‘Uncle Walt, would you help me understand why immigration is on the news so much?” Mitty’s nephew Brian texted the pastor of Poplar Park Community Church last Sunday after the 49ers vs. Lions game.

“Hey Brian,” Mitty texted back. “If you’ve been watching the news, you know that some people say immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans; others argue that local governments can’t handle the financial burden to providing social services for them; and others just want everyone to think and look like they do. So why do you ask?”

“You know why, Uncle Walt. You were in high school when the first Hmong were settled in Manitowoc, and now there are like 1,500 of them here, and Manitowoc has a population of only 34,500. For us that’s a lot bigger percentage than the added number recently coming into your area.”

“OK, I see. You’re saying that little Manitowoc has done a better job of integrating the Hmong population than big cities like Chicago have.”

“Yeah, and why are so many people against immigrants? I mean what’s that poem on the Statue of Liberty? Something like, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses …”

“Yearning to breathe free,” Mitty thought, then texted back, “You weren’t born yet, Brian, but you know, not everyone in Manitowoc welcomed the Hmong with open arms.”

“That’s what mom says, but she thinks that even those who were sort of against it, including anyone who wasn’t German or Polish in town, got behind the Immigration Service’s plan because a lot of the Hmong fought with our guys in the Vietnam War.”

“I think your mom is right. Just like nowadays, they were seeking asylum. Our government pulled out of Southeast Asia kind of like we pulled out of Afghanistan, leaving thousands of people who helped us vulnerable.”

“But,” Brian protested, “our town did come through for them and now almost everyone here thinks it’s cool that our small community is, you know, multicultural, just like Chicago.”

When on Monday morning Pastor Mitty told his friend and neighbor, Michael, about his online conversation with Brian, Michael said, “Is Brian looking at the situation through rose-colored glasses?”

“Maybe, Michael, but he has second-generation classmates at the high school, so he has firsthand knowledge, and he even took a Hmong girl to Homecoming last October.

“Oh and another thing, I subscribe to the Herald Times Reporter which has been reporting on the Hmong for 40 years now — the good, the bad and the ugly — and I read an article about Mayor Nichols issuing a proclamation a few years ago that established a Hmong American Day.

“In the proclamation he declared, ‘Hmong people make up Manitowoc’s largest single minority ethnic group, and are helping to build a vibrant and diverse Wisconsin, contributing socially, politically, and economically to our state, and after more than 40 years in the United States, the Hmong community has progressed to achieving the American Dream, becoming business owners and professionals in Manitowoc. …’”

“Wow, I am surprised,” Michael said when his friend had finished. “Didn’t Manitowoc vote for Trump?”

“They did, Michael. In fact, I’m pretty sure my sister-in-law Susan did along with her neighbors, but somehow that MAGA ideology did not prevent them from seeing those tribal people from halfway around the world as real people who needed her help. In fact, she went to a Thai cooking class and buys her ingredients at the Thai/Lao Market on Washington Street.”

“Why, Walt? Why would Trump voters accept those foreigners?”

“Don’t know for sure, Michael. Maybe in a small town people have a chance to get to know newcomers as real people instead of as statistics. When a Hmong kid is elected student council president at Lincoln High School, her picture gets in the paper. 

“Maybe it’s also because of the way community leaders have framed it. You know, that American Dream thing. The publisher of the Herald Times Reporter didn’t duck the protests about taking jobs away from locals, but a lot of the first generation got jobs washing dishes and mowing other people’s lawns.”

Michael thought about what his friend said and added, “That American Dream thing. Are you saying that as the Hmong who have been born here begin contributing to the community’s prosperity, those third and fourth generation Germans and Poles begin seeing the stories of the new folks in town as similar to the stories they heard their grandparents telling at family reunions?”

“Maybe, Michael. As the Hmong in Manitowoc get into their second and third generations, they start speaking standard English and, I can’t explain it, but their bodies start looking like Americans physically.”

“Susan will sometimes throw names around like Kabzaug and Fwam, as if she has known them her whole life.”

“Forty years is the better part of a lifetime, Walt. Maybe we need time to read the whole book instead of just looking at the cover.”