Remember When

For the last 4 months I have been traveling in North Dakota, exploring the ways that ordinary folks in rural areas are revitalizing their communities through immigration. It has been a heartwarming journey. Our state is made up of good people with abundant common sense, whose memories stir them to go extra measures time after time to help new neighbors. It is the North Dakota way.

So many of our churches have an ethnic heritage and memory. As I started this journey and realized that a new wave of Ukrainians is entering North Dakota, it seemed wise to visit the Ukrainian Catholic Churches in Belfield and Fairfield. While there, Deacon Leonard Kordonoy pulled me aside with an observation and an idea. Deacon Leonard, at 87, remembered what it was like to be a six-year-old little boy going to school for the first time without understanding a word of English. Some memories were painful. Other kids made fun of him. Yet, there were good memories of Ukrainian-speaking nuns who graciously taught him English and nurtured his education. Eventually, he was bilingual and educated. Over time he became a husband, father, grandfather, deacon and community leader. His sense of joy, compassion and wisdom is a treasure to his community. Deacon Leonard recognized that there likely were new Ukrainians feeling the same way he felt 80 years ago. Would it be possible to host a picnic and invite the new Ukrainians to meet the old ones?

With God’s grace and North Dakota gumption the picnic happened on Sunday, August 20. The network of businesses, churches, nonprofits and sponsors got the word out. There is a scattering of old North Dakotans who can keep up in conversations in Ukrainian, and they brushed up on their language skills. The Ukrainian Catholic Church cooked the food and organized a more bilingual worship than most Sundays. A crowd of new Ukrainians showed up and the old Ukrainians gave a hearty welcome. In the months that have followed these conversations have continued. It can be an exhausting and confusing experience to not be able to speak the common language of a community. To have a grandparent figure to assure young people that they are not alone sustains one through the loneliest seasons.

For the last two months, I have repeated this story. I have been surprised at the responses. Every time I am with a group of North Dakotans whose age ranges from their mid-seventies to their mid-nineties a voice speaks up and says, “That happened to me too. I remember what it was like to not speak English. My grandparents and parents only spoke _____. We were isolated in our community. It was not until I went to school that I started speaking English. I remember people making fun of me. Yet, someone was gracious and got me through it.” The languages can be Czech, Finnish, German, Norwegian or Swedish. Yet, that is the North Dakota experience.

It should not be that big of a surprise. German newspapers were being published in North Dakota until the 1960’s. Many churches used a non-English language in their Bible classes and worship until the 1970’s. Some communities expected their pastors to have enough language skills so that they could visit the sick, pray for healing, and deliver last rites until the 1970’s. If you doubt these memories just wander through an old graveyard or look at the signs on many of our older church buildings. Non-English gravestones and church signs confirm that North Dakota held onto to our ethnic immigrant roots longer than many other places in America. These memories should call us to outdo others in our historical awareness and contemporary common sense.

For the next few years, we have several windows of opportunity. First, the generation that remembers what it is like to go to school and be the child who does not speak English is still in our midst. They are many of our grandparents and great-grandparents. Yes, they love to tell stories about the good old days. Yet, sometimes they need prompting to tell the most painful ones. If you notice your grandparents worship at a church with an old ethnic name or have an old Bible in a non-English language, it's worth asking them what language was like when they were kids. When we hear their stories let us remember them. We can even write their stories down. Let us allow these old memories to help us welcome new families to North Dakota well.

Second, our North Dakota economy is booming. In fact, it is one of the most gracious economies in America. If someone is struggling to get a break but willing to work, take chances and deal with our weather, if they show up here, they will get a fair chance at a better life. We do not have enough people to fill all our jobs. We need new blood. In fact, about 10% of our state is currently foreign born or the children of foreign-born people. We are experiencing changes like our grandparents once saw. When I am in a Walmart in one of our booming towns, I usually hear three to six different languages. It feels like what I imagine some of the country stores were like for our grandparents when the storekeeper had to transition from English to German, Polish or Norwegian.

I notice a familiar pattern at grocery stores in North Dakota that I hope we will continue. A young family is shopping with 2 to 4 little kids. It is a bit chaotic with little hands and lots of questions going down the aisles. Frequently, the parents get a bit flustered. Someone with gray hair notices the flustered young parent, smiles, and whispers, “I remember what that was like. Enjoy your little ones. I do not mind their rambunctiousness at all.” Let us give even extra measures of that grace when the parent is confused by new English, and we hear them speak in Spanish or Kiswahili. In North Dakota we remember when our great-grandparents had the same experience.

 Dave Jenkins serves as the executive director for CATCH, a North Dakota nonprofit that hopes to revitalize rural North Dakota by facilitating legal immigration