Campaigning for Justice: Religious and Legal Activism in Challenging Illegal Immigration as a Social Problem in the U.S.

Very little has been published on Latino religions and social problems in the United States. This is ironic given the fact that Latino popular Catholicism, Pentecostalism, and other metaphysical traditions and social practices have often been quite literally demonized and characterized as a social problem by American society in general and Euro-American denominational or religious leaders in particular (Dolan and Hinojosa 1994, 57-58, 135, 179, 282, 306; Sandoval 1991, 32-50; 118-127). The most recent manifestation of arguing that Latinos are a social problem is the movement to criminalize and punish undocumented immigrants by defi ning them as “illegal aliens” and lawbreakers. This transforms the Latin American immigrants into a socially and politically subversive element in American society.