Monthly Archives: July 2010

Immigration Reform: How Are We Called to Act?

Here’s the sermon I gave today about Arizona’s immigration law. If you can watch the video clip “UUs Stand on the Side of Love in Arizona” from http://www.uua.org/events/generalassembly/2010/ga2010/165851.shtml, I really urge you to do that. It is so powerful to hear folks telling their own stories about how anti-immigrant sentiment has personally hurt them and their families.

Peace,

Rev. Laura

***

“Immigration Reform: How Are We Called to Act?”

The Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig, Minister
First Unitarian Universalist Church of Stockton
July 18, 2010

One of my favorite cartoon strips in the newspaper is called “Pickles.” It’s about an old married couple, Earl and Opal.
There was a strip the other day that showed the two of them
sitting on the porch and chatting. Opal says to Earl,
“Did you know that the DNA of humans and chimpanzees
is 96% the same?”
Earl says, “Yes, I do know that. I don’t believe it, though.”
Opal says, “You know it, but you don’t believe it?”
And Earl says, “Absolutely. I don’t believe everything I know.” (Brian Crane, “Pickles,” July 1, 2010.)

And it struck me: that sentiment is alive and well
all over the country, but especially today in Arizona,
where Governor Jan Brewer went on record last month
claiming the majority of undocumented immigrants
are not coming to this country to work,
but to smuggle drugs across the border and terrorize families. Continue reading

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Filed under Arizona, Immigration reform, Unitarian Universalism

Family Across Borders

This coming Sunday I’ll be preaching on how we can respond to Arizona’s immigration law SB 1070. In the meantime, I wanted to share a very personal sermon I gave last year for Mother’s Day about how U.S. immigration law nearly tore my own family apart. I’m so very grateful that our story ended well, and all too aware that many others do not.

“Family Across Borders”

The Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig, Minister
First Unitarian Universalist Church of Stockton
May 10, 2009

The family I was born into has been in this country
for just about as long as any white people have,
and we are just about as WASPy as you could imagine.
Both the Hortons and the Winterses (that’s my mom’s side)
go back almost to the Mayflower.
We’ve got our share of Puritan-era Obadiahs and Ezekiels
in the family tree.
The most recent relative in my personal family tree who wasn’t born
in this country was my great-grandmother Annie MacDonald,
whose family had emigrated from Scotland to Newfoundland.
(I carry her last name as my middle name.)
So, at first glance,
it might look like my family’s story is pretty far removed
from the story of immigrant families in the U.S. today.
But, in fact, the truth is very different. Continue reading

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Filed under Immigration reform, Unitarian Universalism