Teaching Borderlands Podcast

In current US society, the political discourse has directed the national gaze southward to the US borderlands—stretching from the Puerto Rican archipelago to El Muro en la Playa in Tijuana, Mexico. The central concern is that much of this southbound discourse has led to increased racial stigmatization and criminalization of brown-bodied Latinx people across this border-scape territory (which includes both sea and land). As tenured Latinx faculty in theological education, we are concerned that little is being offered at Association of Theological Schools (ATS) member schools to expand their students’ vision of the US’s southern borderlands, particularly within the domains of course offerings, public lectures, library holdings, and faculty hires. This pedagogical and epistemological gap can inadvertently perpetuate abiding racial prejudices against the many Latinx people who migrate through or who are settled in the US borderlands. Hence, for this project, we aim to visit four ATS member schools across the United States to engage in strategically planned and programmatic conversations with faculty, administrators, and students about the history, ethics, theology, and hermeneutics of the US borderlands from a diverse Latinx perspective. The central goal is not only to offer a counter story of the borderlands but ultimately to foster a lifegiving vision of Latinidad for each host school’s educational ecology.

Team Members: Efraín Agosto (New York Theological Seminary), Gregory L. Cuéllar (Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary), Teresa Delgado (Iona College), Eduardo C. Fernández (Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University), Daisy L. Machado (Union Theological Seminary)