The objective of this essay is to highlight general features of the intersection of migration and Christianity in the region from the perspective of the configuration of Latin American and Caribbean migrant and religious identities. More than 30 million individuals from the region do not live in their country of birth, while there are approximately 7.5 million migrants in the region. According to the International Organization for Migration, many of the Latin American and Caribbean countries that previously were countries of only origin, transit or destination are now all three. The movements from South to South – mainly intra-regional migration – have been increasing over the last two decades. Furthermore, flows from South to North have grown considerably and, therefore, the migratory balance is negative by 3 million in South America, by 6.8 million in Central America and by 1.2 million in the Caribbean.

In this complex scenario, Latin American and Caribbean migrants move with their cultural baggage, including their faith. Their experiences include temporal (past–present) and spatial (there–here) tensions in which Christian belief plays a crucial role. The migrant's religious identity configuration consists of a continuous spatial–temporal process of uprooting and rerooting, in which a memory rooted in an authoritative religious tradition triggers beliefs that are meaningful for the migrant's self-understanding. Therefore, to address these people's intersectional experiences of configuring their migrant and Christian identities in the twenty-first century, it is essential to approach their historical and cultural backgrounds. To this end, firstly, this essay tackles three migratory dynamics: colonisation, immigration to the territory and emigration from the region. Then, the most outstanding features of the processes of configuration of Christian identities of Latin American and Caribbean migrants in the twenty-first century are presented. Such identity processes imply tensions in the spatiotemporal trajectories in which migrants seek to understand themselves. Christian belief, as a memory rooted in an authoritative religious tradition, becomes a significant element within migratory trajectories.

With the irruption of Catholicism in the territory from 1492, migratory flows and Christianity have produced a changing religious landscape. A religious field has been configured characterised by: struggles for the hegemony of the definition of legitimate religious memories; the persistence of peripheral religious expressions that resist disappearing and push to challenge Christian religious hegemonies; and the negotiation, synthesis and hybridisation of traditions and cultures.