Tatyana Castillo-Ramos

Tatyana studies Latinx and Latin American religion. In particular, she is interested in how religion and activism become meaningful as people navigate across borders. Her dissertation project is situated on the San Diego-Tijuana border and observes how religion is (per)formed at the border by focusing on Friendship Park, a binational recreational ground located within the larger Border Fields State Park and divided by the US-Mexico border wall. She focuses on how activists in the region have responded to border militarization and immigration restrictions.

Her previous work has focused on the Sanctuary Movement in the United States, in which houses of worship offer sanctuary to undocumented immigrants to protect them from deportation. Her collaborations with Lloyd Barba have led to the publication of two peer-reviewed articles and a forthcoming chapter.

Beyond Latinx and Latin American religion, Tatyana is interested in religion and pop culture in the United States, particularly the similarities between fandom and religion. She has a B.A. in Mathematics and Religion (honors) from Amherst College, and her honors thesis in the Religion Department was on the Virgin of Guadalupe as a transnational symbol of resistance in the U.S. and Mexico.

Publications

“Sacred Motherhood in the Sanctuary Movement: Marian Imagery and the Family Fight for Immigrant Justice” in Religion in the Americas: Transcultural and Trans-hemispheric Approaches, eds. Chris Torres and Jessica Delgado (University of New Mexico Press, forthcoming 2023), co-authored with Lloyd Barba.

“The Virgin of Guadalupe as a Symbol of Resistance” in Bloomsbury Religion in North America: Latin American and Latinx Religions (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023)

“Latinx Legacies and Leadership in the U.S. Sanctuary Movement 1980-2020” American Religion (3:1) (Fall 2021): 1-24, co-authored with Lloyd Barba.

“Sacred Resistance: The Sanctuary Movement From Reagan to Trump,” Perspectivas 16 (2019): 11-36, co-authored with Lloyd Barba.