Life at the Center: Haitians and Corporate Catholicism in BostonA free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In Life at the Center, Erica Caple James traces how faith-based and secular institutions in Boston have helped Haitian refugees and immigrants attain economic independence, health, security, and citizenship in the United States. Using the concept of “corporate Catholicism,” James documents several paradoxes of assistance arising among the Catholic Church, Catholic Charities, and the Haitian Multi-Service Center: how social assistance produces and reproduces structural inequalities between providers and recipients; how these inequities may deepen aid recipients’ dependence and lead to resistance to organized benevolence; how institutional financial deficits harmed clients and providers; and how the same modes of charity or philanthropy that previously caused harm can be redeployed to repair damage and rebuild “charitable brands.” The culmination of more than a decade of advocacy and research on behalf of the Haitians in Boston, this groundbreaking work exposes how Catholic corporations have strengthened—but also eroded—Haitians’ civic power. |
Contents
Sign unveiling for the Dorchester Community Service Center | 3 |
Haitian MultiService Center main building ca 2004 | 9 |
Cardinal Law visits St Leo Parish | 14 |
Migrants and Roman Catholic Charity | 28 |
Food pantries advertisement 2007 | 29 |
Child care advertisement 2007 | 30 |
Parenting advertisement 2007 | 31 |
Refugee and immigration advertisement 2007 | 32 |
Corporate Secrets | 117 |
Cardinal Bernard Francis Law Monsignor Jeannot and clerics | 138 |
Procession of St Leos parishioners 1999 | 139 |
Life and Death between Church State and Law | 140 |
Everyday Life and Death at the Center | 158 |
Yawkey Center lobby 2006 | 160 |
Inscribing and Incorporating Life | 182 |
Adult Education bulletin boards | 187 |
Illustration from Samuel B Smith 1836 | 42 |
Burning of the Ursuline Convent 1834 | 46 |
Haitian Migrants between Church | 59 |
The Birth of the Center | 85 |
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston RCAB Pastoral Center | 86 |
St Leo Parish rectory ca 2004 | 92 |
Haitian MultiService Center 12 Bicknell Street ca 2006 | 93 |
Haitian immigrants in Boston | 97 |
Rev Leandre Jeannot 1981 | 99 |
Mass at St Leo Roman Catholic Church | 101 |
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Common terms and phrases
accessed October 23 administrative Adult advocacy African African American agencies AIDS American Archdiocese of Boston asylum BHSI biopolitics Boston Globe Boys Town Cardinal Law Catholic Charities Catholic institutions Center staff members Center’s challenges Church clients cultural daycare detainees Deus Caritas Est donors Dorchester economy elders ethnic executive director faith-based Father Jeannot funding gender gift Greater Boston Haiti Haitian American Haitian community Haitian Creole Haitian Multi-Service Center health fair HMSC immigrants incorporation individual infant interview Krome labor Leo Parish Leo’s literacy lives Massachusetts Mattapan migrants Monestime moral neoliberal offered organizations pastoral power persons Pierre Imbert political populations practices priests Project Bread promote public health racial refugees religious resettlement role Saint-Domingue Sante Manman staff secular sexual sisters social service spiritual stakeholders syndemic tion undocumented United University Press Vodou volunteers welfare women Yawkey building Yawkey Center