Coffee with Ellin Jimmerson

As an expert on immigration, Dr. Ellin Jimmerson's conversation
was a fun, meaningful, and timely. Jimmerson's movie, The
Second Cooler, narrated by Martin Sheen, was released in 2013. It
has won many awards and been screened at many universities, fund
raisers, theaters, and other venues across the US. While we were
conducting our interview rallies, marches and protests were
happening all across the United States and the world in response
to Donald Trump's two-day old executive order banning Muslims and
refugees.


 


The Second Cooler is a documentary about illegal migration shot
primarily in Alabama, Arizona, and Mexico. The premise is that
Arizona is the new Alabama—the epicenter of an intense struggle
for migrant justice. The documentary brings basic migration
issues into focus. Those issues include the impact of free trade
agreements on migration, the lack of a legal way for poor Latin
Americans to come to the United States, the inherent abuses of
the guest worker program, the fact that many migrants are
indigenous people, anti-immigrant politics in Alabama, the
thousands of migrant deaths at the border, and an escalating
ideology of the border.


Ellin Jimmerson has a Masters in Southern History from
Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, a Ph. D. in 20th
Century United States History from the University of Houston,
Texas, and a Masters in Theological Studies from Vanderbilt
Divinity School with a concentration in Latin American liberation
theology. She is an ordained Baptist minister.


Ellin points out in the interview that the current executive
order did not come out of nowhere just because of Donald Trump.
President Obama had earned the moniker Deporter-in-Chief for
deporting three million people and the problems certainly
predated President Obama.


Ellin is the author of numerous articles, essays, and speeches.
She writes for publication on various areas of history and
religion. She has been interviewed on public, religious, and
other radio stations and in podcasts around the US on the subject
of immigration.


Ellin cautions us of the phrase comprehensive immigration reform
"because it means anything anyone wants it to mean." She assures
us it will keep coming up. She has great recommendations about
some of the most important and urgent things we can do. My first
suggestion is this, watch the Second Cooler. You can download it
right now (or order it).


Jimmerson’s academic speciality is the intersection of US
history, Latin American history, and Christianity. She has spoken
to academic and non-academic audiences on liberation theology in
the United States and Mexico.


An ordained Baptist minister, she was Minister to the
Community at Weatherly Heights Baptist Church in Huntsville,
Alabama, USA from 2008-2015. Because her parents were Civil
Rights Movement activists during the 1950s and 1960s in Albany,
Georgia and Birmingham, Alabama, she cut her teeth on social
justice issues.


You can find out more about Ellin Jimmerson and The Second Cooler
at thesecondcooler.com or


LinkedIn: Ellin Jimmerson


Facebook: Ellin Jimmerson


Facebook: The Second Cooler Fan Page


Twitter: @EllinJimmerson


Links:


The Second Cooler


Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas


United Church of Christ (UCC)


United Faith Leaders


To Kill a Mockingbird (1962 Movie)


To Kill a Mockingbird (1960 Book)