Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin

media release: ​

For more than a century, Latino immigrants, migrants, and refugees have turned their sights northward to Wisconsin in search of a stable and secure future for themselves and their families. Today, more than a half a million people of Latino descent call the state home. Sergio González, author of Mexicans in Wisconsin (Wisconsin Historical Society Press) and Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin (University of Illinois Press), delves into the stories and challenges of these resilient communities, from the farmworkers who helped make Wisconsin America's breadbasket in the mid twentieth century, to the labor organizers who fought for better living and working conditions in the civil rights era, to the everyday families who continue to make space for themselves all across the state today.

Sergio González is assistant professor of history at Marquette University.  A historian of twentieth-century U.S. migration, labor, and religion, his scholarship focuses on the development of Latino communities in the U.S. Midwest. He is the author of Mexicans in Wisconsin (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2017) and the co-editor of Faith and Power: Latino Religious Politics Since 1945 (New York University Press, 2022). His most recently published book, Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin (University of Illinois Press, 2024), explores the relationship between Latino communities, religion, and social movements in the twentieth century Midwest.

This event is made possible by Beyond the Page with the support of National Endowment for the Humanities and Madison Community Foundation.