It seems there’s a larger and larger disconnect between the Twin Cities and rural Minnesota in terms of the economy, politics, and just plain lifestyle. Former Star Tribune writer Bob Franklin points out a few reasons he’s found over the years why rural Minnesota shouldn’t be discounted.
Clothing Donation Bins and Textile Recycling ExaminedPlanet Aid
There are dozens of drop off locations for textiles in Onondaga County; Rescue missions and Salvation Army
thrift stores (plus a new Goodwill Store, and of course
the ubiquitous Planet Aid yellow boxes).
George A. Priestley, PhD Ten minute talk at Encuentros/Encounters Race Relati...The_Afrolatino_Project
Prepared by the late Dr. George A. Priestley, founder of the Afrolatin@ Project and Director of Latin American Studies, C.U.N.Y.-Queens College for the “Encuentros-Encounters” dialogue. The first of a series of conversations between African-Americans and Latin Americans in Nashville, Tennessee, to foster stronger communication and eliminate tensions between the two communities. Fisk University, April 19, 2003.
Global Eyes Magazine (GEM) October 2013 printBeatrice Watson
Global Eyes Magazine, the news and information channel focussing on the Black and Caribbean communities Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Check it out. There is something for you too.
Clothing Donation Bins and Textile Recycling ExaminedPlanet Aid
There are dozens of drop off locations for textiles in Onondaga County; Rescue missions and Salvation Army
thrift stores (plus a new Goodwill Store, and of course
the ubiquitous Planet Aid yellow boxes).
George A. Priestley, PhD Ten minute talk at Encuentros/Encounters Race Relati...The_Afrolatino_Project
Prepared by the late Dr. George A. Priestley, founder of the Afrolatin@ Project and Director of Latin American Studies, C.U.N.Y.-Queens College for the “Encuentros-Encounters” dialogue. The first of a series of conversations between African-Americans and Latin Americans in Nashville, Tennessee, to foster stronger communication and eliminate tensions between the two communities. Fisk University, April 19, 2003.
Global Eyes Magazine (GEM) October 2013 printBeatrice Watson
Global Eyes Magazine, the news and information channel focussing on the Black and Caribbean communities Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Check it out. There is something for you too.
A dozen slides previewing the Center for Rural Policy and Development's State of Rural Minnesota 2013. View maps and charts on population, education, health, poverty, income, and more.
A region in transition? The city of Pelican Rapids in west central Minnesota is a microcosm of the change the state is going through as a whole. One person who watched it all happen tells how the city rose to the challenge and embraced change.
EARLY IMMIGRANT IN MINNESOTA4Early immigrant in Mi.docxsagarlesley
EARLY IMMIGRANT IN MINNESOTA 4
Early immigrant in Minnesota
Running head: EARLY IMMIGRANT IN MINNESOTA 1
Minnesota is a land known for its heavy welcome of immigrants. Minnesota has been regarded as a state of immigrants. The first residents, the American Indians, all arrived from different locations and origins. The names of the localities, the waterways and the landmarks around the Minnesota state reflects the waves of immigration that occurred between the 19th and 20th century. Today, immigrants comprise approximately 13% of the Minnesota’s population. In this article, we seek to explore the experiences of the early immigrants in Minnesota. Although there are many immigrants in Minnesota from different locations, this study will focus primarily on the experiences of Hmong, Karen, Latino, Liberian and Somali immigrants.
Land and family were significant assets for the immigrants in the Minnesota state. Particularly, it is important to note that there are different groups of people who took refuge as immigrants in Minnesota (Oestergen, 1981). The Latino community makes up the largest proportion of the foreign-born population living in Minnesota. Approximately 7% of the people living in Hennepin and Ramsey counties are Latino. The Hennepin and Ramsey counties are homes to over 64000 people from the Hmong communities. Approximately 3000 Karen refugees came into Minnesota fleeing the violence and war experienced in Burmese civil war. Finally, the United States became home to Liberian and Somali refugees following the civil wars in their countries. Approximately 32 000 refugees from Somali live in Minnesota since the 1990s. Land was owned by families and the immigrants depended on the transition of the land through family lineages. The inheritance of land from one individual to another was done according to the customs and the cultural beliefs of the people involved. Land was particularly used for settlement and agricultural purposes. Other immigrants could also obtain land through purchasing from other land owners (Oestergen, 1981).
For the first immigrants, getting to Minnesota was the first major challenge they experienced. Even if they possessed the wherewithal to their passage, the journey across the ocean often lasted for numerous weeks in overcrowded and unhealthy conditions. According to Johnson (2014), the immigrants often faced attacks from the other ethnic groups that came into Minnesota. As a result of the difference in ethnicity, Johnson (2014) explains that language barrier became a major challenge especially because most of the immigrants chose to retain their native language. While many modern refugees arrive in the western countries through the use of planes, early refugees used ships with significant proportions of those onboard dying from the strong and cold winds on the ocean. They experienced anxiety and hardships especially in cases where they had to be separated from their relatives whom they had to wait for months ...
Michigan\'s Future: It\'s all about lifestylesBuzz Brown
Thousands of Michigan’s educated youth are leaving the state. This presentation identifies the life styles of previous inhabitants of the area; Native Americans, Farmers, Vacationers and now Suburbanites. It studies why these people came here and what facilitated their movement. From lessons learned it is proposed that life styles is the motivating factor and a key for keeping and attracting people to Michigan in the future.
William Allan Kritsonis, PhD, Editor-in-Chief, NATIONAL FORUM JOURNALS (Founded 1982). Article published in the NATIONAL FORUM OF MULTICULTURAL ISSUES JOURNAL - Author: Dr. Joanna Hadjicostandi.
EARLY IMMIGRANT IN MINNESOTA10Early immigrant in M.docxsagarlesley
EARLY IMMIGRANT IN MINNESOTA 10
Early immigrant in Minnesota
Running head: EARLY IMMIGRANT IN MINNESOTA 1
An observation of Minnesota’s demographic statistical figures created by government officials is likely to show a white tapestry with joint a few scattered threads of color. However, there are those that would argue that this representation is inaccurate and that it is not a true account of the demographic history of Minnesota. It is worth pointing out that over the past 150 years, there have been immigrants from over 60 countries who have come to Minnesota and created a state which however on the face of it may seem homogenous, it enjoys a great legacy that has a rich cultural diversity. The new land of Minnesota presented a new life to these immigrants whereby they encountered new opportunities, made new relations and also encountered new opportunities. This paper therefore intends to look in to the immigration history of Minnesota ranging from the factors that attracted immigrants, impacts of immigration, challenges encountered by the immigrants to advantages of the immigration wave.
Minnesota is a land known for its heavy welcome of immigrants. Minnesota has been regarded as a state of immigrants. The first residents, the American Indians, all arrived from different locations and origins. The names of the localities, the waterways and the landmarks around the Minnesota state reflects the waves of immigration that occurred between the 19th and 20th century. Today, immigrants comprise approximately 13% of the Minnesota’s population. In this article, we seek to explore the experiences of the early immigrants in Minnesota. Although there are many immigrants in Minnesota from different locations, this study will focus primarily on the experiences of Hmong, Karen, Latino, Liberian and Somali immigrants.
Land and family were significant assets for the immigrants in the Minnesota state. Particularly, it is important to note that there are different groups of people who took refuge as immigrants in Minnesota (Oestergen, 1981). The Latino community makes up the largest proportion of the foreign-born population living in Minnesota. Approximately 7% of the people living in Hennepin and Ramsey counties are Latino. The Hennepin and Ramsey counties are homes to over 64000 people from the Hmong communities. Approximately 3000 Karen refugees came into Minnesota fleeing the violence and war experienced in Burmese civil war. Finally, the United States became home to Liberian and Somali refugees following the civil wars in their countries. Approximately 32 000 refugees from Somali live in Minnesota since the 1990s. Land was owned by families and the immigrants depended on the transition of the land through family lineages. The inheritance of land from one individual to another was done according to the customs and the cultural beliefs of the people involved. Land was particularly used for settlement and agricultural purposes. Other immigrants co ...
Similar to Rural Minnesota Journal: Why Everyone Should Care (8)
The State of Rural Minnesota 2013 is a presentation produced annually by the Center for Rural Policy & Development in St. Peter, MN, showing how population, income, poverty, education, and many other indicators vary across the state.
Retiring Baby Boomers will impact Minnesota's housing landscape for decades to come. This article considers whether the state and those developing senior housing today are taking the wants and needs of this population group into account.
Rural Minnesota is losing it's voice. That's the conclusion of a study where researchers talked to 50 prominent Minnesota decision makers and surveyed 120+ more. Due to a combination of reasons, the state's rural population is becoming increasingly left out and left behind on the discussions that affect our everyday lives. Read on to find out what people are saying and how they think the issue can be resolved.
As who lives in our rural communities changes, so too are the way these communities support themselves. As tax dollars shrink, the philanthropy community is finding itself being asked to play a bigger role.
The role of communities leaders and leadership is growing in importance in rural places. The Blandin Foundation’s longstanding leadership program relies on not just building leadership skills but also building the networks and relationships needed as communities face new challenges.
How is the transition from the Greatest Generation to the Baby Boom to Generation X affecting volunteering in Greater Minnesota? Some new research shows us.
The Minnesota Internet Survey is a continuing examination of broadband access in Minnesota. Started in 2001, the survey looks at and compares adoption rates for rural and urban users, including activities, willingness to pay and the impact of factors such as age and income on adoption.
The 2012 Minnesota Internet Survey is conducted every two years by the Center for Rural Policy & Development in St. Peter, MN. The survey looks at adoption rates in the Twin Cities metro area and the rest of the state, what people like to do online, and how they access the Internet.
More from Center for Rural Policy & Development (15)
2. Rural Minnesota Journal
embrace “one Minnesota” at our peril.
Metro area folks should care about the rest of the state
for reasons that are personal, recreational, economic,
environmental, educational, historical, cultural, or public
policy and as an alternative lifestyle.
Yes, alternative lifestyle.
Ben Winchester has found some reversal of the rural “brain
drain,” with numbers of educated young families moving
out of urban areas to seek simpler lives. As Milaca real estate
broker Brad Maitland put it to Pam Louwagie of the Star
Tribune, “We sell a lifestyle.”
It’s easy to romanticize and stereotype small towns. Every
town has a different character (and characters), but there’s
some truth in common perceptions about safety, community,
faith, schools, and a more-relaxed pace.
I once bunked in with a family in Herman that professed
not to know where the house key was. Years ago, when
Bellingham had a high school, I found that the lockers not only
didn’t have locks, they didn’t have doors.
A writer once told me that, north of St. Cloud, you
don’t need a horn on your car. A rural matron didn’t find a
morning cafe break while visiting the Twin Cities and asked,
“Don’t they have coffee?”
During 20-some years of reporting from every Minnesota
county except Cook, I occasionally asked about rural-urban
differences. One of the most thoughtful responses came from
Paul Olson, then president of the Blandin Foundation in
Grand Rapids, who said he felt comfortable in both rural and
urban settings.
You can’t be anonymous in a small town, Olson said back
in 1987, “and you order your life around that.”
“Small-town life has a little higher comfort level,” he
said. And it’s often “a more physical, active lifestyle,” with
people changing their vehicle oil themselves, snowplowing
their own driveways, splitting their own wood, ordering
their lives around the seasons and often creating their own
entertainment.
“People are kind of...closer to the earth, more tied in to
nature,” he said.
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3. Franklin
A former northern Minnesota public official put it another
way: “Many people have fled here because they want to do
what they want to do.”
I’ve had students who, of course, couldn’t wait to escape
their hometowns, finding them too quiet, too conservative, too
insular, too prone to conflict-avoidance. True for some older
folks, too. Even after nearly a decade in city government, a
former Iron Range mayor told me, “I never felt a part of the
community.” And there’s not always something for a single
person to do on a Saturday night.
While the rural lifestyle isn’t for everybody, food and
jobs are. Consider other ties that bind urban and rural
Minnesotans:
Economy and environment. Rural Minnesota is the
cornerstone of the state’s $13 billion-a-year agri-business, as
well as timber and mining. Each job on the farm generates
four off the farm, for a total of 350,000 jobs, making agribiz
the state’s second-largest economic sector, according to
Michael Schommer, communications director of the state
Agriculture Department.
Historically, entrepreneurs seem to have thrived in both
urban and rural Minnesota. Sears, 3M Co., Hormel, the Mayo
Clinic, Marvin Windows, and snowmobile companies boast
rural roots, along with more recent developments such as
wind power and ethanol and countless smaller enterprises.
Towns across Minnesota already have infrastructure in
housing, public facilities, and often incentives for jobs. It seems
wasteful not to maximize those advantages. That’s been a
philosophy behind such efforts as the state-administered small
cities grants program and the Greater Minnesota Housing
Fund.
We also should care about rural areas because Minnesotans
are mobile. With the Internet, more of us can work from home
anywhere. “I can sit here and talk to China as well as you
can,” Malin Sik, then school board chairman and police chief
in Ivanhoe said more than a decade ago. And many tribal
people shuttle between cities and reservations depending on
jobs, family and seasons.
And we’re all affected by the rural environment. Farm
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4. Rural Minnesota Journal
and small-town stewardship of land and water affects
those downstream, along with hunting and fishing resources.
Problem solving. A lot of small-scale, grassroots problem-
solving goes on in rural areas, not all of it long-lasting,
but worth attention. Community efforts have preserved
such staples as grocery stores, cafes, and other businesses.
After the grocery store in Okabena closed, the high
school store stocked some grocery items. At age 17, Nick
Graham brought back the defunct grocery in Truman. A
high school entrepreneurship program opened a Radio
Shack in Fosston and helped that town win an All-America
City award. “Fosston beats Boston,” our Star Tribune headline
read.
Other rural school-sponsored enterprises have run
programs as diverse as a lumberyard, soda fountain, and
fish farm, and have sold products from barbecue sauce to
snowmobile stands.
Labs for diversity. Recent years have brought new
cultures to many rural areas, sometimes providing the
children who rescue school districts from dwindling
enrollments. MinnPost’s Sharon Schmickle found that about 40
percent of Pelican Rapids residents are minority, and they have
been mostly absorbed into the community “with remarkable
levels of peace and civic grace.” Sleepy Eye sent educators to
Texas to learn how to better teach children of migrant workers
in Minnesota.
Heritage. Many Minnesotans care about the state as a
whole because they grew up in rural areas, visit rural relatives,
have business ties, vacation at a resort or cabin “up north,” or
travel through the state to other destinations.
There’s a lot for urban eyes to see, too, whether it’s the
waterfront at Duluth, eagles around Wabasha, Indian quarries
at Pipestone or the Lindbergh home and museum at Little
Falls. Plus some of the wackiness that seems to thrive in rural
areas — Francis Johnson’s Ball of Twine in Darwin and Ken
Nyberg’s Big Toe sculpture in Vining.
Knowing where we come from helps us chart where we’re
going. Many small towns preserve vestiges of their immigrant
heritage, history, and architecture (think Louis Sullivan’s
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5. Franklin
National Farmers’ Bank in Owatonna, now part of Wells
Fargo, for instance).
Joe Amato, the retired dean and historian at Southwest
State University in Marshall, and his colleagues have
produced books on the rich immigrant history in a
region that includes Belgians around Marshall, Poles in
Ivanhoe, Norwegians in Hendricks, Danes in Tyler, and Dutch
in Edgerton.
And more recent immigrants—Asians, Africans, and
Latinos around Worthington in Nobles County. For those who
look askance at the newcomers: As late as 1910, 70 percent
of Nobles County residents were first- or second-generation
immigrants, Amato wrote in the book Southwest Minnesota:
Place of Many Places, and before World War I, Minnesota
published its Constitution in 10 languages.
Schools. Minnesota has invested huge amounts in its
networks of public schools and state colleges and universities.
And these turn out graduates who often migrate to urban
areas. “Sometimes the best thing we give to the Cities are our
young people,” Ellison said recently from Herman. “They
bring their small-town values.”
Historically, emphasis on high school education helped
rural youth cope with technological changes in agriculture and
manufacturing, according to an article in The Atlantic of July/
August. “High school made the children who stayed home
better farmers and gave the rest the tools to leave,” and to be
successful in urban areas, sometimes more successful than
their urban counterparts, the magazine said.
Education has helped solve small-town problems, too.
At the Jackson campus of Minnesota West Community &
Technical College, teacher Donna Mielke won a national
award for preparing high school and college students to
help combat a shortage of small-town emergency medical
technicians.
Public policy. All of us have a vested interest in
good schools, good highways, good jobs, good Internet
connections, and a good quality of life statewide.
Many counties in Minnesota contribute to the
state’s economy through agriculture, natural resources,
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6. Rural Minnesota Journal
manufacturing, and tourism, but they don’t have a large
number of people to contribute to the local tax base. The flow
of government policy doesn’t stop at county lines. Revenues
from income, sales and other taxes are invested in people and
programs across Minnesota. In some rural counties, those
investments have been critical, especially where the largest
single source of income has been “transfer payments” —Social
Security, public assistance, and unemployment compensation.
When I first covered the Minnesota Legislature in the
1960s, the top officers of the House and Senate came from
Caledonia, Redwood Falls, and the Walnut Grove area. The
chairmen of both spending committees came from Marshall
County, near the state’s northwestern corner. Power has
shifted since then, but rural legislators and rural voters still
have enough clout to be courted and to have their concerns
understood.
Looking ahead. In some areas, these concerns are a matter
of survival. Some towns lack broadband Internet. Some small
schools are too far apart for easy consolidation. Some counties
have dwindled to the point where there’s a critical shortage
of community leadership and many services have to be
outsourced.
“The challenge of Minnesota’s future will involve avoiding
a state composed of two contending groups of strangers: one
engrossed in a world of expanding opportunities, the other
preoccupied with the consequences of irretrievably failed
frontiers,” Amato wrote nearly 20 years ago in The Decline of
Rural Minnesota.
Still true. “Our institutions are going outside of us,”
he said recently. Growing towns will continue to grow, he
predicted, and dwindling ones will continue to decline.
One prairie town. Herman, nearly 40 miles west of
Alexandria, has lost some population since its Bachelormania
days. And it’s lost its grocery store, a cafe, bakery, car
dealership, and drug store, said Ellison, who is now
president of the Herman Development Corp. But the farm
economy is good, the town still maintains its K-12 school,
the municipal liquor store is being converted to a privately
owned restaurant, and the town has annexed 55 acres for a big
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7. Franklin
CHS fertilizer plant.
Plus, Ellison said, a lot of younger women have found
good jobs in such fields as dental hygiene, legal aid, and
banking, often in nearby towns like Morris.
In a series of public meetings, “we found a lot of people
who really care about Herman and want it to do well,” he said.
Some women moved to Herman. Some started businesses.
Some married bachelors (and some of the marriages, including
Ellison’s, didn’t last).
Was all the fuss worth it?
For Ellison, who says he’s publicity-shy these days, of
course it was, in the person of his 12-year-old son, Spencer,
who lives with him.
Beyond that, “it was our 15 minutes of fame that lasted a
whole summer,” he said. The town became a movie, and “how
many towns can say that?”
In addition, “we showed the best of small towns to the
whole world, and I think that’s an honor.”
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