Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice 2019

Saturday, 11/16, 8:20-9:10 PM

SESSION TITLE: Seeking Refuge at the U.S.-Mexico Border: Stories of Asylum Seekers

Why would someone seek asylum at the U.S. border with Mexico? Hear firsthand testimonies of two individuals who have personal experiences with the asylum process as well as policy analysis from the Kino Border Initiative.

Joanna Williams

Director of Education and Advocacy, Kino Border Initiative

Joanna Williams is a graduate of Georgetown University and is currently the Director of Education and Advocacy at the Kino Border Initiative (KBI) in Nogales, Arizona and Sonora. Prior to her current position, she had journeyed with immigrants in a variety of contexts, including volunteering at a shelter in Tierra Blanca, Veracruz, Fulbright research on the reintegration of deported and return migrants, and work as a program assistant for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Border Litigation Project.

Cecilia Gonzalez-Andrieu, Ph.D.

Cecilia González-Andrieu, Ph.D.

Cecilia González-Andrieu holds both a bachelor’s degree in Film/Televison and Spanish and a master’s degree in theology from Loyola Marymount University. She earned her doctorate degree in Art & Religion and Systematic Theology at the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley. Her work has since bridged theology and the arts, and she has written and presented on topics including the relationship between justice, beauty, and art, art as a bridge to community, Latino/a theology, immigration, and educational justice and was named one of the most promising theologians of the next generation by America Magazine. She is currently an Associate Professor of Theological Studies in the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts at her alma mater, Loyola Marymount University and is a contributing writer for America Magazine.

Juan Carlos Castro Flores

Asylum recipient originally from Honduras

Bio coming soon

Martina Pablo Pablo

An indigenous teenage asylum seeker originally from Guatemala

Bio coming soon