Over the past week, three newspapers in Greater Minnesota and North Dakota have published material responding to reactionary attacks on refugees and resettlement.
St. Cloud Times: Despite fact checks, some readers love anti-refugee rabblerouser
In Uniters, dividers made a difference, the St. Cloud Times Editorial Board observes:
Who are the biggest Difference Makers for 2015 in Central Minnesota? Here are the Times Editorial Board's selections.
Uniters, dividers
While not new to the St. Cloud area, the challenges posed by an increasingly diverse population certainly stood out as a big issue the past year. Not surprisingly, that situation created polarization in the community. Some people and groups worked to bridge cultural gaps. Others were anything but accepting of legal residents, especially those of the Muslim faith and from Somalia and other African nations.
Amid those factors, those students at Technical High School who first protested their school environment last spring and then spent the summer trying to improve it stand out as the top Difference Makers of 2015. With the help of school district leaders, they formed the Tech Student Advocate Team and the Tech Culture and Climate Group, both of which are focused on implementing solutions.
Other unifying forces in 2015 include the group #unitecloud and Create CommUNITY. Both groups embraced using personal connections and personal stories to stress the importance of treating fellow residents with respect. That might seem simple, but it's much needed when others in the community aim to divide through fear-mongering and misleading stereotypes.
Such divisive efforts were best (and sadly) represented this year in the likes of out-of-town speaker Ron Branstner, who came here and made statements proven to be false. Yet his followers seem content to ignore those facts and embrace the fear.
Similarly, an informal group of residents this year raised questions about only the costs of refugee resettlement in the St. Cloud area. Not only did they ignore positive contributions from these legal residents, but Stearns County's detailed, factual answers to their questions seem to fall on deaf ears.
In short, they're going believe what they're going to believe.The St. Cloud Times' series of fact checking claims about refugees and refugee resettlement programs can be viewed via this Google search.
Elsewhere, the paper posted the nominations in Readers name their Difference Makers. The lead submission:
Ron Branstner
Ron Branstner for his bravery for educating the public what is really happening in America. He has done tremendous studying on Islam, Agenda 21, the United Nations, and how this is all tied in with deceitful politicians and volunteer agencies. Ron has done an excellent job in being honest and will be proven a modern day hero.
Ed Schmidt
Sartell
Earlier this month, Bluestem looked at Branstner's jump from anti-immigrant speaker to refugee resettlement basher inCA Minuteman & Islamophobic rabblerouser totally down with Trump's anti-Muslim bigotry.
For an overview of anti-Agenda 21 nincompooperies written prior to the present moral panic over refugee resettlement, we recommend the Southern Poverty Law Center's 2014 report, Agenda 21: The UN, Sustainability and Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory.
Fargo Forum: Lutheran Social Services CEO Person of the Year
Wherever he's speaking, one of Branstner's targets is Lutheran Social Services' refugee resettlement efforts. In As lightning rod for refugee criticism, LSS of ND's CEO named Forum's Person of the Year, the Fargo Forum's Robin Huebner reports:
When the head of Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota learned she was The Forum's 2015 Area Person of the Year, her surprised reaction acknowledged it was a controversial choice.
"Yikes," said Jessica Thomasson, CEO of the private nonprofit.
The agency she leads has recently been under fire for the refugee resettlement program it's run since the end of World War II. Criticism of programs to bring refugees to the U.S., along with anti-Muslim sentiment, surged in 2015, in particular following terror attacks in the past two months in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif.
Forum editors named Thomasson the 2015 Area Person of the Year because she serves as a lightning rod for that criticism and leads an agency with great impact on the region.
"I didn't anticipate things shaping up as they have," said Thomasson of her job, which she's held for barely a year.
In fact, Thomasson said she was hesitant to acknowledge the designation because a lot of area people are angry about the work LSS does, and she didn't want to make her staff or people they serve "feel any more unsafe than they already do."
Thomasson and staff from the LSS New American Services are pictured at the top of this post. Read the rest of the article at the Forum. Her courage, toughness and kindness make the honor well deserved.
St. Peter Herald: world's refugee crisis hits home
At the St. Peter Herald, Dana Melius hits some poignant notes in the second part of a series, The world's refugee crisis hits home: How will the Minnesota River Valley respond?:
Shortly before her Nov. 22 death, 103-year-old Sigrid Berka was heartbroken. Pictures of young Syrian children trying to flee their native land haunted her.
The former Latvian refugee was forced to flee her home in 1944, and the growing international crisis brought back vivid memories for Berka, whose journey to America eventually weaved through the communities of St. Peter, Le Center and Le Sueur.
A Gustavus Adolphus College professor sponsored Berka, her husband Arvid, and daughter Ilsa, who was only 4 years old when the family left hurriedly ahead of a Russian offensive near the end of World War II. The Berkas settled into Le Center, first living with the John Wohlers family and appreciating the warmth of the St. Paul Lutheran Church community.
While Arvid died in 1973, Sigrid remained active and appreciated during her Le Center days. She eventually moved to Le Sueur in 1998, always interested in international news and, in particular, refugee issues, according to her daughter.
“I have no medical evidence of this,” said Ilsa Olson, who now lives in Connecticut, “but the fact that she was so concerned and so frustrated with what happened to the Syrian refugees had to affect her in those final days.”
Zigrida “Sigrid” Berka and her family had witnessed similar refugee resentment initially upon arrival into the United States. That dramatically changed when the Berkas made their way to Minnesota and were so warmly welcomed and accepted. But the world’s hesitancy to accept and understand the growing Syrian and Middle East refugee crisis troubled her deeply.
It's not the only refugee story Melius collected for this article. There's this:
. . . The Rev. Nathan Luong of Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Peter, whose father “escaped Vietnam with his life and little else,” voiced a similar impassioned message last week. Luong’s family history prompted him to work in refugee resettlement during seminary training.
“I thank God my dad was a Buddhist from Vietnam in the ‘70s and not a Muslim from Syria today,” Luong wrote. “The xenophobic attitude in our country would make me fear for his safety. The vitriol from some candidates and elected officials is appalling, since our country was built on religious tolerance and freedom.
“As the son of a war refugee, it hurts to see the distrust of refugees. It sickens me to see refugees and the very people they are trying to escape held in the same regard. It sickens me to see distrust and hatred of an entire religion, based on the actions of extremists…As a pastor, it angers me to see mercy being case aside and sunk in a pool of ignorance and fear…
“It is time to come together as people of common sense, to raise our voices saying that mercy and love should always trump fear and hate. No major wrong was ever made right when the voice of compassion stayed quiet. So I’m standing up, and hoping you will as well. To my Muslim brothers and sisters, and to any refugees, I’m with you and you’re welcome at my place.”
Read the entire article at the Herald.
Photo: "Jessica Thomasson, director of Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, stands with staff from the LSS New American Services in the building’s chapel. Michael Vosburg / Forum Photo Editor" From the Fargo Forum.
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