Anton Flores: A place of hospitality and resistance

The first person Anton Flores visited who was detained at Stewart Detention Center (SDC) was a young man named Moises, who had grown up in the United States and started his own business. 

Moises’ wife was a U.S. citizen, and they had a child. What struck Anton was the man’s name.

During a vigil he had organized outside of SDC, Anton had spoken about Moses, who said, “Let my people go.”

Moises was deported.

Having founded Alterna in 2006 as an intentional community offering hospitality inspired by the Jubilee Partners and New Hope House, Anton proposed the idea of a hospitality house in Lumpkin. He and others wanted to create a place of hospitality and resistance, a “radical expression of what we were standing for,” Anton recounts.

Anton feels a mixture of honor and humility that the hospitality house has had such an impact: “It’s humbling to be a part of something that was and is still fulfilling a really deep human need,” he said. “It’s not too many people get to see a vision become a reality, let alone see it sustained.” 

Still, he hopes to see the organization help dismantle the systems of mass detention and mass incarceration, so that a 20th anniversary for El Refugio won’t be necessary. “I want El Refugio to close the day after Stewart Detention Center closes.”