Organizing for Immigrant Justice in (White + Christian) Texas

Celeste was one of sixteen community organizers who agreed to take part in a qualitative study, funded in part by a CIPR grant, on the ways whiteness – and more specifically, White Christianity – shows up in organizing spaces for racial justice. Staff and volunteer organizers racially identifying as Black, Latine, Indigenous, White, or mixed-race and ranging in age from 30 to 70 years were interviewed with a standard set of IRB approved questions derived from Critical Whiteness theory. All interviews were conducted by the primary researcher (who identifies as a White Christian and former community organizer) from March through July 2022, either on location in the state of Texas or via online video conferencing. Celeste represents her organization through a broader coalition of organizations working on various aspects of immigration reform and immigrant rights. For several of the organizers interviewed, the struggles of immigrants are deeply personal because of experiences like the one Celeste shared above. When asked why they became involved in organizing for immigrant justice, Latine organizers shared the following reasons: they had family members who were undocumented; their parents were immigrants; they grew up in immigrant communities with undocumented persons; and they live “on the border, and immigration has been a reality all [their] life.” 

Regarding the ways whiteness impacts her organizing work, Celeste says she feels like “religious organizers have a lot of White guilt.” And while she admits sometimes that can be helpful, more often, working from such a positionality causes White Christians to “tokenize the people that they’re helping instead of trying to get the help that they need.” Another Latine organizer expressed that there is power in White religious institutions and identities, and “having friends that work within the church is very important... [but] religion does as much to oppress as it does to uplift.” An example from a third Latine organizer involved White Christian groups coming to the border region of Texas, presumably to learn more about the immigration system, but often “with a mentality of ‘I know better than you, I know more than you, I’m better than you, or I’m gonna save you.’” 

Critical Whiteness Studies scholar George Yancy argues the condition of whiteness is not natural, but rather, a social construct that can be deconstructed, and from which Whites (through great effort) can “un-suture” themselves. But this un-suturing can only be achieved through deep interrogation of, and resistance to, the personal and social benefits of the condition of whiteness. While a growing number of scholars across various disciplines are addressing the problem of whiteness as it appears in more conservative or evangelical branches of U.S. Christianity, far less scholarship is focused on how this problem of whiteness persists even among more progressive forms of White Christianity – where White Christians engage in the work of racial justice movements, but often continue (consciously or unconsciously) to center whiteness even as they understand it to be the core problem they are seeking to dismantle in their organizing efforts. 

This study is part of a larger dissertation project for the DU/Iliff Joint Doctoral Program in the Study of Religion, which argues that while it may be impossible for White people to ever become wholly un-sutured from the condition of whiteness, the essential labor for Whites in reclaiming the human condition is a lifelong commitment to this practice of un-suturing from whiteness; for White Christians, this must also include the work of un-suturing Christianity from whiteness, as it has been portrayed through the dominant U.S. national religious identity. The purpose is twofold: to better understand how White Christians engage in and are impacted by organizing in multi-race and multi-faith movements for racial justice (do these movements have the potential to “un-suture” White Christians/Christianity from whiteness?); and to better understand how the presence of White Christians impacts the work of such organizations and movements (what are the benefits, as well as the costs, of allowing White Christians into power-building spaces/movements for BIPOC communities?).  

Examining the lived experiences of community organizers in Texas who are working toward incarceration and immigration reform or abolition, the study employs both Critical Whiteness Studies and liberative feminist scholarship primarily from Black, Latine, and Indigenous women because of their epistemological hermeneutic of lived experience as the foundation for developing theories of social transformation. Texas is an ideal location to pursue this work because it is a complex matrix of mass incarceration, detention and deportation, immigration, conservative Christian identities, conservative political identities, and a growing mass of multi-race and multi-faith (as well as non-religious) identities who support liberative movements and more liberal-progressive policies and governance. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, Texas ranks highest in the actual number of incarcerated persons compared to other states, with approximately 134,000 people in state prisons, 22,000 in federal prisons, and 58,000 in local jails. When you add these numbers together, including immigration detention and juvenile facilities, “Texas has an incarceration rate of 840 per 100,000 people… meaning it locks up a higher percentage of its people than any democracy on earth.” And while Texas ranks second by half in the number of immigrant residents (with 5.1 million compared to California’s 10.5 million), it is the highest-ranking state in the number of deportations. Syracuse University’s TRAC Immigration site shows that between October 2002 and June 2020, Texas alone had deported 2,434,899 people – nearly half of the total 5,054,762 deportations from the U.S. and nearly three times the number of persons deported from California or Arizona in the same period. 

Interview analysis shows that even amongst liberal to progressive White Christians involved in racial justice efforts, various challenges related to whiteness still arise. The most frequently referenced concerns could be categorized as follows: 

• A slow process of deconstruction regarding racialized personal and social beliefs 
• Fear of leaving comfort zones or divesting from whiteness 
• Lack of urgency for issues primarily impacting communities of color 

Other notable challenges included: 

• Language barriers for monolingual English speakers 
• Racial hierarchy dynamics of White board members in relation to BIPOC organizers 
• “White savior complex” 

For Celeste, the lack of urgency in understanding the pressing needs of immigrant communities was illustrated when detention centers would release families and provide them bus vouchers but no other resources. Many of these families were sleeping at bus stations and urgently in need of bus tickets, lodging, food, and in some cases, diapers. Celeste shared the following experience: 

And we had some White allies that would come, and I mean they had good intentions I’m sure, but they were taking pictures of the folks that were on the buses, and then putting them on social media and kind of using that to get donations for their church. But their church wasn’t providing any services other than just giving people rides to and from locations... And so, it was a mess, and we had to confront them, and they were basically telling us that they were doing it because they felt really bad and they wanted to do more. But they didn’t do it in a way that was thoughtful for the families that we were helping, or the other organizations. 

These concerns notwithstanding, participants also find value in continuing to organize with White Christians, primarily for the following reasons: 

• Belief that racial justice work is integral to Christian identity 
• Building solidarity among differing racial groups to achieve racial justice goals (i.e., creating more/better allies) 
• Belief that Whites need to learn and get involved with racial justice efforts to overcome their own racial ignorance and educate their peers (and not depend on persons of color to educate them) 
• Leverage in organizing 

Leverage in organizing was the most frequently cited reason given for the value in working with White Christians. Several organizers shared examples of leveraging White allies to get into meetings with elected officials, be taken seriously at government and NGO meetings, or to gain critical mass in support of organizing goals. Celeste described how, “there are times that we need an ally, so there are many times where I’ve used my White friends to be that person that stands in front, or to even get us a meeting sometimes with elected officials so that we could try to get some ordinance passed… Unfortunately, that’s how it works, especially when we do lobbying.” Another organizer shared the following regarding the impact of leveraging White Christians for organizing power: “You tend to have more leverage and be taken more seriously when you’re attached to a structure – and the majority of the decision makers [in Texas] are attached to White religious structures.” 

The fact the organizers interviewed are doing this work in the deeply red and politically influential state of Texas could reveal implications and potentialities for U.S. social and political relations on a national scale. When asked if they believed their work, if successful, had implications for the rest of the U.S., every organizer responded affirmatively, often citing Texas as a strong influencer of current immigration and incarceration laws nationwide. One organizer shared their belief that “what’s happening with immigration in Texas and how we’re responding is a huge part of the narrative that’s built about immigrants – certain immigrants – in this country.” Another organizer shared the example of how Texas’s Attorney General influenced the Trump administration’s attempt to rescind DACA (which was later overturned by the Supreme Court): “So the state of Texas had control over the executive branch in that moment. I would argue because of the seismic political power of the state of Texas, [the Trump administration] had to grant that… [The Texas Attorney General’s office] pulled that leverage on the Trump administration. They’re controlled by what happens locally.” 

As I ended my interview with Celeste, I asked this same question regarding the national impact of Texas as it relates to her work for immigrant rights. She shared that while “it might even be a naïve dream,” she holds onto the belief that if things change in Texas, other states with conservative legislators would also change, “because 1) the size of Texas is just enormous; but 2) I also feel that there are a lot of states that have horrible laws for no reason other than Texas had it… So, I do feel that if we change how the universe of laws are made, and how people are being treated here in Texas, I think it would make a difference across [the nation] …  

But, I mean, it’s like wishful thinking.”