“In the practical sense, Sanctuary is a place of shelter. A place where someone who is at risk of deportation faces great danger if they were [returned] back to their country of origin.”
Daniel Vega highlights the importance and impact that Sanctuary has on immigrant communities through his own definition of Sanctuary. He notes that Sanctuary is a very personal and visceral process that must be carefully planned and supported. As such, the panel discussion “Sanctuary and Sovereignty” aimed to untangle the potential possibilities of intersecting ideas and practices of Sanctuary in the immigrant rights movements alongside interpretations of Sovereignty within Indigenous movements, and bringing academics together on bridging the gap amongst Critical Indigenous Studies and Immigration Studies among other fields like American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Native American Studies, Chicana and Chicano Studies.
One of the driving questions posed by the community at the event and one that I witnessed floating around social media was, “What would happen if Indigenous Nations or Pueblos asserted their right to shelter undocumented people using sovereignty to support Sanctuary?”
Co-Facilitator, Dr. Schreiber added this important statement on the way we were using or interpreting Sovereignty in our panel, “while there are different uses of the term sovereignty, we are focusing on the term as a way to underscore the self-determination of indigenous nations in the United States. While the US asserts its sovereignty over and against indigenous people, the statement ‘no ban on stolen lands’ calls attention to the illegitimate occupation of the territory that is currently referred to as the United States.”
Our panelist, Nellie Jo David of the Tohono O’odham Nation quickly highlighted the real-life consequences that Indigenous communities face in aiding immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico borders (many times crossing directly into the backyards of Native people’s lands). She referred to examples in which Indigenous peoples were arrested on charges of “harboring undocumented immigrants,” along experiencing many other violent acts at the hands of the state for providing humanitarian aid on Indigenous land. Similarly, Sanctuary leaders of the 1980’s and current leaders of “New Sanctuary” movements are facing similar charges under the same pretext of “harboring immigrants.”
Panelists, Dr. Jennifer Denetdale and Jennifer Marley also highlighted the struggle by Indigenous Nations’ leaders to find commonality with immigrant peoples in critiquing the establishment of the U.S.-Mexico border and the limited progressive understandings of social justice among some leaders of Indigenous governments. Jennifer Marley mentioned that Sanctuary has the potential in leading to a true fight for Indigenous Sovereignty; one that she pointed would be met with much resistance by the U.S. settler nation-state whose own sovereignty is threatened by such intersecting movements. As such, Dr. Irene Vasquez emphasized that immigrants and people of color must be able to define such terms as sovereignty and sanctuary for themselves outside of the purview of authoritarian institutional spaces.
A conclusion or take away in regard to the exercising of Indigenous sovereignty in efforts of sanctuary is that it matters who is performing and offering sanctuary; inevitably, people of color already suffer tremendous violence by the state and expectations of sanctuary will bring added dimensions of pressure. This is ongoing work and community conversations I wish to continue to explore in future academic and organizing efforts.
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The “Sanctuary and Sovereignty” panel discussion took place on Friday, March 9th, 2018 at the Outpost Performing Space in Albuquerque, New Mexico as part of the “U.S.-Mexico Border: Place, Imagination, and Possibility” programming organized by 516 Arts. The panel event was sponsored by: 516 Arts, UNM American Studies Department, UNM Art & Ecology, and the Outpost Performance Space.
Panelists included: Jennifer Marley, The Red Nation, Eduardo Esquivel, NM Dream Team, Professor Jennifer Denetdale (American Studies), Professor Irene Vasquez (UNM Chicana and Chicano Studies and American Studies) Nellie Jo David, Tohono O’ odham environmental justice activist and member of the TOHRN (Tohono O’ odham Hemajkam Rights Network) and Daniel Vega from the New Mexico Faith Coalition for Immigrant Justice. The panel was facilitated by Rafael A. Martinez (American Studies & UndocuTalks) and Professor Rebecca Schreiber (American Studies).
Audio recording of the panel was made possible by UndocuTalks and will be released as a podcast episode on March 26, 2018.