Over twenty million Americans live in cities that have passed sanctuary policies to protect the rights of immigrants and their families. However, contentious public conversations surrounding sanctuary obscure what these policies actually mean to the immigrants they purport to serve, making it hard to see what strengthens the power of sanctuary and what undermines its protections. 

Holding On to Home, based on five years of fieldwork and over one hundred in-depth interviews, illuminates how immigrant women’s care work—in their families, schools, and communities—makes real the promise of sanctuary. Through their resistive care work, immigrant women weave together an enduring fabric of protection that transforms inclusive policies into meaningful practices that support immigrant mothers as they nurture their children and loved ones. Holding On to Home reveals how these women confront both overt threats to sanctuary—anti-immigrant policies and increasingly violent and arbitrary immigration enforcement—alongside a less obvious threat to sanctuary, but one that widens inequality in our urban landscapes: gentrification. Tracing the meaning of sanctuary across shifting political contexts, Sarah Bruhn powerfully demonstrates how immigrant women resist these forces of exclusion to lay claim to their right to create a home and to belong in our shared cities.