La Jornada: They document the lives of immigrants in sanctuaries

New York and Washington. Faced with the climate of terror for immigrant communities, suddenly there is an oasis of calm – perhaps ephemeral given what is happening outside – within churches and temples, spaces that are captured by photographer Cinthya Santos Briones in her new exhibition Living in sanctuary.

The exhibition at the New York Camera Club’s Baxter St gallery offers a selection of photographs of immigrants and refugees in the United States who have sought asylum in churches, temples and religious communities that are part of the informal Sanctuary movement. Images of daily life in a shelter offer both the vulnerability and the act of resistance of undocumented immigrants and refugees in the United States. Children using these spaces to play are among the scenes that capture that moment between tender and innocent and official violence (which is not visible, but is felt).

act of resistance

The exhibition is part of a documentary work by Santos Briones that began in 2017 about people who suffered anti-immigrant policies by entering a sanctuary, which is not a legal option, but a collective effort of communities that seek first to protect the persecuted and at the same time challenge policies that violate the human rights of the most vulnerable; that is, an act of resistance.

“The project explores the intersections of migration, politics, religion, and community resistance, documenting how migrants and their allies have created networks of protection, solidarity, and belonging in response to displacement, detention, and deportation,” says Santos Briones, who is also an educator and as an ethnohistorian/anthropologist she worked with the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico before arriving in New York, where she has continued her work in direct contact with immigrant communities.