Christianity Across Borders

Theology and Contemporary Issues in Global Migration

Gemma Tulud Cruz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000416749
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Religione

This book offers a comprehensive exploration of key issues in contemporary global migration and considers the theological implications for Christianity, in general, and for Christian faith and practice in various parts of the world, in particular.

Migrant Christians, who make up the majority of believers on the move and in diaspora, play an increasingly vital role in world Christianity today. Drawing on cases from across the globe, Gemma Tulud Cruz considers how Christians are faced with immense gifts and tremendous challenges brought by the ever-increasing presence of migrants in their midst and the conditions that characterize contemporary global migration. Migrant Christians themselves face multiple challenges, which have been made more stark by the coronavirus pandemic.

The volume will be relevant to scholars of religion and of migration who are interested in a closer examination of what happens to Christians and Christianity, (faith) communities, and nation-states in the age of migration.

Part I

Politics of marginality and identity

DOI: 10.4324/9781003171911-2

1 Resident alien

Home in the age of migration

DOI: 10.4324/9781003171911-3

Migration as displacement

The migration of people is an area of human activity in which change is foregrounded. When one moves across borders there is a plethora of changes one must contend with, foremost of which is a new place, that is, a new country and a new residence. It is naturally the desire of every migrant to have a smooth transition in the new place. In fact, it is often the hope of every migrant to be able to successfully make a life for oneself in the new place and find a home in it. This often painful process of physical and psychological adjustment in the new country is complicated by various factors that underpin the migrant condition in contemporary times. As Hannah Arendt observed of forced migrants in the wake of World War II, the world found nothing sacred in the abstract nakedness of being human. Migrants’ very “right to have rights” seems ineluctably bound to citizenship, so that the “loss of home and political status” is tantamount to “expulsion from humanity altogether”: the alien becomes not the exemplar of the “generalized other,” but a “frightening symbol of difference as such.”¹ Homi Bhabha coined the term “unhomely” in order to capture the unsettling reality of the concept of home that emerges from contemporary migration through displacement and relocation. To be unhomed, he writes, is not to be homeless, nor can the unhomely be easily accommodated in that familiar division of the social life into private and public spheres. It is an experience of “the world-in-the-home and the home-in-the-world.^{” 2}

This chapter examines the notable ways in which migrants deal with physical displacement as they engage in the process of home making in the context of the opportunities and challenges embedded in identity politics. It describes two faces of home as they are experienced by contemporary migrants, namely home as a place and home as transnational, and reflects on their theological implications in terms of spiritual home(lessness), especially as it relates to the church, and hybridity and marginality as existential condition for people who move(d) across borders. The chapter contends that home in the age of migration is eschatological in character insofar as it reflects the “resident aliens” metaphor that the Bible uses to describe the relationship of the people of God to the world they live in.

Roots and routes: faces of home in the context of contemporary migration

The rate, pace, and density of peoples’ mobility in contemporary times is not only rearranging human geography but also more intensely challenging understanding of identity and belonging, resulting in a problematization of “home” as a particular type of built form in a physical location. The Oxford English Dictionary defines home as the dwelling in which one habitually lives, or regards as one’s proper abode; the place of one’s dwelling or nurturing, with its associations; a place, region, or state to which one properly belongs, in which one’s affections center, or where one finds rest, refuge or satisfaction; one’s own country, one’s native land or the place where one’s ancestors dwelt. As could be gleaned from the definition, home is a fluid concept. This is particularly true for today’s migrants whose understanding and practices of home are contributing to the reimagination of the term. So what is home, where is home, and how is home reimagined among migrants?

Home as place

Home as a place constitutes the most common understanding and expression of home that remains true for contemporary migrants. There is an intrinsic need among human beings to be placed and today’s migrants are no different as location, home, and country continue to be understood and embraced by them as revealing indicators of identity. It is important for migrants to be rooted in a specific locality with its associated sense of community and belonging, as well as familiar language and culture. Hence, there are Chinatowns in various parts of the world just as, among others, there are traditionally Italian suburbs. The 2016 Australian census, for example, revealed that in the state of New South Wales migrants are likely to be Chinese, those in Queensland are likely to be from New Zealand, and those in Victoria are typically from India.³

To be at all, or to exist in any way, is to be somewhere, and to be somewhere is to be in some kind of place. Place is as requisite as the air we breathe, the ground on which we stand, the bodies we have. Nothing we do is unplaced.⁴ The importance of the need to be placed, or to be rooted somewhere, is embodied in the concept of postal codes. For many migrants, the preferred postal code for their new home in the new country may be where they can find reminders of their country of origin from, among others, the people, language, cuisine, music, religious and cultural festivals, and place of worship. They, therefore, tend to live in places where they can, to a certain extent, salve in some way, shape or form their nostalgia for the home country that was left behind.

Nevertheless, it is not always for cultural reasons, nor is it always a matter of unblemished choice, that migrants live, and tend to be concentrated, in ethnic neighborhoods; socio-economic and political circumstances may force them to live, or continue to live, in these places. The high concentration of migrants from the same ethnic group in one place then creates what we know as ethnic enclaves or the more stereotypical and pejorative term “ghettoes.” In some cases gentrification policies by authorities and predatory initiatives by local businesses looking for prime land in the cities push migrants further out of the town or city center. This predicament applies not just to their secular home but also their religious home or place of worship. Postal codes, which imply the legality of a settlement and/or the status of an area, reflect this socio-economically induced divide that is compounded by discriminatory policies, especially in cosmopolitan areas. In London, for instance, an SW postcode largely speaks of white Middle England, Wimbledon, and affluence, whereas an “E” postcode tends to conjure up images of multiculturalism and a mixture of deprivation and gentrification.⁵

For migrants, particularly those who moved as an adult, the country of origin retains its role as a, if not the, homeland and, consequently, as a strong source of identification. Thus, home significantly continues to be associated with the country of origin. In some cases, the association of home with one’s country of origin becomes stronger in the context of migration for various reasons. As Elie Wiesel contends “longing for home” emerges through distance and estrangement. The late Cuban-American theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz lays bare the deep wounds of dislocation that underpin migrants’ longing for the country of origin:

I am caught between two worlds, neither of which is fully mine, both of which are partially mine… As a foreigner in an alien land I have not inherited a garden from my mother but rather a bunch of cuttings. Beautiful but rootless flowering plants– that is my inheritance. Rooting and replanting them requires extra work… it requires much believing in myself.⁶

Ethnographic research and in-depth interviews with migrants conducted in Senegal and in Italy by Guilia Sinatti affirm this strong association of home among migrants with the country of origin. Sinatti’s study shows that for many Senegalese the ultimate home still remains strongly identified with the country of origin. Senegalese migrants, Sinatti writes, unanimously express the eventual goal of return to the homeland. The perceived importance of an anchorage in Senegal is quite strikingly expressed, Sinatti adds, in the practices of migrant investment in housing.⁷ Hence, home for migrants as associated with the country of origin may also be understood as a particular village or, more explicitly, a particular house or dwelling in their homeland. It is where the migrant, or the migrant’s family, lived or where some relatives continue to live. Home for the migrant, in other words, may be a specific place in the homeland with whom the migrant associates personal and deeply cherished memories. Consequently, there is a consistent picture of an almost obsessive spending on housing in their country of origin.⁸

This obsessive spending on the house in the homeland, however, is not simply about memories. “The new or enlarged house, a near universal symbol of status, is the personal monument to the migrant’s success and establishes, in the eyes of the local community, the fact that, at least materially, the migrant is on par with the local elite.”⁹ As Heather Horst observes:

Whether the construction of a home is motivated by status in the homeland, the recognition of an alternative status system for migrants who may be marginalized in the country and communities of migration, or a desire to embed themselves in the land and kinship systems of their birth, it is clear that homes are undeniably one of the key ways that migrants attempt to claim and reclaim their place in the world.¹⁰

Horst’s observation points to a second reason why migrants continue to associate home with their country of origin. This is when the “estrangement” takes on socio-economic and political dimensions. Indeed, the sense of loss, loneliness, homesickness or isolation that typically comes with the dislocation associated with migration becomes more acute, when things do not work out as well as expected, especially for migrants who have hoped to find a new home in their country of settlement. Sin Yih Teo’s study of return migration of Chinese immigrants from Canada to China points to these socio-economic and political factors, that may account for the challenges and, in some cases, failure among migrants to find a home in the new country that, consequently, drive them to continue to strongly associate home with the country of origin. Teo writes:

To appreciate their sentiments, it is useful to remember that many recent PRC skilled immigrants have faced considerable settlement difficulties in Canada– especially in finding professional employment– presenting a common scenario of former engineers, teachers, and doctors working as dishwashers, factory workers, and janitors earning the minimum wage of CA$8/hour.¹¹

This scenario is no different in major cities in key destination countries, especially in Western countries, where many highly educated and highly skilled migrants end up being significantly underemployed due to lack of recognition of their academic and professional qualifications and, to a certain extent, racism. The confluence of these conditions brings serious economic as well as socio-psychological issues for migrants and their families in the country of destination and origin.

Indeed, one strong driving force for migrants to cling to the country of origin as the home is the experience of discrimination on account of their identity as a migrant, especially if they are poor or come from certain places. The latter could be glimpsed in Donald Trump’s reference to “shithole countries”¹² in the context of the 2017 travel ban for seven mostly Muslim-majority countries (Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, North Korea), a ban he extended to Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Nigeria in January 2020. Marginalized migrants’ experience of racism pervades the various aspects of their lives. An Asian acquaintance eyeing a particular rental property in Sydney, Australia was told by the real estate agent not to bother making an offer because even if he has the best offer it will be turned down because his surname does not sound Anglo.

Discrimination is also experienced by migrants in their faith co...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I: Politics of marginality and identity
• PART II: Special populations
• Index