WORTHINGTON, Minn. (AP) — Over the past generation, immigrants from Southeast Asia, East Africa and now predominantly Central America have transformed Worthington, a once overwhelmingly white farming community. Students of color constitute more than 80% of those enrolled in K-12, Spanish is most children’s first language, and soccer is far more popular than football.
“Literally everything has changed,” said city councilor Chad Cummings.
Immigration is a core issue for voters this election. Some of the 2024 campaign’s most charged political vitriol swirls around its effects on towns all across the country.
Most lifelong residents in this politically red area are proud of Worthington’s cosmopolitan flair, thriving economy and booming population. Thanks to migrants, most of whom come to work in the pork processing plant, the town has bucked the trend of rural communities nationwide that never recovered from the 1980s farm crisis.
But such rapid change has come with significant challenges and costs, many due to language and cultural barriers. Crucially, old-timers and newcomers are grappling with how to turn very separate groups into one functioning community.
“There are many ‘us’ in Worthington,” Cummings said. “How do we become a true blended community? Is it happening? It is, in some aspects. Is it fully happening? No. Will it ever? I don’t know.”
Migrant workers, integration and belonging in a heartland town
Near her family farm, Julie Robinson attends the same Baptist church where her grandmother worshipped in Swedish.
The congregation was getting so small that they prayed for the miracle of five new families, she said. What they got was some 60 refugee families from Myanmar and Thailand, who today pack the Sunday service in their Karen language.
Southeast Asians were the first foreign migrants to diversify Worthington, and the town has grown about 10% each of the past three censuses, to about 14,000 residents, said city administrator Steve Robinson. The city is struggling to address an acute housing shortage.
The economic and cultural changes are etched into the landscape, from the stores and churches to the baseball diamonds turned soccer pitches.
Over a post-liturgy lunch of pancake-like injera bread, Ethiopian Orthodox Church chairman Abebe Abetew said he and fellow East Africans “feel in our own home” in their new sanctuary, after being hosted for nearly a decade by First Lutheran Church.
“Everything we see and smell is like home,” he added. A group of women in white veils called netela said they’re glad their children make friends from other ethnic groups in school — but still prefer to socialize with other East African mothers.
Denis Miranda was pleasantly surprised by how easily he and his wife settled in Worthington — among fellow Guatemalans and other Latinos, where they have no need to learn fluent English because of the prevalence of Spanish.
“We didn’t think that there was going to be a community of people who are of our own kind,” Miranda said after Spanish-language Catholic Mass.
That’s no different from immigrants of Northern and Central European descent who came in the 19th century and also tended to work, play and worship alongside compatriots.
But today, many aren’t sure they’ll stay in Worthington, and the status of those who are undocumented is precarious.
That raises uneasy questions about Worthington’s social fabric and how to celebrate distinct cultures while overcoming ethnic self-segregation.
“It’s going to be slow and it’s going to be tough,” said Kelly Asche, a senior researcher at Minnesota’s Center for Rural Policy and Development.
From supplies to four-way-stop driving, adaptation in public services
In Worthington High School’s restrooms, notices in English and Spanish refer students to counselors who can get them supplies ranging from shampoo to backpacks.
The town also has free programs to help with “anything that involves systems and institutions,” said Sharon Johnson, the school district’s community education director.
A priority is driver’s ed, since many immigrants don’t know basic driving rules. A Minnesota law touted by Gov. Tim Walz last year allows undocumented migrants to apply for state driver’s licenses.
Officers have been trying to build trust among migrants so that common mishaps, from driving offenses to failing to mow lawns to disciplining children, don’t snowball into major problems, said Police Chief Troy Appel.
More worrisome is the concern that traffickers are taking advantage of undocumented migrants, especially unaccompanied minors, Appel said.
Over the past 10 years, nearly 800 unaccompanied migrant children were released to sponsors in Nobles County, according to federal data compiled by the Migration Policy Institute.
One is Emerson Lopez, who was 11 when he came from Guatemala with his teenage sister.
“I’ve been getting used to things,” said Lopez, now a high school student.
Schools and hopes for the future
For all of Worthington’s growing pains, school is one place where almost everyone sees hope.
Of the roughly 3,300 in-person students, 500 are English learners. In 2024, 82% of them are students of color, compared to 29% in 1999, said Pat Morphew, the district’s accountant.
Some children adapt so well that they’re back in the school as teachers, like third-grade instructor TahSoGhay Collah. Coming to Worthington when she was 10, Collah remembers the challenge of learning English while preserving her native Karen, which is the third-most spoken of 44 languages in the intermediate school.
Hundreds of students and families packed the high school gym on a recent evening for the fall concert. Looking like a United Nations on the prairie, they sang Mexican and Czech folk songs as well as “America the Beautiful.”
“Our kids don’t see color, they see people,” said Superintendent John Landgaard.
From the benches, former football player and 2012 graduate Brandon Riemersma-Feit applauded one of his middle-schoolers.
He’s thrilled that his children get to experience so much diversity, but hopes more parents will engage in community activities.
“We can be as diverse as you want, but if you’re not involved, you’re not really included,” he said.
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