Sponsoring Castro’s Refugees
This chapter covers evangelical churches’ responses to Cuban refugees between 1959 and 1965, which constituted the first large-scale refugee resettlement initiative by a large evangelical denomination, as well as a well-established public-private partnership between the US government and evangelical churches. Evangelicals, particularly Southern Baptists, provided relief for and sponsored Cuban refugees as an outgrowth of their anticommunism as much as out of their religiously motivated missionary zeal. The Southern Baptist Convention—the nation’s largest Protestant denomination—resettled more than a thousand Cuban refugees. Southern Baptist refugee sponsors provided a roof to sleep under, furnished refugees’ new homes with blankets and kitchen appliances, secured employment for the families’ breadwinners, and enrolled Cuban children in school and the adults in English language classes. While not involved in resettlement, the Pentecostal Assemblies of God shared the Southern Baptists’ missionary zeal and catered to Cuban refugees’ material and spiritual needs.