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Earl Lecture 2025

Partner Pacific School of Religion
Learning Pillar Contemplative Activism
Rigor Level Low

The 2025 Earl Lecture Series—this year’s theme is Migration: Shaping the Narrative. Through a combination of lectures, workshops, and connections, we’ll explore how stories of migration—past and present—can reclaim power, resist erasure, and shape more just and compassionate futures. We’ll ask what it means to center lived experience, shift dominant narratives, and take collective action toward a world where all belong.

Join the EARL 2025 session on Zoom—click here to enter the live, captioned event

 

About the Earl Lecture Series

For more than a hundred years, Pacific School of Religion has hosted the Earl Lectures and Leadership Conference, a three-day event that addresses critical theological, pastoral, and social issues of the day. Founded in 1901, the purpose of the Lectures was “to aid in securing…the adequate presentation of Christian truth, by bringing to Berkeley, California…eminent Christian scholars to lecture upon themes calculated to illustrate and disseminate Christian thought, and minister to Christian life…” Over the years, the content of the Lectures has reflected the important theological, political, economical, and social trends of their time, but one quality is constant: the Lectures have always featured a uniformly high standard of scholarship. 

Lecturers have been Biblical scholars, educators, historians, authors, activists, church leaders, and scholars of literature – including international figures as Theodore Roosevelt, Elie Wiesel, Howard Thurman, Maya Angelou, Paul Tillich, Alice Walker, and Robert Reich.  

Learn more about the Earl Lecture Series and watch last year’s lecture here.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

  • Explore how stories of migration — past and present — can reclaim power, resist erasure, and shape more just and compassionate futures.

  • Center lived experience and critically examine how dominant narratives are formed and sustained.

  • Engage thoughtfully with theological, cultural, and political dimensions of migration.

  • Narrate resistance and resilience from the frontlines and apply those lessons in ministry and leadership.

  • Understand the origins and evolution of key justice movements, including the emergence of DACA as a voice for change.

Course Components

Earl Lecture Event

  • Breaking the Silence: From Fear to Solidarity

    luis insta
    10 Minutes
    Lesson Locked

  • Narrating Resistance and Resilience: Insights from the Frontlines

    cynthia insta
    10 Minutes
    Assignment
    Lesson Locked

  • How DACA came to Voice

    jose insta
    10 Minutes
    Lesson Locked

Features and Benefits

This course blends thought-provoking lectures, dynamic workshops, and opportunities for meaningful connection into an immersive learning experience. Participants will engage with renowned speakers, scholars, and practitioners whose lived experiences shape their leadership at the intersections of faith and justice. Through a mix of plenary sessions, small-group discussions, and community worship, you’ll deepen your understanding of migration narratives while gaining practical tools to transform how you lead. Flexible access options — including virtual participation — ensure you can fully engage wherever you are.

How This Equips Faith Leaders

Designed for pastors, activists, educators, and ministry practitioners, this course equips faith leaders to address one of the most pressing issues of our time with courage and compassion. By learning to center marginalized voices and reframe harmful narratives, leaders will become more effective storytellers, advocates, and bridge-builders in their communities. The course also offers strategies for collective action and opportunities to connect with a network of peers committed to justice, empowering participants to lead congregations and organizations toward deeper solidarity and systemic change.

Earl Lecture 2025

Taught by Cynthia T. Buiza, José Luis Marantes, and Luis Argueta

Cynthia T. Buiza

Meet Your Instructor,
Cynthia T. Buiza

Cynthia T. Buiza is a longtime social justice advocate with over 30 years of experience in immigrant rights, racial justice, and human rights. Most recently, she served as Executive Director of the California Immigrant Policy Center, leading groundbreaking campaigns for immigrant communities across the state.
 
An immigrant from the Philippines, Cynthia has worked with the ACLU, CHIRLA, and numerous racial justice organizations in the U.S., as well as international institutions including the UNHCR, Open Society Institute, and Jesuit Refugee Service. She co-authored Anywhere but War, a book on displacement in Indonesia.
 
Today, she serves as Strategic Advisor for MOSAIC, the CA CEO Immigration Funding Table, the CoLab Narrative Change Initiative, and the California Immigrant Justice Innovation Fund. She is also Scholar-Activist-in-Residence at the USC Equity Research Institute.
 
Cynthia holds degrees from Tufts University and the Philippines, with additional training from Oxford, Harvard, and Stanford. She serves on several boards and is a sought-after speaker on immigration, human rights, and refugee issues.
José Luis Marantes

Meet Your Instructor,
José Luis Marantes

José Luis Marantes is a community organizer, trainer, and social entrepreneur dedicated to unlocking people’s potential and helping leaders stay focused on mission. He is a co-founder of United We Dream Network, where he helped build the structures that grew a small startup into the nation’s largest immigrant youth-led network.
 
He co-developed the Education Not Deportation Campaign, which secured deferred action from deportation for over two million immigrant youth in 2012—laying the groundwork for DACA. As State Director for Mi Familia Vota in Florida, he led a team of 60+ staff to mobilize 40,000 voters, and he has also led campaigns with the PICO Network, Center for Community Change, and Florida Immigrant Coalition.
 
José Luis has been recognized as an Emerging Innovator by Ashoka Changemakers for his work uniting Orlando communities across language differences. He holds a Master’s in Entrepreneurship from the University of Florida and a B.A. in Sociology from Wesleyan University.
Luis Argueta

Meet Your Instructor,
Luis Argueta

Born in Guatemala during a time of political violence and repression, renowned Guatemalan filmmaker and human rights advocate Luis Argueta grew up in a culture of fear that silenced many voices—including his own. Years later, he found in cinema a powerful means to reclaim that voice and to amplify the stories of others marginalized by systems of oppression.
 
Argueta’s filmmaking began as a response to the human cost of economic injustice. His early documentary, The Cost of Cotton, tells the story of Indigenous Mayan migrants from Guatemala’s highlands forced to seek seasonal work in the cotton fields of the country’s southern coast—shedding light on cycles of poverty, displacement, and exploitation often hidden from public view.
 
With The Silence of Neto, Argueta turned to the taboo history of Guatemala’s 1954 U.S.-backed coup d’état. Told through the eyes of a young boy, the film explores how historical trauma becomes internalized, and how breaking silence is a necessary act of personal and collective liberation.
 
After the September 11 attacks, Argueta witnessed a dramatic rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy in the United States. This turning point deepened his commitment to humanizing the stories of undocumented migrants. His immigration trilogy—abUSed: The Postville Raid, Abrazos, and The U Turn—chronicles the lived experiences of immigrants and their families caught in the web of detention, deportation, and resilience. These films offer an intimate look at how immigration enforcement policies tear communities apart, while also highlighting the strength and humanity of those affected.
 
Today, Luis Argueta continues to challenge narratives rooted in fear, hate, and exclusion. His work urges us to listen deeply, to remember courageously, and to act in solidarity. As a character in The Silence of Neto says, “breaking the silence is essential—so we can breathe, so we can live.”

Join this course’s forum conversations