“Strangers Within Our Gates”: Religious Women and the Struggle for Migrant Laborers' Rights,1950–1959

Abstract

Abstract

This essay highlights how a women's grassroots political movement reframed migrant laborers in the minds of white Christians from outsiders to value producers. During the 1950s, Christian women in Wisconsin organized to establish more equitable labor conditions for migrant laborers. Wisconsinite women created religious-based organizations that focused on addressing social, political, and educational concerns. This was a means for them to be politically active despite their marginalization within the predominantly male political realm. Women worked to pass legislation that created summer programs to address the unsanitary and dangerous living and working conditions of migrant farmworkers in their communities. They were motivated by a religious desire to assist migrant families, and, in turn, communities witnessed the economic value of their labor in the community. Despite their wish to do good works, Christian women faced interdenominational conflict in the migrant aid movement. As different denominations used their charity for proselytization, the governor's office pursued a secularized version of their relief efforts.