling Federal Plaza. It
was a human flood of unprecedented scale and an energetic but entirely peaceful protest. Because I had
been told of the event the previous evening, by a priest addressing a group of at-risk teens in a parish
basement, I was there as well. Within days of that historic mobilization I joined an interdepartmental team
of researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago called the Immigrant Mobilization Research Project,
under the direction of Nilda Flores-Gonzalez and Amalia Pallares and including professors and graduate
students from the departments of Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, and English. Over the next
few weeks our team developed and administered a survey for the May 1, 2006 mobilization, which
became the largest march in Chicago history, and initiated a series of supporting observations and in-
depth interviews. Much of our research was published in the peer-reviewed book Marcha! (Pallares and
Flores-Gonzalez 2010); the chapter I co-authored with Juan Martinez and R. Stephen Warner focused on