Strangers No Longer: The Politics and Promises of Religious Hospitality in Latino America | Dr. Sergio González

The Jackson Chair presents Dr. Sergio González, who will provide a lecture titled Strangers No Longer: The Politics and Promises of Religious Hospitality in the Latino American Heartland.  

The lecture will be held on September 18th, 2024, in Armstrong Browning Library, 710 Speight Ave. Waco, Texas 76706, in the Treasure Room from 3:30 - 5:00 pm. 

Sergio M. González is Assistant Professor of History at Marquette University. A historian of twentieth-century U.S. migration, labor, and religion, his scholarship focuses on the development of Latino communities in the U.S. Midwest. He is the author of Mexicans in Wisconsin (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2017) and the co-editor of Faith and Power: Latino Religious Politics Since 1945 (New York University Press, 2022) with Felipe Hinojosa and Maggie Elmore. His most recently published book, Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin (University of Illinois Press, 2024), explores the relationship between Latino communities, religion, and social movements in the twentieth century Midwest. His current research expands on these themes through two new initiatives. The first examines the history of sanctuary movements in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, exploring the pivotal role religious institutions and people of faith have played in developing contemporary social movements for immigrant and refugee justice. His second project analyzes the central role the Midwest has come to play in the country’s fraught immigration politics, studying the century-long record of anti-immigrant sentiment in the region and the social movements that have risen to combat it.

In Dr. Sergio González's lecture titled Strangers No Longer: The Politics and Promises of Religious Hospitality in the Latino American Heartland, he will discuss how hospitality practices grounded in religious belief have long exercised a profound influence on Midwestern Latino communities. Drawing from his recently published book on the history of Latinos, faith, and social movements in Wisconsin, Sergio González will examine the power relations at work behind the types of hospitality – welcoming and otherwise – practiced on, and with, newcomers in the region. From assimilation to self-determination to sanctuary, faith spaces have been pivotal in the settlement experiences of Latinos in the Midwest. González will show how the history and lessons from this region, a space where Latinos now account for the largest and fastest demographic growth, have plenty to teach us about the future of Latino communities in the United States.