There was a palpable sense of apprehension as a Jan. 25 audience filled a lecture hall at DePaul University's Schmitt Academic Center.
That apprehension was tempered with a less subdued desire to defy the immigration policies emerging from President Donald Trump's administration by first learning about and then implementing Sanctuaries in Practice, beginning with the DePaul campus.
The event, hosted by DePaul's Critical Ethnic Studies and co-sponsored by the university's Department of Latin American and Latino Studies, Labor Education Center and Center for Access and Attainment, featured Love & Protect ( formerly The Chicago Alliance to Free Marissa Alexander ) leader Rachel Caidor, Vives Q founder, journalist and celebrated LGBTQ activist Emmanuel Garcia, Council on American Islamic Relations ( CAIR ) Chicago Deputy Director and Counsel Sufyan Sohel, Esq., alongside Organized Communities Against Deportations organizer and Mijente Policy Director Tania Unzueta.
"On the brink of an emergent fascism, we are here to dialogue and to weave new fabrics of justice," DePaul University Latin American and Latino Studies and cultural anthropologist Jesse Mumm said before moderating that discussion. "Whether you are devastated by the news of Trump's executive orders or exhilarated by the largest single-day marches for one cause in the history of the human species, our talk centering on the notion of how we build sanctuaries is meant for right now."