Aimee Villarreal, PhD, Associate Professor of Mexican American Studies, presented, “Sanctuaryescapes in the New Mexico Borderlands,” on July 29 as a Visiting Scholar at the University of New Mexico (UNM).

A Santa Fe, N.M. native, Dr. Villarreal introduced a time-traveling concept, Sanctuaryscapes, to illuminate distinct mobilizations of sanctuary in the New Mexico borderlands from church asylum and indigenous regions of refuge during the Spanish colonial period, to the radical 1980s faith-based sanctuary movements that inspired the establishment of sanctuary cities and states, to immigrant-led social justice and religious revitalization movements today.