Photography by Harvey Finkle
Foreword by Michael Matza
Afterword by Adan Mairena
Working and Writing for Change
Series Editors: Steve Parks and Jessica Pauszek
Information and Pricing
978-1-64317-162-3 (paperback, $16.99); 978-1-64317-163-0 (PDF, $9.99). © 2021 by New City Community Press. 124 pages, with photographs, resources, timeline, and glossary.
New City Community Press's proceeds from sales of Faces of Courage will be donated to the Philadelphia Sanctuary Movement.
Bookstores: Order by fax, mail, or phone. See our "Sales and Ordering Page" for details.
News and Reviews
Sabrina Emms, "In ‘Faces of Courage’ the collaboration of artist and nonprofit becomes more than documentation." Genoricity, 1 July 2021.
What People Are Saying
“Harvey Finkle has created a moving visual record of the brave fight against some of the most brutal aspects of our immigration system. Faces of Courage celebrates the successes of the New Sanctuary Movement to keep families safe inside houses of worship. Publication could not have come at a better time, as two Philadelphia families—one from Jamaica, the other from Mexico—recently were able to leave years in Sanctuary to restart their lives. As an immigration attorney, I am struck by how Harvey's photographs bring forward the perseverance of Sanctuary families and their allies. I will treasure the book and pick it up when I need inspiration.” —Judith Bernstein-Baker, former executive director of the immigrant/refugee aid agency HIAS
“Philadelphia celebrates the efforts to document and memorialize the historic nature of the New Sanctuary Movement – an effort that has shaped and influenced our city’s ability to truly be a Welcoming City.” —Amy Eusebio, Executive Director, Philadelphia City Office of Immigrant Affairs
“There are communities of young men, women, and their children who have done what humans have done for millennia . . . migrate in search of food, water, shelter, and safety for their families. As a physician, I have served undocumented immigrants in Philadelphia for nearly 30 years. With Faces of Courage, Harvey Finkle makes manifest the hopes, fears, perseverance, and family devotion that it has been my privilege to witness, and his to photograph.” —Dr. Steven Larson, co-founder, the non-profit health clinic Puentes de Salud
About This Book
As America begins dialing back the Trump-era restrictions that all but eliminated asylum for immigrants fleeing violence and seeking protection in the US, this volume of fifty powerful images, with captions in English and Spanish, documents the interfaith grassroots movement that never gave up on the Statue of Liberty’s poetic pledge to welcome the world’s “huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.”
Faces of Courage: Ten years of Building Sanctuary chronicles the first ten years of the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, a coalition of twenty-eight congregations, which builds community across religious, ethnic, and class lines to end injustices against all immigrants, documented or otherwise. The book follows New Sanctuary supporters as they demand policy changes with sit-ins at City Hall, consciousness-raising marches, and protests outside the Philadelphia field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It goes behind the scenes into the churches where families facing deportation took refuge. It provides a visual record of New Sanctuary’s campaign for driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, and its “accompaniment” program to support immigrants at their court hearings.
A Foreword by former Philadelphia Inquirer immigration writer Michael Matza and Afterword by Honduran-born, West Kensington Ministry Pastor Adan Mairena provide historical context in English and Spanish.
Harvey Finkle, widely recognized as a Philadelphia treasure, is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice. His photography, which has documented immigration to the city since the 1970s, has been hailed as “visual anthropology.” His archives are a graphic record of the successive waves of settlement, mostly in South Philadelphia, by European Jews, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Burmese, Mexicans, Central Americans and other immigrants and refugees.
