Thanksgiving is a holiday that contains a multitude of stories, which range from a narrative about gratitude to a narrative of mourning to a narrative of migration. This year, one of the backdrops of this day is the migration of people due to climate change, economic hardship, and oppression, as well as the unjust treatment of both longtime and recent black and brown immigrants in our country. This is a season for each of us to connect with our personal stories of migration, to practice hospitality to our neighbors, and to count the cost of ongoing acts of colonialism.
Note: Below in this blog post is an opportunity for you to show up for your neighbors and participate next Wednesday at 2 p.m. in an interfaith public witness by the ICE Facility here in Portland.
Unless we are indigenous to the Americas, we are descended from people who migrated here from other continents or were carried here against our will. Even if we are from the Americas, our ancestors may have come from another place than the one we find ourselves in today. Migration is a human fact of life. For tens of thousands of years, we have traveled from one place to another and then to another. We do this for many reasons, including migrating in search of food, safety, and freedom. Why did you or your ancestors move from one place to another? Were you or they displaced or stolen from somewhere else? Were you or they moving in search of an opportunity? Were you or they forced to move, or were you free to move? Do you descend from the original peoples of the Pacific Northwest? Share these stories around the Thanksgiving table, or on another occasion this week.
Most of the inhabitants of Oregon do come from other places. For those of us who immigrated to this country, or who moved here from other places within this country, we have stories of the neighbors who welcomed us and those who did not. Oregon has a particular and painful history as to how people of color have been treated here – those who had lived here for centuries before white settlers, as well as those who moved here. For example, there was racist explicit anti-black language in Oregon’s state constitution all the way up to 2002.
We are all always interdependent with others who live in our community with us. None of us made it to today without the aid of others, and none of our ancestors made it through their lives without the aid of others at one point or another. What are the stories we can share about times we have been helped by a neighbor? What are the stories we can share about when we helped our neighbor?
Next week, on Wednesday, December 3, at 2 p.m., you are all invited to show up for our immigrant neighbors in front of the ICE Facility on Macadam. We will be launching an interfaith public witness effort that will take place for 45 minutes on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of the month. Many thanks go to the folks at Together Lab and to our social justice director, Dana Buhl, for helping to get this effort off the ground.
We are expanding from the clergy and lay folks who have been accompanying immigrants to their appointments at the ICE Facility and the Federal Courthouse to engaging larger swaths of our community. Our immigrant neighbors, even some who are citizens and some who are indigenous to the Americas, are being unfairly detained and ill-treated in detention. This is un-American and anti-democratic behavior.
We – you and I – First Unitarian Portland and Havurah Shalom have been tapped to be the first congregation to host. Now is the time to shine a light in the middle of winter on what is happening right here in our state, as well as in states throughout our nation. Please join us, if you are able.
We know that not everyone can go to the ICE Facility in the middle of a workday or for accessibility reasons. This Sunday, there will be pebbles and a bowl of water in the Narthex. Please pick up a pebble, say a prayer, and drop the pebble in the bowl of water. We will be carrying these pebbles with us and leaving them and all our prayers in that place.
There are many people who are comparing the rounding up of immigrants right now and the conditions they are enduring to the Japanese internment camps or the Native American boarding schools. We must ask ourselves how the current mobilization and militarization of ICE is a continuation of policies of colonialism, domination, and white supremacy. What will we say to our grandchildren now, or in the future about what we did and said in this time of unfolding history?
May the gratitude we feel for those who have helped us and buoyed us up in a time of sorrow, need, or threat, flow out from us in acts of healing and nurturing, compassion and courage for our neighbors who have need of us today.
In faith,
Rev. Alison