Glendora Interfaith Vigil Talk

26 August 2025

Preface

Around this time last year, some friends and I started talking about doing something meaningful in support of our migrant community members in this challenging political moment. As we all happen to be people of faith, it occurred to us that an Interfaith Community Vigil to support immigrant and refugee neighbors would be the "just right" kind of demonstration for our town.

Two months later, the Glendora Interfaith Community Vigil came to fruition. I was just one of many people who shared their support for immigrants and refugees in words and song that evening. It was a beautiful and powerful expression of hope, love, and care for our community. Below is my talk from that event.

Glendora Interfaith Vigil Talk

“Oh My Heck! The Mormons are here!” That was probably my favorite sign from the No Kings Rallies this summer. Hi, I’m Alison Gibbs Reese. I’m a member of the Glendora Third Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’m also a wife and mother, a public school teacher, and a member of the recently organized Neighbors Helping Neighbors branch of the local Glendora Together group.

My faith as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is integral to my choice to stand in solidarity with families impacted by the extreme increase of Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the past 6 months.

Famously, in the book of Luke, Chapter 10 of the New Testament, Jesus Christ is asked by a lawyer, “Who is my neighbour?” (Luke 10:29), and He responds by telling the parable of the good Samaritan.

A Jewish man gets jumped, robbed, and beaten while traveling alone, and many respectable, “good people” pass the man and do not help. But then, a man from Sumaria, who is supposed to be an enemy to the Jews, stops and helps this Jewish man. He shows an outpouring of love and sacrifice for a stranger who was supposed to be his enemy.

Jesus then tells the lawyer to go and be a neighbor like the Samaritan man in the story.

In Matthew 25 of the New Testament, Christ’s apostles ask, “When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?” And Jesus responds, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

Modern LDS Church leaders, just within the past decade, also speak to our obligation to serve the stranger, like Linda K. Burton of the LDS Relief Society and Dieter F. Uchdorf of the LDS Quorum of 12 Apostles, who have both spoken of our moral obligation to help immigrants and refugees.

Sister Burton says, “There are more than 60 million refugees, including forcibly displaced people, worldwide. Half of those are children. “These individuals have undergone tremendous difficulties and are starting over in… new countr[ies] and culture[s]. … what they need is a friend and ally who can help them [adjust] to their new home, a person who can help them learn the language, understand the systems, and feel connected.”

Similarly, President Uchtdorf has shared his own experience as a refugee twice over, first fleeing Czechoslovakia, then fleeing East Germany during WWII. He says that in spite of the hardship and prejudice he faced as a migrant child, "There were so many who were willing to help regardless of religion, of race, of background,"

“If we declare to be Christians…as we are—as LDS, as Mormons— it is our responsibility to follow the Savior through our acts… and help. . . . We need to reach out irrespective of political aspects and help those in need."

Calling people “Illegals” and much worse terms, like in an almost comically propagandic Kristi Nome ad recently aired on Sunny 99.1, makes it easier to look away when that group is treated inequitably. But I know that if any minority group in our community is unsafe, then we all are unsafe. As Martin Niemöller–a German Pastor–famously said:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

We have seen this before. I’m a granddaughter of two World War II Veterans, one of whom liberated concentration camps. Though he never spoke of it to any of us, my grandparents all taught us well to watch out for dehumanization and ethnocentric, blind allegiance. They taught me that America is better than that, but it can only continue to be if we remember and learn from the mistakes of the past.

Last week, on Wednesday, a federal appeals court in San Francisco overturned a lower court order that was keeping temporary protection status, or TPS, in place for over 60,000 migrants from Central America and Nepal. This means that before this ruling on Wednesday, those 60,000 people were in the US legally because their countries of origin were deemed unsafe. So the US took them as refugees under TPS.

This legal change means that soon, an estimated 7,000 people from Nepal, 51,000 from Honduras, and 3,000 from Nicaragua will be eligible for removal because our government has decided to stop protecting them. And suddenly, people making good faith efforts to come “the right way” to America become illegal aliens, law violators.

The conditions in Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua have not changed. It is our nation that is changing to be more cruel, less humane, and less safe for our community members.

So, if all people are my neighbors, and if America promises liberty and justice for all people regardless of race, creed, or gender, then I cannot simply look away when people are swept off the streets in unmarked vans by masked men. These are tactics to instill terror and violate basic rights we are meant to afford everyone, even criminals.

I am here because my answer to this moment in our history cannot be nothing. So I am here, and I pray that despite our differences, we can appeal to the “better angels of our nature” and remember the ideals that America has always reached for–a more fair and perfect union for everyone.

Glendora Interfaith Vigil Talk

26 August 2025

Glendora Together

A Multigenerational Movement for Thoughtful Conversations & Compassionate Action

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