Speaker 1 00:00:07 Welcome to that. Makes total sense. A podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis. We setting the Christian aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same. Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice, but the house sometimes alludes us. That makes total sense is a way for us to get together, posture ourselves as learners and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day. Hey everybody. I am so thrilled to be sitting with Karen Gonzales today. I actually read Karen's book for school. So this was like a, this was kind of like a two for one for me. Um, I get to speak with an amazing author and podcast guest, and I got to do the reading for something else. And normally Karen, I ended up reading all my stuff for school and then reading stuff for the podcast too, because I love to read the books before I engage with the author. So this one feels like a two for one special for me. So thanks for coming on after I, after I tracked you down.
Speaker 2 00:01:16 Thank you. It's good to be here. Thanks for since.
Speaker 1 00:01:19 Yeah. So I was telling Karen that I I'm taking a class with Dr. Reverend Dr. Alexia. Salvatierra at fuller and Karen's a fuller grad too, is that right? Yeah. And Alexia has endorsed this book and it's also assigned in the first week of this class that I'm taking with her. And I was telling Karen, I realized why, because it is, first of all, it's beautiful. It's beautifully written and you do something that I have not seen done very much or maybe at all, which is combined of course, your personal story and the personal stories of immigrants that you have worked with and known over your years of experience in working in this area. But you combine those stories with biblical stories of our forefathers and mothers in the faith and their stories of migration. And it is, it, it hit me like, like nothing else has. So I want to get to the book, but first of all, I'm wondering if you can kind of introduce yourself and tell us about your story as an immigrant.
Speaker 2 00:02:43 Sure. So I am Karen Gonzales and I migrated from Guatemala, uh, when I was about nine years old with my family. So I came in the way a lot of DACA recipients come that they, their parents moved. So they moved and that's how I arrived in the U S and my parents were undocumented. So they were not, they didn't have a legal right to migrate. We did have a tourist visa. So we were admitted into the U S and my parents fully intended to overstay that visa. And they did. And so, um, we were here for three years, uh, in California before our interview time came up. So this is those lines that you hear about those proverbial lines. We were in align because my uncle, my dad's brother had sponsored us, but the longest lines in immigration are when you sponsor a sibling. And so it took three years for our number to come up before we could get that interview.
Speaker 2 00:03:57 And the reason my family migrated, uh, undocumented, when we could've waited, let's say what I'm all right, those three years is because there was a civil war in Guatemala, and it was extremely, um, unstable, not just the economy, but it was violence in the streets. It was, um, a really difficult situation. And in the book, I tell the story that it was a war that was funded by the United States. Uh, so the United States didn't provide refugee or asylee status to people from central America. And so we couldn't wait three years, uh, who knows what would have happened to the family and my dad even left a year before we did. And so, um, we came knowing we would have to wait out that time. And as a child, I wasn't really aware to be honest, I was mostly, uh, you know, oblivious, you know, your parents are working and you know, that life is very different, but I wasn't really aware of all the things, all the pressure that my parents were under.
Speaker 2 00:05:10 What, what I did recognize was that our lives changed dramatically. Once we got that interview. So we had to go to Guatemala, to the U S embassy to have an interview with, uh, the officials in the consulate there. And then we were given our green card. After that my parents moved across the country, they bought a house. They started thinking about things like little league and music lessons. I mean, our lives changed completely after that. And so that is something that I do remember what it was like before and what it was like after. And I don't think people realize how hard it is when you're undocumented, how every interaction becomes very dangerous for you. Think about something as simple as jaywalking, which I do all the time in my city. But when you're an undocumented person, you don't do that. You don't want anyone to notice you, uh, you would never go up to a police officer and ask for directions if you were lost, uh, you don't necessarily have a bank account because you need proper IDs to do that.
Speaker 2 00:06:26 So there's just a lot that we don't think about that is affected by having the legal right to be here. And there's just a lot of fear that people live under when they're not documented. And, you know, my dad told me that they had a plan for what would happen if they got deported while we were at school. So they had to have a backup plan for what would happen to us, if something, you know, if they were picked up at work and were deported. So there's just a lot involved in that whole process, but that's really my story. Um, after we became documented, of course, I became a naturalized citizen eventually. And in the book I tell my story of faith and I was really involved in Catholic church as a little girl. And then I really came to become, I really became a serious follower of Jesus as a college student. And I served some time overseas in doing Christian service. And then eventually I went to fuller, um, and the seminary and studied, uh, theology and sociology. So it was, um, for me, I came full circle because after that, I ended up working for an organization that serves refugees and other immigrants, uh, which is where I still work now. And we do refugee settlement and provide legal jobs and other services to immigrants. So, yeah, that's a little bit about me. It's a long answer.
Speaker 1 00:08:00 No, I I'm. I'm actually going to ask you to make it longer, actually. So this is world relief that you work for now, right? I'd like to link that organization in the, in the show notes, because I've becoming, um, introduced to this organization and the work that you guys do. And, um, I'm just really thankful for the, you know, what I know so far, I'm really thankful that you guys are in existence, right? And that you're doing, you're doing the good work that you're doing. Uh, not only with, with the work with refugees and other immigrants, but really taking the time and the energy and the effort to educate the church. Right. Um, these it's really important. This work is really important that, that you guys are doing. And I'm, I'm thankful for that, um, on this side of it, but I'm wondering if you will talk about that kind of interim between the full circle part, because I feel I'm remembering in the book, you kind of talked a little bit about how your views kind of morphed and changed and evolved when it came to your perspective on immigrants documented and undocumented and, and people who were coming here and, and how those sometimes were, I don't know, maybe dissonant given your personal experience.
Speaker 1 00:09:21 So can you, can you help us, like understand if you don't mind telling, telling us a little bit a part of that, like, from, from your full circle experience, what did the, what did the top or the bottom, I guess, of that circle kind of look like for you when you were, um, maybe in your young adult years?
Speaker 2 00:09:37 Sure. So you would think that because I am an immigrant, that I would have always been very pro immigration and pro uh, welcoming immigration policies, but actually I'm just like everyone else. As I really integrated and assimilated into American culture, my views on immigration came from the same place as most people do. Uh, they come from their peers, the media, their church members, perhaps their pastor talks about this from time to time. Although my pastor has didn't, I really did not have views on immigration that were informed by Jesus that were informed by the Bible. And when I was serving overseas, I taught a class on American culture. It was English through American culture. And I read a book that had this whole thing about how immigrants were burdensome to America, because we no longer had the, you know, undeveloped resources that we did in the 19th century.
Speaker 2 00:10:49 And so now it's just burdensome. And I thought, well, this is a textbook. They must be right. And I was like, oh, okay. And that's really why I told, um, my students. And it was interesting because a lot of them wanted to migrate to Canada and Australia and the U S because of the hardships of the economy in their country. But really, I just sat with that, like, okay, then I guess things are the way they are and y'all can just shut the door behind me and end of story. Because I didn't know at the time, and, you know, I wasn't acting with malice or anything. Right. But we, we always say that impact is more important than intent, and that's where I landed. And by that time, I didn't have any relationships with immigrants, other than people in my family. I mean, my life had just moved in a whole different direction.
Speaker 2 00:11:50 And so something I didn't write about in the book is that I took a class at fuller. So after I came back from overseas, I went to fuller and I was in a class on urban ministry and Alexia Salvatierra was a guest speaker. So she came into our class and she's talking about immigration from a biblical perspective. And so I just kind of raised my hand and said, hi, Lexia. So I read this book and I told him when I read it in this book, and I said, so it just seems like maybe we don't need immigrants anymore. And to her credit, I learned so much about how to talk with people in a, in a kind and gracious way from Alexia people who differ from me on this topic, because she was not like, you're dumb, you know what you're talking about? She could have said that, or you're ignorant, or your self hating, because you're an immigrant.
Speaker 2 00:12:46 How could you not be in favor of the students? Do anything like that? She just said, you know, kind of like, that's really interesting. Tell me where you learn that. So I told her, and she's like, well, uh, let me give you some facts around that. And she gave me some information around, uh, immigration that she had. And basically she was saying, I think this book had a skewed perspective, a bias perspective on this issue. And she provided well data. And of course she had real relationships because she works in direct services, right. Direct relationship, uh, with immigrants. And so she was not speaking from some theoretical space. And it was really, that was for me, the beginning of really turning because of maybe thinking, wait, so what I've been told, but all these people I know believe is wrong. And she was the first person to introduce me to versus like the ones that Deuteronomy about, you know, you should love the immigrant as yourself because you were immigrants.
Speaker 2 00:13:55 Um, and that was for me, very transformational that season. And I came to realize that, yes, she was right. It was extremely, um, she didn't say that, but for me to reject immigrants was to reject to myself and really ultimately to reject Jesus himself, because Jesus doesn't say, Hey, y'all be nice to immigrants. He says, I was an immigrant and you welcomed me. Right. He takes on the identity of people on the margins of his society, in the ancient world and that powerful section of Matthew 25. And so that really changed things for me, um, completely. And I ended up doing a paper in that class on a biblical view of, you know, immigration and, you know, just a research paper, obviously, nothing like the book, that's mostly narrative, but yeah, that was the beginning. But I, and I want to say that I do think it's a journey for people.
Speaker 2 00:14:59 I think it's something that, you know, God doesn't come and slap us in the face. I think that the holy spirit is gentle with us and sort of takes us a step at a time in our growth and change. We do have to be open, right. And we do have to see God in these things, but it is a gradual process. And as we have patience with ourselves, we also need to have patience with others as they're entering the journey, or perhaps they're not even in the journey yet. And we need to remember where we used to be and how we use to respond. And I think that's something that's really lacking.
Speaker 1 00:15:39 Yeah. Um, thank you for sharing that, that, um, that really spoke to me, um, that your, your openness to share that part of your journey in the book. Um, because it did, I felt a lot of grace in that, um, when you, when you shared that. And so thanks for sharing it again. Um, I do want to talk about the personal stories because the ones that you share in the book and, and, and your personal story are important. Um, but you touched on it with the verses, from Deuteronomy and Jesus saying that, you know, he was an immigrant and we loved him. Um, but also, you know, I want to talk about some of the biblical stories that you have in the book, because even one of those right now, we're say, well, Jesus was also a refugee, right? Like he was a child, a toddler probably right.
Speaker 1 00:16:35 Who was taken by his parents into another country, fleeing political violence. And when we read that part in Matthew it's short. And so, and, and so I think we kind of see that, and we say, hurrah, this is one of the places where the prophecy was fulfilled, because Matthew says, you know, that, that this, this is, this is why this happened, because, so that it could be said, you know, out of Egypt, I brought my, my child or whatever. But, but when we think about this, we go, oh, no, like they, his life was threatened. And Joseph responded to a crazy dream and took, moved his entire family to another country so that his family wouldn't be harmed. And, um, and they didn't stay forever, but that's something that I'm learning right now about, about many refugees is, is they don't want to stay where they have gone forever.
Speaker 1 00:17:36 Right. They want to go home. Um, and, and Jesus and his family had the opportunity to, to go home and not all refugees to do. Um, but he is, yes, he's our savior, he's the Messiah. But he is one story only of this faith history we have that you talk about in the book of, of all of these people who have their own stories of immigration. Um, so I would love for you to talk about Abraham, because his was probably the one that stood out to me the most. But I do want to know, like, as you were doing research and writing, and even now as our situation is kind of evolving in the U S when it comes to us and when it comes to immigration, um, what biblical characters story has impacted you the most?
Speaker 2 00:18:31 That's a great question. I actually did not write about her in that book. I am working on another book right now. It's actually doing a couple of weeks. I think the person's story who has impacted me the most is rehab. To be honest with you, rehab is in founding the book of Joshua. And it's very interesting because she has a connection to Ruth that most of us missed. Uh, she was Boaz's mother who in Boaz, eventually married Ruth. And I've often wondered now if Boaz showed so much, uh, kindness and acceptance to Ruth, because his own mother was a foreigner who had been loved and accepted by the Israelites. But one of the things that I see in that story that I love is one rehab is not your ideal perfect immigrant person that you want to have as part of your family. She was a sex worker.
Speaker 2 00:19:37 She was a little bit of a trickster deceiver. Uh, granted she did it for good for justice. It's affirmed in the scriptures as good, because she did it for the protection and wellbeing of the Israelites, but she's kind of a liar in that way. Um, and she is someone who turns on her own people. And I used to wonder about that. I wonder what made someone like rehab turn on her people, the Canaanites, but then I consider she's a sex worker. She's already an outsider within her own community. And so given that this is her work probably out of need and out of a desire to see her own family survive. When she sees that danger is coming and destruction is coming to the sippy, she cast her lot with the Israelites and survives, and she's honored in the scriptures. We don't get the sense that she's super devout or committed, uh, to the God of Israel.
Speaker 2 00:20:44 You know, she recounts to them, oh your God, there, these great things, uh, as he brought you out of Egypt, and she's heard about these things, right? Because what we know from the ancient world is that the houses of prostitutes were places where a lot of information was shared is where a lot of men went, obviously. So she's heard about these things and she tells them about it, but you don't get the sense, she's this person of deep faith. Um, but she does take their side. She does hide the spies, right? We came to scout the land and she does a lie to protect them. And she's rewarded for all of this. And the reason that I love that story is because in our current moment, I should say, and I think also historically even argue, there's this myth of a good immigrant and a bad immigrant and a good immigrant is super grateful and keeps their head down.
Speaker 2 00:21:47 And that's a critique the country. And maybe does things like service industries and is super patriotic. All of these things that we've asked of immigrants in order to sort of be worthy, right, to, uh, be included in the country, but rehab, subverts, all of those things, she is exactly the kind of person you would not want to be part of your family to be part of your nation. And yet this story is at the very beginning of Israel's story in terms of the land that they occupy, and you get the sense that perhaps God is saying that God, it tends to be the God of all people and that God loves and accepts people where they are for who they are. And God doesn't have a standard of a good immigrant or a good person, a bad person. So I love that about her story, that she doesn't, um, she doesn't fit this type that we're looking for.
Speaker 2 00:23:01 And yet she becomes part of the family. And not only does she become part of the family, she married and she lives with honor in Israel, she's mentioned in the lineage of Jesus in, in, um, the book of Matthew. It's really impressive. When you think about someone like her, a foreign sex worker, um, in the story of Jesus. And one of the interesting things about it is people have been so uncomfortable throughout history with the fact that Rayhab was a sex worker that they've tried to change our profession. Some theologians have tried to say, no, she was really an innkeeper, or she was really a business owner, like a business woman, but in the Hebrew, it's pretty clear. And there's a lot of like sexual puns in that section. It's just kind of emphasizing the fact that this is the kind of work that she did, but we're so comfortable, right?
Speaker 2 00:23:56 We want her to be respectable in some way, but our God says that doesn't matter. She's accepted before he leaves this profession before she, um, you know, Marion's and Israelite. And so it's, it's one of my favorite stories, uh, in the scriptures. And in fact, uh, in my new book, I have a chapter on the myth of the good immigrant and the way that the story of rehab speaks to this impossible standard that we set for immigrants that really, I think really takes away from the image of God and immigrants holding us up to a standard, even Jesus himself, didn't meet. You know, Jesus at times was tired, frustrated with his disciples, angry, turning over tables. Jesus was fully human. And I feel like often in our culture, in order for immigrants to be worthy of inclusion, they have to earn it in all these different ways. That's not what balance says, and it really does Mar their identity as children of God to be held up to that kind of scrutiny.
Speaker 1 00:25:08 Good night. That's good. And first I want to say, I'm just going to go ahead and extend the invitation for you to come back and talk about your new book, because the pump is already primed. I'm already ready for it. Um, but yeah, with, with Ray habits, it's funny that you bring that up, that people have kind of tried to change her, uh, profession because, you know, I look back at some of the ways that I have tried to, uh, get rid of the conflict about rehab in my mind. And, you know, in, in my mind, some of the things is I'm like I realized one day, I'm like, I think I have more of a problem with rehab because of the lying than I do with the fact that she was a prostitute. Like I need to take her fully in. Right. And, um, we actually, uh, we, we love the story of Ruth and Boaz in our house.
Speaker 1 00:25:57 And, um, and yes, it hits me every time that I read, um, at the end of Ruth, where they give the lineage of David, um, I think is where that is found that that may have his bow as his mother. And it's just, it strikes me every time. Like it, it never, it never, I'm never like, not struck by that. Um, by that part at the, at the end of Ruth, because I'm like, wait a minute. She she's, she's, she's back again. You know, we, we get her in Joshua and we get her in Hebrews and then we get to, and in Matthew and then we get to see her here in this incredible story. And I think that's powerful that, um, yeah, she doesn't, she doesn't meet the standard. And she's not like, if you're, if you're talking about the model immigrant, you are not choosing rehab, she raises her hand. She's the last one picked, this is not, this is not who you pick. Um, but I want to say you, you also bursted our bubble about Abraham.
Speaker 2 00:27:01 Yes.
Speaker 1 00:27:02 He would not be the first one picked
Speaker 2 00:27:06 Yes.
Speaker 1 00:27:09 Thanks Karen. I'm like, I got to this chapter and I'm like, oh, Abraham, because this cause because here, I'm going to tell you what, what hit me about Abraham? Okay. Because this is what we know the father of our faith. Right? And so this is one of the honorable things that we know about Abraham is that he picked up his stuff when God told him to, and he left, he left to go where God asked him to go and not knowing what that would look like. And it's this beautiful adventure, this divine mandate from God to go. And then we kind of overlook the parts that I want you to highlight that you highlighted in your book about these really crummy things that Abraham does while he's on his journey. And, and then you say something to the effect of we overlooked Abraham's really is criminal behavior because we know his whole story.
Speaker 1 00:28:14 So we kind of rush past those parts because of what you said, he's, he's the father of our faith. It's fine. Right. But if we think about Abraham and stop at some of these pit stops that you see that you stop us at, in, in your book. And we took a picture of this particular instance and Abraham has more than one. If we took a snapshot and erase that he was Abraham and made his name something else and made his home country something else, and then put that on the news. And we said, wait, we could use that as this, this propaganda, right. To promote our anti immigrant sentiment. If we wanted to look at what this guy did, can you believe this? Can you believe, and he's trying to come here, let's build a wall. Right. But this is Abraham. So, okay. Burst everyone. Else's bubble. I'm ready for it.
Speaker 2 00:29:16 Well, yes. Abraham is asked by God when we first meet him in Genesis to migrate, to leave his land, to leave her on and go to Canaan. And he does. Um, but then there's a famine that strikes. And so he and Sarah or Sariah at that time, they migrate to Egypt. That's where a lot of people went when there was a famine and arriving in Egypt, you get the sentence that there's some kind of gate or entrance or some kind of delineation between Egypt and other lands. And Abraham says, Hey, tell people, you're my sister, because you're beautiful. And I'm going to suffer if you don't. And she does. And she then is traffic essentially. And by modern standards, you have the same traffic, but she's taken as a concubine of the Pharaoh and to his palace. And Abraham grows really rich. He gets all this like cattle and land to graze all of these things.
Speaker 2 00:30:27 I mean, that's the modern definition of trafficking where you have someone coerced, another person they're sexually exploited, and that person becomes wealthy as a result. Right? That's exactly what, what happens in the story of Abraham and a lot of us think, well, you know, it's the ancient world. Those kinds of things happen. But imagine being Sarah in that situation, right? It's not a situation that any of us would want for ourselves, uh, or for any woman that we care about. It's terrible situation. Whether it's the ancient world or not. And not only does Abraham do that once, but he does it twice, uh, in, in his whole story. Uh, you see him do this yet again in another section after they become Abraham and Sarah and no longer Abraham and Sariah. So it's twice. So it's not as if, well, this one time he didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2 00:31:26 Um, and it's actually God who rescues Sarah Sariah, well times it's God who does the work, not, not Abraham, Abraham, who does it. So it's the starving to read. Honestly, a lot of us probably just sort of skip over those things really quickly. Or if we know it because a lot of people don't know it. Um, we think about his whole story and we think, well, right. What, if any of us, what if someone looked at our lives and judged us by the worst things we've ever done, that's not fair. So let's look at Abraham's whole life, whole life of faithfulness to God, obedience to God, right? Let's look at the way God chose them and blessed him and don't get me wrong. I think that's appropriate to do. I don't think we should take the worst thing someone has done and then use that against them forever and let that become their entire identity.
Speaker 2 00:32:23 But I fear that that's what happens to immigrants in our country is that we don't take time to learn their whole story. And what we do is we take this one action of being undocumented, perhaps, and we let that become their whole identity. I mean, I've heard Christian say things like illegals, it's such dehumanizing language, um, to refer to people without documents. And it's just shocking to me because I'm like, well, they're people first made in God's image. And yes. So it's really, really shocking. I was actually talking to a church about, um, about this whole situation. And I told them the story of an immigrant person in our community here in Baltimore. And I share both the very good things this person did in their lives. And then I shared some of the things that were not ideal, you know, and I made before I'd even finished the story, they were like shaking their heads like, Nope, this is not the kind of story you want to share.
Speaker 2 00:33:26 If you want to garner compassion or sympathy. And I asked them, you know, some of the things this person had done, have any of you ever gotten divorced? Have any of you ever smoked marijuana? Have any of you ever lie or misrepresented something? And, but it's so interesting to me, the way that standard is how to immigrants in a different way, it's a standard. We don't even hold ourselves, um, to, but we hold immigrants too. And it's really, it's really shocking to me because this is like the very opposite of the gospel. It's the opposite of what God does with us. You know, God, uh, God loves us and chooses us, uh, in, we're not good and we're not worthy, but God chooses to bestow honor on us, right. To bestow, um, uh, family status on us where we could be strangers from God. So yes, it's, it's really shocking.
Speaker 2 00:34:28 And it's especially shocking to know that Abraham didn't even make those situations, right. It was God who in to correct these wrongs that had occurred. And so, yeah, and I call him in the story and it's funny. I can tell you now when I was working with my editor on that chapter actually called the chapter Abraham, the criminal immigrant. And she said, oh no, we can't call it that. She's like, she's like there, they're going to be people who are just going to struggle with the fact he's an immigrant and not making them a criminal on top of that. So she's like, we can't call it that. I was like, okay, we can follow them a big immigrant father of our faith then, but that's what he is. And we just haven't been taught the story through those lenses. Right. We had done a sort of convenient editing of his story, but it's okay. Just like the great hop story. It's okay for us to tell the whole story because it's good enough for God, God didn't lie to us and sanitize all these stories. Uh, God gave us the whole story to hold all of it. And so it's okay for us to wrestle with those stories. And it's okay for us to acknowledge that Abraham was faithful, but deeply flawed human made mistakes acted out of fear and self-preservation at times, and this is what it means to be human.
Speaker 1 00:35:55 Yeah. I think that we, you know, we put biblical characters on a pedestal and I think that there's, it's, it's natural and normal and, and in, in, in a way it's, it's okay. Right. It's the way it's supposed to be. They're there. Their lives are recorded in the sacred texts for us to learn from, um, and be, but because of that, we do sometimes forget that they are deeply flawed or we'll put ourselves and we'll, and we'll try and gain that empathy. So if we do know their stories, we might, we might say things like, well, he was afraid, what would you do in that situation? You know, I know it wasn't right, but, but he was just trying to XYZ, you know, and we'll extend the grace to Abraham, but we won't extend it to our immigrant neighbor. Um, or yeah, to, to, to lots of other people who are, who are in similar situations and you're right.
Speaker 1 00:36:59 It's not a standard that we'll even hold. Um, for ourselves. There's a certain category of people in this case, immigrants who we have said, you must fulfill these boxes in order to be accepted. Um, but because I was born in a different place by no choosing of my own, I'm not under the same obligation to fulfill those check boxes. You know, you have to fulfill the checklist, but I don't have to just pass. I was by Providence, born in a different place, you know, in a different space. Um, would you share, I know you, you do this and you did it in the book and you just, you just mentioned one, a story that you shared, but this is, this is something that I am learning that we connect deeply. Right. When we understand people's stories of immigration. So will you pick one out of the hat and share someone's story?
Speaker 1 00:37:59 Um, someone's story with us. Um, I know, and, and, and you say in the book, and I know in situations like this, of course, we're, you know, you're, you're sharing them without identifying information. And, and in some cases, obviously, if there is a little bit of that, you've got people's permission and all of that. So we, so we have all these caveats to say, it's okay for you to share, but, um, and I'm so grateful because the, the ability for you to be able to share stories with people that we don't have the privilege of interacting with, um, helps us to learn more about it from, from the places where we currently sit. So do you mind sharing a story with
Speaker 2 00:38:35 Sure. I do not mind at all. And I want to say that, yeah, there are so many, so many different stories and as you encounter immigrants, I would way I share my story openly in the book. So obviously this is not apply to me, but I would wait to build stories, um, uh, to build relationships of trust with, uh, immigrants and refugees before asking them to share their story with you, just because, um, sometimes their shame and trauma around the story for people. Sometimes they're afraid if they, or if there's some kind of legalities situation around it, you know, like if they were undocumented or something like that, or if they are, um, but I will tell you that. Um, so in my family, um, a lot of my family has migrated to BS. Not all there's still, um, there's still family that's in, in Guatemala, but to me, one of the most, I tell this story in the book very briefly, but my great uncle, Juan, uh, he migrated to California, um, before the civil rights movement so long time ago.
Speaker 2 00:39:50 And he is actually really special in my family because he's the reason that my mom was able to get an education. So uncle Juan was an Afro watermelon. So along the Caribbean coast of Guatemala, there were a lot of Afro Guatemalans and they experience a lot of marginalization. And there's a lot of, um, sort of anti-blackness within the Latino community that we need to talk about more and you see it, play it out, um, and just really terrible ways in Latin America in particular. And there's just a lot of exclusion of dark skinned people. And so, so my uncle and his wife, my aunt that is steady left one Amala, they came to the us and way back then they crossed the border in a car pretending to be African-Americans. That would never happen today, by the way, it doesn't matter what you look like.
Speaker 2 00:40:50 Now, they ask you for papers. Um, but back then it worked and he crossed the border. He just kept his bounced shot the whole time. And so did she, and they crossed the border and they were undocumented in the U S um, uh, for a time eventually they did get their legal papers and legal right to be here. But, um, he and my aunt worked and they sent money to Guatemala. And my great uncle really loved my mom. So he helped her to pay for nursing school. And so I'm sure you've heard about remittances remittances as money that immigrants send back to their home country to help their families. And so my family wasn't a beneficiary of that. So my mom was able to be educated because of, um, my uncle, Juan, and she, I mean, it has had a positive effect in my life, right?
Speaker 2 00:41:50 And then my siblings lives, the fact that our mom got to be educated, got to have a profession. So, so my mom was always really, really grateful to him. But interesting thing is he never got to go back to Guatemala. He worked his whole life. He sent money back to Guatemala and he had a heart attack. He was sparely young when he died. He was in his early fifties. And a lot of people think that it was a lot of the stress of life, because what he experienced in the us was not only the marginalization of being an immigrant, but also that of being a black man before the civil rights movement. And so he sort of had this double exclusion on the basis of being dark and on the basis of, um, of being an immigrant person. And he would tell us how he had to sit in the backs of buses because he didn't have a car.
Speaker 2 00:42:49 So he suffered all of those same exclusions and also was worried about things like deportation, and what's going to happen to his family and making sure he had enough money to live and enough money to send back and died really young because of all those stresses on his life, you know? And so, yeah, it's really terrible. I only met, um, my uncle Juan. He died when I was 10, you know, shortly after we migrated and it's attracted, he because he was so young and he had so much, uh, to offer, but he lives life under so much pressure and pressure to provide pressure to survive, but also a stress of being undocumented, the stress of living life as a foreigner. So good news is that he had daughters and his wife who survived him and, you know, his hard work in the fruit of it, we can see in their lives and then my mom's cousins, their children's lives. But yeah, that's, you know, I, I tell people that every immigrant story is different. You might meet immigrants who came here on a work visa and then eventually got a green card through that. You might meet immigrants who came here as students and overstayed and married a us citizen. You just, there's a variety of different ways that people, um, can migrate in my family. There's just a lot of people who were undocumented and fortunately all of them have been able to get documented and to have the legal right to stay here. But yeah.
Speaker 1 00:44:39 Thanks Karen. Thank you so much. Um, as we kind of round out our time, I've got two more questions for you. Sure. I'll put them together and then, um, and then you can end it however you like. But so the first question is I just want to know, like what you would leave us with. Let's, let's say that someone is maybe not quite on the journey, or maybe, maybe this conversation is one of the first ones that they're hearing, um, around this topic. Um, you know, what would be your encouragement to, um, to that person as they start to explore this, um, in relationship with their faith and in their relationship with Jesus. And the second one, um, is if you have any, like, I didn't prep you for this at all, but if you have any off the top of your head, you know, other resources that, you know, maybe I could put links to in the notes or something like that for people, if they're, if, if this wet their appetite and their wanting to learn more, maybe some, uh, some places that they could go that would be, um, kind of an easy transition, you know, for them to get started, um, learning about this on their journey.
Speaker 1 00:45:52 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:45:53 So as a resource I would offer, um, a friend of mine wrote a book called love, undocumented, which I highly recommend. And the reason I recommended as an excellent entry point is that, uh, her name is Sarah she's American. She married an undocumented immigrant and didn't know anything about immigration, didn't know anything about the system. As a matter of fact, when they started dating and he told her he confessed that he was undocumented, she was just like, okay, well, I hope you figure that out before we get more serious. She just had no idea. I had no idea how it works. And what you see in the book is she, um, walks through the whole process with Billy, her husband, and you get to learn as she's learning the entire system and how challenging it is and all the obstacles along the way. She's a great storyteller.
Speaker 2 00:46:47 So the book is, um, it's called love, um, undocumented. And I think the subtitle is risking trust in a fearful world. And yes, it's a faith based book too, for Christians. And, and that's why I recommend it. I feel like if you are brand new to the subject, just like Sarah was, that's where she starts with you is where she was. Uh, and you get to walk the journey with her. And I'm not saying that you're going to be transformed by her journey, but it leads, I think it will show you sort of the gradual process for her and perhaps give you encouragement that the process is gradual for all of us. Uh, it sort of dawns on us very slowly. And in terms of leaving people with anything, if they're at the very beginning, or maybe not at the beginning of it, I would say you can start.
Speaker 2 00:47:40 And this is something I offer my book at the very end. I encourage you to just sit in the presence of the holy spirit. Um, you don't have to share this with anyone. You don't have to publicize it in any way, but to just sit with God and ask the question of yourself, of where your views on immigration come from, and be honest with yourself in God's presence, I'm not going to lie to you. It's very hard to face up to our own, uh, failure to align every part of our lives with God's word, right? Even when we're followers of Jesus, but we can start anywhere at any time. And so that's why I encourage people to do. You don't have to talk about this with anyone, just you and your journal or you and your prayer closet, you know, however you want to do it, but say, really sit with where did these views come from?
Speaker 2 00:48:42 And if you don't remember as the holy spirit as God to give you wisdom, to give you the memory to remember, and if it doesn't come from, if your abused on this issue, doesn't come from the Bible. Don't come from the Bible or from Jesus and Jesus' teachings, then start the journey and you don't have to be ashamed. You don't have to, um, you know, feel bad. We are where we are and God meets us exactly where we are. Um, and then takes us on the journey. And I can think of so many issues in my life where God has helped me to change, um, my position on something and for it to have that be more aligned, uh, with God's own commands and God's own heart. And it's happening for all of us all the time in the world of Facebook and Twitter. There isn't a lot of grace for people as they broke, but you don't need to live out your whole transformation on these social media platforms.
Speaker 2 00:49:51 Uh, you can ha you can do that. Um, you can do that, you know, um, in your own prayer time and with your own community of people who know you and give you the benefit of the doubt. And so that's what I'd encourage you to do, and it's slow and it's, it's hard. It's always hard for us to change. And for us to admit, I, maybe I was wrong about this. And so be kind and patient and gracious with yourself through that process. And you'll find that that will allow you it'll help you to be kind and gracious to other people as their, um, as they're learning too in different areas.
Speaker 1 00:50:34 That takes me right back to where it was actually one of the first things on my, on my notes for our conversation, but we kind of end it where, where your book almost begins at the end of the, the forward, um, where, uh, Sandra Maria event obstacle rights. Um, if we, as 21st century, Western Christians really want to know God, we must pay attention to immigrants, not for their conversion, but for ours. And it's just, as you're saying, this is a, a journey, um, for all of us that dawns upon us slowly. I love that word picture. Thank you so much, Karen. Um, the book again, which I'm going to link in the notes as well as, um, the other resources that we've mentioned is the God who sees immigrants, the Bible, and the journey to belong by Karen Gonzales. Karen, thanks again so much.
Speaker 2 00:51:32 Thank you so much for this fake conversation. Alexis,
Speaker 3 00:51:39 The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show notes, music and podcast production by Seth B SETI. Be sure to give us a review on iTunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app, you can also visit
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