This article first appeared in the February 2019 issue of INSiGHT.
The Colonial Oppressiveness
of the Biblical Concept of
Hospitality by Dr. Miguel A. De La Torre
On 21 June 1960, although still a toddler, I received an affidavit from the U.S. government demanding my immediate departure. Hospitality was not to be offered to me nor my family. The legal form received in the mail declared I was in violation of Section 242 of the Immigration and Nationality Act; in other words, I overstayed by tourist visa. At the time, I was living with my parents in the infamous Hell’s Kitchen. Although a trendy neighborhood today, back then, these were the slums which housed broken lives, on which the blockbuster musical Westside Story was based. We were living on the fourth floor of a rat and roach infested one-room apartment with no toilet. The bathroom was communal, shared with the other four tenants on the floor. We did not self-deport, becoming, what derogatively is called “illegals.” The irony of the situation is that I found refuge in the very country responsible for my expatriation in the first place. Our presence within the belly of the empire was not due to our desire to seek liberty, equality, or freedom. We did not leave our homeland in Cuba in hopes of chasing the so-called American Dream of achieving economic opportunities. Personally, I would rather have spent my days on my own land, among my own people, immerse in my own culture, speaking my own language. But for almost sixty years, I have been separated from the land which witnessed my birth, and have no doubt my bones will eventually be placed to rest in a foreign and alien land. Constructing the “Illegal” Those, as I once were, who find themselves within U.S. borders without proper documentation are labelled “illegal.” But the term used to describe their existence is neither neutral nor innocent because it connotes criminality, marking the one called illegal as inherently dangerous. Lacking proper documentation should not characterise one as a threatening or unlawful; nevertheless, the term “illegal” is insisted upon by the media and politicians because it constructs a moral framework which masks Euroamerican racism and fear of brown bodies. The Oppressiveness of Hospitality The biblical concept of hospitality has meant more than simply inviting a stranger to share a meal. Refusing to provide hospitality to the stranger could prove deadly for the sojourner passing through, for protection and benefits were tied to land and landownership.
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