This spring, graduating Baylor University English/political science major Katie Gaitan sat with me in back-to-back classes. She was smart and compassionate, always prepared and an incredible resource for me as a professor. As the semester moved toward a close, she asked if I would be willing to be a reader for her senior thesis. That thesis, developed with members of the Baylor University School of Social Work, concerned human trafficking and the ways travel and transit are integral to that diabolical industry. Her research and defense of her thesis earned a rare “Outstanding” designation. One day toward the end of the semester, she told me she’d need to leave our James Baldwin class early to accept an award, which turned out to be the award for Outstanding Student in Political Science. When people ask me where my hope is, I often say, “My kids,” which is to say, I believe Baylor students can and do change the world. It was a joy to talk with Katie about her important research, her Baylor experience and her faith, and I can’t wait to see how she makes change moving forward.
Greg Garrett: Katie, I’d like to talk with you about your Baylor thesis project, about your education and about your faith. So could you start off by telling us just a little bit about the thesis project that you chose and why it was something you had a passion for? What animated you to write about human trafficking?
Katie Gaitan: I am a political science and English major. A political science class I took here at Baylor mentioned trafficking as an international issue, not solely international, but that was how it got brought up. That inspired me to dig deeper and see how big of a domestic issue this was.
From there, I started doing my own research, reading journal articles. I also started seeing a lot of that same dialogue popping up on my social media. It was very discouraging to me to see not only that this is such a big domestic issue, but also the lack of awareness. My passion was just out of shock that citizens in this country were not aware that this is happening across the street, in our cities, on our highways.
Katie Gaitan
I had to narrow the scope for my thesis, so I chose to focus on child trafficking. If we’re not protecting minors, then how are we going to protect anyone else? And then to further narrow my scope, I chose actually a really niche topic that has very little research on it, the transportation aspect — again, very discouraging that there’s little research, because without transportation, trafficking becomes very difficult.
I was very much trying to get to the root of this issue with my thesis and gather all the information I could and then get that information out, especially to people my age. It was concerning seeing so many people my age on social media with a complete lack of awareness of this issue.
GG: One of the questions I asked you in your thesis defense was about how your deep Catholic faith animated your attention to this issue. I wonder if you could talk first about why it was important to you because of your Christian beliefs to wrestle with trafficking, and second, if you could talk a little bit about where you’re seeing American Christianity fail on this issue and how it could do better.
KG: I remember telling you that my faith is the most important thing in my life. This has been a heartbreaking past two years, having to research this and find out what I am finding out. As you said, this is a failure not only in terms of Americans, but also, with American Christians. In my defense, I noted the example of Jesus, who surrounded himself with people not seen as having any sort of status and often seen as dirty or unwanted. He knew those people had value and worth because they were children of God.
“This is a failure not only in terms of Americans, but also, with American Christians.”
I think a lot of the attitude is, well, yes, of course these people have value, but then there’s often questions of, how did they get into this situation? When it comes to sexual labor or sexual trafficking, there’s a lot of questions of, OK, well, what type of life was this person living? Did this child run away on their own, et cetera, et cetera, were they brought up in a negative household?
Ultimately, none of those things matter because these people are deserving of love. And I know we went into the different people who are more targeted, and that does include a lot of minority groups in terms of race, but also minority groups in terms of immigrants. And again, those people are often targeted for trafficking.
And so again, in terms of American Christians, we’re seeing just a failure to love everyone and respect everyone and really live out the Christian values that Jesus taught us.
GG: It feels to me that with a lot of American Christians, there is blaming and shaming of people who find themselves in sexual trafficking. One of the things I’m observing is that a lot of times American Christian nationalists hitch their faith wagons to things that don’t seem to be, if you will, very Jesusy. So it’s like cultural power or prominence or being able to get your message out in a more powerful way because you’re attached to the powerful and the privileged. So maybe this is not a question so much as just a response to what you were saying, but I would welcome any thoughts you have about this. It feels like people who are attracted to white Christian nationalism are people who have turned their backs on the marginalized. So whether that’s racial, which is the white part of white Christian nationalism, or it’s immigrants, because immigrants tend to be vilified and become our scapegoats, or LGTBQ kids who find themselves on the streets and forced into sexual trafficking to stay alive. I remember one of the things you said in your defense was just that there’s this lack of compassion.
KG: Yes. Yeah. I have a lot to say about this, actually. Something that is very important to me is the matter of judgment. Something I’ve really struggled with on my journey is shame in maybe my past decisions or whatever that might be, and the fear and the real feeling and presence of judgment from others.
And again, in the Bible, there’s that encounter with Jesus and the woman who had committed adultery, and he tells the Pharisees surrounding her, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Jesus goes on and on in Scripture about judgment and how it’s not our place; our place is to love and have compassion for others. In reality, Jesus never would tell us not to accept people for any reason whatsoever.
Regardless of whether you think your faith or your religion is calling you into support of certain things, that doesn’t mean that you should have hatred or lack of love and respect. That has become very difficult today because I think society sees love as, I don’t even know, almost them going against their own value systems, which could not be further from the case.
“It’s so cool to be able to come to a college and be exposed to so many opinions, whether or not I agree with them or not.”
GG: You’re going to graduate from Baylor University with honors. How has Baylor helped you think about this and other issues that you care about, and what could we do better to help our students do the things that we say that we want to do? Serve the church, serve the country, serve the world?
KG: I’ve wanted to come here since I was 10 years old. I always have wanted to be a Baylor student. And I think coming here, I could find support wherever I turned. I was able to find the people I needed to support me and the voices I needed to speak to me. I was so grateful to find individuals who were willing to dig deeper and have these conversations and help me create change and inform me.
It’s so cool to be able to come to a college and be exposed to so many opinions, whether or not I agree with them. It’s nice to be exposed to them and be able to more confidently form my opinion and then pursue the things I am passionate about and seek out the people I need for that support. I think Baylor does do a good job of support, but just more conversation. Maybe in a classroom setting we have those conversations, but I would say more holistic, bigger conversations that are happening on a broader level that everyone’s hearing.
GG: The world feels kind of dark and dangerous to me. I’m scared for my kids, I’m scared for my students. You’re walking into a world where it feels like there are fewer opportunities than there were six months ago. I’ve heard of people whose offers to grad school have been rescinded, whose job offers have been rescinded. I am always reminding myself the thing Jesus said over and over in the Gospels is don’t be afraid. So what is giving you hope and courage these days?
KG: Yeah. Wow. I definitely can relate to those feelings of fear. I am graduating and I’m going into law school, and that is a different state, completely different people, completely different faculty, just a big change. That in itself incites fear, but also not knowing who I’m going to encounter. Will I have the same support system? Will I be able to vocalize my beliefs in the same ways? That fear is very real and very tangible. And even besides that, I’m already someone who experiences a lot of anxiety and a lot of fear.
I’m sure you won’t be surprised by my answer, but I would say I lean on Christ in every single thing I do. A lot of things in my life have not made sense in the moment. I tell my friends this when they come seeking advice: A lot of things won’t make sense when you’re right in the thick of them, and a lot of bad happens, and a lot of confusing things happen, and the Lord finds a way to bring good out of them.
I’ve experienced that in my own life. I am hopeful that the Lord has a plan and that the Lord will bring good out of bad and light out of darkness, and I can only hope that his followers are helping make that change on this earth. It starts with each individual. If change is going to happen, it has to start with each person sitting with themselves and sitting with Jesus and their relationship with him and actually accepting that call to love and serve others and make a change.
Greg Garrett
Greg Garrett is an award-winning professor at Baylor University, where he is the Carole McDaniel Hanks Professor of Literature and Culture. One of America’s leading voices on religion and culture, he is the author of 30 books, most recently the novel Bastille Day and The Gospel According to James Baldwin: What America’s Great Prophet Can Teach Us about Life, Love, and Identity. He is currently administering a major research grant on racism from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation and finishing a book on racist mythologies for Oxford University Press. Greg is a seminary-trained lay preacher in the Episcopal Church and Honorary Canon Theologian at the American Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Paris. He lives in Austin with his wife, Jeanie, and their two daughters.