Beyond Welcome: Centering Immigrants in Our Christian Response to Immigration

This was an interesting book to read. It provides a Christian perspective on immigration from the perspective of a woman who immigrated from Guatemala to the US as a child. The book helped me think through several issues related to immigration that I had never before considered.

The book was more

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autobiographical than I expected. I anticipated the book's claims would be substantiated by research. Instead, the author frequently drew from her experiences (and her own past misconceptions about immigration) to make her points. For example, the author did not use research or statistics to show what white Americans think about immigration. She simply gave some negative examples from her experience. I believe her story is a valuable one to hear, but I wish the book's marketing had been more clear about its autobiographical nature.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions in this review are my own.

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Gonzales reminds readers that the scriptures are full of stories about the movement of people, yet no judgment is made on these people who migrate. Too often well meaning Christians see their way as the "correct" way and expect that "good immigrants" to the US will conform to to the American faith

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expression. Yet we all understand the Bible through our own cultural backgrounds. The author is especially qualified to write about this subject, as an immigrant herself who has studied at Fuller Theological Seminary. Using Bible stories, her own experience and the experiences of others, she discusses topics such as assimilation, hospitality, belonging, migration and telling our own stories. Each chapter ends in a prayer. This book would be a good book for a church book club.

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An exploration of how Christians can better embody Jesus for the immigrant among them.

The author, herself an immigrant to America from Guatemala, often speaks of her experiences in her life in America, as a teacher, as an advocate for immigrants, and in mission work in Kazakhstan.

She addressed the

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expectations of Americans regarding assimilation and what has often been lost in that process, let alone how many groups are not quite allowed to assimilate because they are considered the other. She discusses the idea of the "good immigrant" and the standards to which immigrants are unfairly held. She speaks of the power of language for connection and sharing. She considers how the Bible is read and interpreted differently in different cultures and what happens when one group decides their reading is more normative. She spoke of Jesus' hospitality and the kind of hospitality which we often find threatening yet necessary for truly sharing in life. She spoke of the need to belong, the struggle of belonging in a foreign land, and how God's people should be a place of belonging. She then considers how plenty of people move even within America yet are not considered immigrants and how frequently people have been on the move throughout time. She warns us about using other people's stories without their permission and/or making them the object of our purposes rather than the subject of their own experiences. She concludes by envisioning a community of God's people as a "kin-dom," where all find belonging as brothers and sisters in Christ before God the Father.

Her perspective is very helpful and her exhortations are worth considering, uncomfortable as they may prove for many in the dominant culture.

**--galley received as part of early review program

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