Wisconsin stories; 102; Finding a home

Wisconsin stories is a partnership of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and Wisconsin public television. That's the whole time I'm up you know. Well that's where I was born so made it OK for me to say this is you know you you know write something about yourself and thinking you know this is a good thing. You know I'm getting my senior year. To give everyone what we are who we are because of a past. If we are who we are today because of this place we called Wisconsin. Because of the people I still speak my mind freely as to how I feel the world looks into the future and for those who are difficult. I have recently begun to think about America not for me or for the job.

The people who came to Wisconsin did so over a very short time in little more than the states 150 years a sparsely populated wilderness has changed Indian lands became farmland forests became factory and prairies became bustling Times. People change the Scriptures and weren't changed by theirs or stories of struggle of acceptance and of comfort stories that continue into today. Right. We are who we are actually because of the mix. Now as in the past of many immigrants of recent When I was laid upon

generation upon generation because of the response. Major funding for Wisconsin stories was provided by AT&T providing

business and residential long distance service throughout Wisconsin. S.C. Johnson Wax a Wisconsin manufacturer of home cleaning and home storage products. The credit unions of Wisconsin serving the financial needs of two million Wisconsinites and their families. And the Wisconsin sesquicentennial commission celebrating one hundred and fifty years of Wisconsin statehood. Funding also provided by first star corporation Harley Davidson incorporated. Marshal and corporation. The Outdoor Advertising Association the Philip Morris company's W. H Brady company Webber Stephon products company and Wisconsin manufactures and comers and now Wisconsin stories. Christmas Day 18 24 hours outside of the settlement of Green Bay. Commander John McNeil decided to throw a party for all those who

lived worked and traded at the lonely out. In. The hall was well filled. The variety of costume would have engaged the study of an artist. Bells and bold men and women were attired in all the grades of dress from the highest Parisian down to the buckskin coat of moccasins of the aborigines. Good natured joined to good cheer and made this rousing Christmas dinner one long to be remembered. Albert G. L.. The party goers of 1824 included many of the local Menominee in the largest population in the area. Of the colonists from the eastern states moving westward to make their fortunes buying land and some Irish English Scottish.

All together making the Howard party the most diverse gathering of its time. Musta been one heck of a party. Most of them didn't know one another. They had foods from all groups the dads dances from all the groups they dressed the way all the groups dressed in that respect. It looks a lot like today's modern folk that are very much Professor. So the folks there of Milwaukee. Is an extension. Of the whole fair. Or. Multicultural gathering board Howard. 170 years before. The state has grown tremendously in our short history today people from over 70 countries call Wisconsin their home. And though we have blended we never melted together as was once thought. Instead we have held on to something of our individual identity as sharing and

enjoying the flavors of each. We have reason to celebrate who we are that we survive the process of finding a home. If in fact that we survived are gone. On July 1 1838 high not arrived at the place I now live. Near the center of town in Rock County Wisconsin. For a whole year I did not see any countryman of mine but he did so. The next summer I built a cabin. And received a group of immigrants from my home district annoying. In that way this region very quickly. A lot of sectors. There are patterns to all immigrant arriving as a brave for then coming in waves over 500000 before the state was even. Evidence of this earlier mostly northern European waved

by the towns the perfect ethnic settlement. Such as Belgium and Denmark Luxembourg in Marquette. And New London. And when. These people. Pushed. Their homelands. Over. To this new place by the Economic Opportunity Europe was war torn at the time. It was not very pleasant to have lived in Europe in the early nineteenth century. It was very unsettled particularly for people of how very much money they had very little opportunity. Both families and factory workers were accustomed to extremely long hours

and hard work and lack of mechanization and work was an accepted labor intensive stuff was accepted by Europeans when they came here. Thing that made a big difference was they could now put this hand work of the labor into creating a stake for themselves with a new possibility for economic advancement in America. These first immigrants quickly set up farms in towns just the way the new state government thought it wanted. But the big landowners who made up the government mostly Yankees came to the immigrants with mixed emotions. Great joy on the part of businessmen that this money is coming out of the small landholders bag makes a larger landholders much richer but also lots of nervousness because in those numbers immigrants could begin to win elections could begin to take

over financial institutions or erect competing financial institutions. This led to nativist anti-immigrant organizations and parties. Let us keep down the newly arrived flood of immigrants until they understand our language and our laws until they can comprehend their utility. When their children are educated and Americanized then we are safe. Why should I learn from these past experiences that if you are kind and tolerant and accepting it can all work out. Is a democracy a democratic form of government. It's pretty flexible in these respects and quite welcoming if you let it work. It takes a lot of effort on the part of all people of all sides. This is not an easy effort with acceptance. There is also conflict between new arrivals and established society between people who look different do things differently or speak a

different language and conflicts within groups to blend in and yet hold on to their separate identity. Us. By looking at a few of the many examples from our history we can begin to understand why we have reason to celebrate in Wisconsin us. To. Do. Our present reservation is a cut over trend. At the time of purchase it was about to be abandoned by the lumber man is worthless. To be sure that this little away says of land would be ours and definitely the effect upon our spirit would be all out of proportion to the real resale value of the land. Elmer David Sr. Stockbridge Muncie band. Wisconsin. The search for land in the eighteen hundreds brought the eastern Yankees and the immigrants to Wisconsin. But among the first new

arrivals were Native Americans from the East Coast. These New York Indians had little choice. As a government. Remove them from the. Likes of. Our forefathers find the treaties and there were things that they had to give up in those trees. Mostly land. And I don't believe they do that frivolously. I believe they did that with a heavy heart but they know that if they didn't do it our people might not survive. The land the eastern tribes came to was negotiated away from the locals like the night I went to land around Green Bay and a small committee called the Brotherton east of Lake Winnebago. Though the Brotherton did not keep their reservation status. After many removals. Sixteen thousand. Seventy. The money that you gave. Was set aside for the stock. But that bridge. Had been Christianised early

seventeen hundred that's a hundred years. When we came to Wisconsin we were the probably the person English speaking people here a mere six hundred people made the final trip to Wisconsin and. The last survivors of the tribe who welcomed him we had some. And the first Dutch traders who fought for the American cause in the revolutionary. Nation. Thanks to a popular man. Were thought to have died. Thanks to James Fenimore Cooper. Who wrote a book The Last of the 100 and. A fiction. Some people have that impression and where the ME and the people of the waters that are never still add to the river that tied him up and down. Yeah but we called ourselves kind of that. When Europeans came they probably couldn't pronounce or spell that. Where are the 25000 the number in the 4000 more years constituted the

power and population of the Great we can do nation and 16 elsewhere. They've been victims device and disease which the white man imported. The small pox measles and strong waters have done the work of annihilation. John Clooney. 1854. The stock band was so-called for the tone and mass. Removal site. Over the next 200 years joined by remnants of Delaware's munchie tribe. Their attempts to find a home brought more one last one as late as 1937. Travels that are the basis for the present day tribe as a walking stick design called many trade offs. The main thing about is that we have survived and I think that's. Something deep in the US where we are people. The Stockbridge Mohicans have lived on their present land for just more. 50 years most of it.

Barely making it tough to win. But enough time to start a process of reclaiming their identity. Was. Lost along the way. But this is the one thing that we found for a long time ago. That's our sense really historical Bibles a gift in 1745 from the Prince of Wales to the Christianized Mohicans were found during a recent search and repatriation of tribal artifacts. The rains a lot to us over. Because it survived I guess we survived a nice ride. The Mohican museum now collects bits and pieces of their past reclaiming their identity. The people had changed to accommodate the new reality of white settlement but not always willingly. So I went to a mission school. And that was another thing. MS. NORRIS Kim if you went to government school and if you said anything and in line with your

gut your law or stubble so. That had to. Feel a little. Sad because we don't have. The language. Fluently. My grandfather was one of the last ones. My grandfather said well we gotta learn to live in the white man's world. We thought we'd be better off there. We'll learn differently. But that. So didn't teach many words but were gathering a few of those. The bills are basically the same thing if you get these dirt. It's more traditional. When you're dancing you're trained to the Great Spirit and the bells are full if you like that make noise so the great spirit for you. It is the younger generation who are now taking up traditions that were once forgotten or forbidden to being as bad as it used to be God or

resignation. It is in the interest of the young Mohicans that further fuels efforts to assert their tribal identity. I know a lot now and as I get older I want to learn more. And keep it going. Teach the younger kids. And. I drum for drum up here called the Red River figure that one of my ways of keeping alive. I've heard it described as a real grouping when we became aware we had lost the language we'd lost money. We'd lost. Even our kinship and we'd lost and lost. And that that cultural grouping sets up. Yes that was. Part of the tribes identity as a sovereign nation means self-government and self-determination which is in part the duty of the elected Tribal Council

to approve enrollment into the tribe. We approve land assignments. Indian child welfare issues may come to the council. OK surely pretty much typical probably any other government is just that some of our issues are. Maybe a little more unique. The council has always existed but without land or much money to work with. Economic development was almost nonexistent and there was never anything we could find. That would work. Until gaming came on. Its like. It was the magic business that did it. It will just build a casino when they walk home. What most people come to see on today's Indian reservations. But what they don't see is what has happened because of the casino at Stockbridge gaming revenues have meant a new clinic. New housing and a new community center.

Here we've been able to do wonderful things with that money for people. And we hope that we'll be able to continue to do that. And so it's been a godsend. After years of years and years of struggle and years and years of poverty. There's just no other way to describe it is it. But it's a godsend. Another benefit of gaming has been enough money to buy back some of the land of the soul doing hard time. Returning it from private ownership to tribal land. And that's the way I prefer to do everything. Communally together. The Stockbridge months you know he can survive. There are many trails. And today their numbers are growing but it's survival based on finding a home land in Wisconsin on which to live and do more than just survive. I think just to be able to. Look into myself and I belong to this group of people I was one of the

richest things let them think. This is for me it is home. In the events of 1848 the mighty spirit of the time drove me into the tumult of the political agitation. I cannot be a citizen of a free Germany. Then I would at least be a citizen of a free America. Carl short 1848. The same year Wisconsin became a state. Germany erupted in war. A war fought for democratic reforms. A war that reformed. For the refugees it was immediately for the subsidy that they leave for the pure 48 or you're talking about either somebody or participated in the revolutionary activities in the poll that made the

Rhineland or people who had here so their ideas. These 40 meters were the cultural and educational leaders of the Western world admired and respected for their progressive if then radical ideas. Because at that time most of the advanced intellectual girls were. It. Wasn't coming on our way. So they were relatively well accepted within the about Arkan community. The intellectuals of. America was already a well known destination for the Germans including a place called Wisconsin. Thousands of Germans had already found a home here seeking religious and other freedoms not found in Germany. Their letters filled with promise of opportunity. America has supported me so richly I have neither wanted for money no carried gold and silver with me.

I give God the honor and thanks Joseph crying's Jefferson County the cities and farms of the frontier seemed the perfect place for the forty years to transplant their dreams of a socially democratic and culturally dynamic society. Ideas which took root in the new City of Milwaukee. Let's go there. And so I could secure the people's money that. They often entered into political life here very quickly. The media. Started newspapers right away. Started organizations. And became extremely active. It's a dream come true they could do anything. There wasn't anyone to tell them what to do. How to behave. So they brought all their customs. Their appreciation. Art music and literature. Athletics and exercise the rowing on the river and their organizations and their touring for on.

The turn for writing or turners were a mainstay of German idealism. Part of the free thinkers and the venue radical philosophy that to train the body and the mind would make us stronger individually. Free speech free press free assembly so that men and women think unfettered and or that their lives by the dictates of conscience such as our ideal which we strive to attain through a sound mind and a sound body. This was a center this was a Neighborhood Center by tourist performances. Certainly music every week. Christopher and his sons later there were other clubs here. There are sharpshooters club. And actually they former President Lincoln's bodyguard. He had his first inauguration. He grew quickly as more Germans arrived. Thousands more and more of them for

purely economic opportunities rather than their ideal numbers and reasons that disturbed the established Yankee land owners by the 1850s. The more conservative Yankee population had become very nervous about immigration in general. They somehow didn't mind people coming in with money. They were very worried about the great unwashed hordes that were pouring in without enough money to buy land and become part of the establishment. Those were the Germans who were the Yankees feared the Yankees still control the government. But in some communities it was an easy rule of the minority immigrant majority. And in August of 1855. That tension exploded. A heart rending murder occurred about one mile east of West Bend Washington County Wednesday night. It seems the perpetrator of this horrible deed is a young man named George Barr employed in the capacity of a farmhand by several farmers.

Among them John Muir newspaper accounts are confusing but it appears to bar the boy protected by the time I had gone to collect his wages and ended up attempting to kill his wife. And finally did murder another farmhand. We learn from the sheriff that there is such strong feeling against this man and the opinion is that he will be lynched before long. The prediction came to pass the bar was apprehended and given a hearing. But even the militia called out to control the crowd did not say. The mob then jumped upon him struck him with clubs and it seemed as if they would tear his body to pieces. They attached a rope to his feet and dragged him about a quarter mile where he was hung from a tree. They saw it was everything everything wrong about the politics hobbling sticking together. All those things you should find him guilty immediately. That's what they wanted.

It's a terrible tragedy. Tensions died down. And the politically minded Germans turned their attentions to the Civil War shirts became an advisor to President Clinton. And though not all Germans supported the war many charmers volunteered. This was again a fight for freedom against slavery. And they gave their lives for their ideals. After the war Milwaukee continued to blossom and was called the German Athens a place where artists and craftspeople flourished work that still gives Milwaukee of today a distinctive German look. Milwaukee's downtown Turner Hall also stands today. Amid its more modern neighbors renovated as an official historical

landmark of the time. And some of the Turners radical ideas are still with us such as physical education now adopted as a regular part of America's school curriculum. The downtown hell is still active. But during the heyday of the German Athens Milwaukee was home to seven Turner societies with a total of 33 state law. I was a very large membership here in the 1890s there were 10000 turners to turn fast here in the walk with their exercises. And it was so popular and so well done with them one topic on the next one. Chicago and reputed it. Down. But that was the peak. Really the optimism of Milwaukee's German Athens continued into the 1900s. But just as a war in Germany had played a key role in its beginning another war with Germany would virtually bring it to an end.

World War 1 was a horrible shock to the German community in Wisconsin. Ept threw everything back. It destroyed a great deal of pride. Wisconsin was always looked upon as us as a German state during World War One and disloyal and Wisconsin Germans absolutely call. They give more money the war bond drives are very successful here and they give their children their sons names were changed and use of the German language suddenly dropped any pride in being German would have to remain hidden until well after World War Two. Today over one half of Wisconsin's population is injured in the south.

People who have no inhibitions about celebrating the festivals held all over the state. This is what we think of as Chinese German and American. But their influence next a significant mark on the cultural and educational life of all somehow called Wisconsin. Who has a. NANNY. In a. Most important thing was for the Polish That was their church. Church was was was central. The people who built the church wanted this to be a sense of the fact that their faith spoke loudly and clearly and their voice spoke.

Loudly and clearly over centuries and that sense of devotion to God has never ever let up. It's an expression of who they are. Who were these people these Polish immigrants into Milwaukee. Surely people we would call the working poor. Yet these people were devoted to build a church so magnificent. The Pope would be the title so that even today their church and their identity remain landmarks of the city's south side. At one time. I don't think during your time they used to like Polish mostly. And then when I was going to school they were teaching them I suppose because we spoke Polish at home but we were known to

our Polish and our grandparents. They want to. That's right. And generations here have held tightly to their Polish identity as it was about all the first waves of immigrants had to call their own. These people were without a home for over a century. The country had been divided by war. The people made subjects of the victors pushed from their own homes. Thousands were pulled to America to fill the growing need for industrial labor. The Daily Sentinel November 30th 1874. There are a great many when they hear of Poland they immediately recall all the disagreeable things they have ever heard of the Poles who have settled in various parts of this county. This reporter was accordingly deployed to sojourn among them to ascertain their numbers. Study their modes of life and avoid pronouncing their names.

The larger communities of Germans and Yankees consider the poles a brutish and strange. And we're content to let such laborers keep to themselves. By the turn of the century Joseph. Was a Polish city with with 12000 members of the church at its center. Going way back into the early years of the poet people buy back a millennium poets next to live and the balance of them have always been pretty much in this thing. The line between them is virtually seamless and you see that very clearly. And a place like the angels. Sang justified it's the basilica started out as a dream a dream of a glorious cathedral patterned after St. Peter's of Rome but polish in every way. The congregation though poor. Believed there was nothing too good for God. And determined to build it himself. The stones were brought up on donkey carts people

one of the stories is that the women move the dirt in their aprons. All of that all of the stories and I'm sure there are many legends that go along with it and this is always been an effort of the people. It was always the People's Church it was their faith. Again that's the thing that drove that father the head pastor and a bargain hunter went to Chicago to buy material there he heard that the US Post Office was being dismantled. He bought the bill. And the materials were reassembled to fit. She asked. They even use the door knobs from the post office. And to this day they have the scales of justice and the key that you'll find as you can imagine this was a fairly expensive proposition. And when they opened the church you know they had approximately about six million dollars in current money has never been wealthy and that was a good deal

that is even today. A squat basket that was passed in church and collection that's something into the basket years ago or put in a basket. We learned how to share. Yes it was difficult for the people at the time to get even what they did but it took over 26 years of collecting pennies to pay the debt. But then this was more than a church. Justified was the center of life. People were born and couples joined more and you know when we were going to church we had church in the morning we had the best person. And if you sang at the Christmas Mass at midnight you still had to come for 10 o'clock mass the next morning but you were tired and so you were sitting in church most of the time and trouble

really. Why don't you give your mind a few times when you wondered whether the groom with going to be waiting for you when you say I am. Time has changed in just thoughts time and a leaky roof. But just as the basilica began to show its age the people again came to the rescue funding an extension and again expensive restoration. This time under the direction of someone who represents yet another change. The basilicas first non-Polish priest as the whole restoration was happening. He wanted to make sure that it was never lost sight of the fact that this is a still a Catholic church. And its a Catholic church that has open doors. And now we have the sense of the fact that the Lord's ministry has to have a plan. The congregation here is still most of Polish ancestry but new

immigrants mostly Hispanic. Have also found a home in the city. And inspiration its church. The art and the way that the way the art is is depicted in this church lifts the mind of the heart to God and reminds everyone of the fact that this will be this will be important and beautiful for another hundred years. And then if God wants for however long we last. Billson Joseph that's meant for their identity to last. The Polish Saints remembered their heroes revered and their worship of the Polish Madonna. Our Lady chancellor who vowed to continue even if they did not. Encircling the dome they left their promise in plain English from first as I have heard your prayer. I consecrate this place. I place my name for ever here. There are still people in this parish who live within the confines of this neighborhood called

this church their home. They are the ones who are still here they're the ones who built their families built it. They have to have a credible sense of pride. It was not easy. We had hardships. We didn't have a lot of anything. But it was a beautiful life. I mean it's just very special. Out of hardship came a monument to. Faith. And faith in finding a new home. A story about perseverance and determination. Characteristics that appear throughout. Wisconsin store. We had to accept conditions where it was a matter of

survival. I guess I've lived too long and remembered too much. Because there are still people who don't like to be reminded of those things. In the early 1900s the ustream News included few jobs low pay and segregated housing inequities based on race brought to light when African-Americans came north to work the factories and find a better life. We came here in 1917. Well John McCord came and recruited people to work for banks. That was right after the United States have the war on Germany. World War 1 and white men were marching off to fight the Great War. In later wars women would be hailed as replacement workers but in 1917 companies such as Fairbanks Morse a bit like Wisconsin recruit black men from towns like

Hunter talk Mississippi. And of course coming from the country to town on it. It was an adventure but not too bad it was better than where I live. The life was better but it was still hard for blacks. Factory work meant foundry work. The dirtiest of jobs and for lower wages than were paid to whites. All I know is one time I wanted to go somewhere and my mother always said you'll have to ask dad in that way that to the factory. And if I. Hadn't heard him I would know recognize us. What have you that's what you have. And I thought oh my god this is the way people have to work to support their families. After that it was hard for me to ask my dad for money to buy a dress. For you.

Right. People actually the first people actually lived in tents on Fairbanks property until this housing was built. And strangely enough while that housing was too good for you blacks this housing was acceptable. What the fact that the city dump was right across the street. The borders of segregation are in many places as they were here. The city dumped the river and the railroad tracks. These were the fences around the Edgewater flats cinder block apartments which still stand today originally built by the Fairbanks company to house black employees and their newly arriving family my mother and father met here and they married and had six children. And all these apartments only have two bedrooms is just a mystery to me where did we all sleep. There's a lot of fond memories for us who live here way back this was sort of the. Gathering Place

on Sundays where you see these houses off here to my left. That was a baseball field. And the highlight of the week was the baseball game on Sundays and all summer long there was baseball every Sunday here. And the whole thing was baseball a day in Fairbanks tomorrow. This was a step up to the people game here. These were steps away from oppression and towards freedom. But these were not the first African-Americans to find their way north for that reason. Earlier a brave few had come during the Civil War by way of the Underground Railroad. Wisconsin becomes a way station for some persons because coming up the Mississippi River would drop you at. The Office. And the best route to like Michigan led through southern Wisconsin.

That's mostly how we think the few people who came here Wisconsin actually made it here in Milton Wisconsin stands one documented underground railroad stop a scrap of paper proves the presence here of Andrew Pratt a runaway slave who like others may have come here from Missouri on his way to Canada or parts west harbored by the Seventh Day Baptist families who founded the town. It was complicated it was perilous very dangerous stuff both for the fugitives and for those who were assisting them because under the fears of the Slave Act people who assisted slaves could be arrested that could. Runaways came here and so did Freed's trying to find a home as far away from slavery as they could travel even though

they came to the rocky hills of western Wisconsin and settled in places like Cheyenne Valley and pleasant dreams of the black families that farmed these hills. Only a few pictures and cemetery stones remain. Most eventually moved but many married into the white communities and in doing so left a legacy of conflict or division between those still visibly black and those who could pass as white. I had an interview 20 years ago with his arms. He was very old and. It was only a few months away from die and he recalled with tears in his eyes about being snubbed by his first cousins on the streets of Ellsworth. And it hurt him deeply because they didn't want people to know. You know how long I've been in racing the 50 years

50 years I came here nine thousand forty six and fifty years a long time to fight but I fought the next major migration north followed the next world war. This time many workers were veterans including the husband of a Mississippi school teacher a woman who only wanted to buy a home on the only houses that what was shown us will see without discrimination. Well as you said they advertise the real of your lives as advertised. Khaled invited. I bought one of those colored in by houses. It was substandard and what that do to your heart. Boy where you got the me we should be able to back where our hearts desire and means permit. Times have changed. Acceptance of conflict was no longer the means to survival. That we've got to fight as if you're good you're gonna have to fight for what you get cultured they're not going to

give you anything no. It took years of organizing community surveys and eventually marches to bring segregated housing conditions before the Racine city council. It was a local struggle but it paralleled other fights going on all over the nation. It was a fight. It was a fight but we were there we were as in we mean business. The local efforts of the 1950s became the civil rights movement of the 1960s. By 1968 Fair Housing was the law of the land. Since I've been in reseeing there's been a lot of results you know progress. I thought I was active but since I've been retired if I have more I had to get it heads up because problems you know I just I want to solve them. I've seen a lot of changes. Most of them. For the better. I think if we learn to. Live together work together.

And I. Can get rid of some of the racism are there that we still have here this would be a even better place going north was always going to draw. Miles travel it was a journey away from oppression towards freedom. And as history reveals this is not always a journey made by choice. The A. Few Americans are aware of the sacrifices. That the Hmong people made during our involvement. Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. I hope it is much

better we expect that every American. Your sacrifices contributions will be acknowledged and appreciated. The Hmong are some of the most recent arrivals to the United States. Sharing with us the struggle to reconcile the losses of war our share of war. The Hmong people of Laos fought for the same anti-communist cause as the United States. They wore American uniforms they used American guns and took orders from American commanders. In return. They were promised a safe haven. Should that cause be lost. Those of us who served our country in Vietnam. All salute you. 150000 MOND came to the United States after 1975. Over 40000 now live in Wisconsin. In the past

immigrants were often pushed from their homes by poverty. The monks were pushed out at gunpoint. They are refugees rather than immigrants with a history recorded in their traditional story clause. As well as in their memory. I remember we constantly moved from one place to the next phase. Due to the fact that the Communists coming after us. And we were never in one place for a long funk shot too little is now an American citizen and a Wisconsin resident. His childhood however was spent in a refugee camp in Thailand. I remembered that as a young boy at the age of 12 I literally went to the garbage Hill and dug food out of the garbage. When when when some my student asked me whether I have a goal of becoming professor at a very young age and I told them that no

in fact if you saw me at the age of 12 you want to believe that I would become a professor because I was eating garbage to survive. Today assistant professor Fung I was only 16 years away from that world. He arrived here young enough to begin a new life and adapt to a new world. The world. They have a harder time to adjust to life in America. The minute that put the foot into the Alpha. We come to the United States. They saw that as the life it ended there and then you know committed committed suicide. And due to the isolation and due to the frustration. Of Life in. Many of those reluctant to come to the United States. To come to America. Reluctance and the frustration of losing their

identity as it is defined by country culture. And the very words used to express. Do not have in order. To pass. Exams. There is a dilemma shared with other newcomers especially today with citizenship tied directly to eligibility for public assistance. The only means of survival for some disabled vets are. Adaptations that have to go through are I think more difficult. On all scores. Of our 19th century Western European immigrants to Wisconsin. What's normative behavior in Western Europe is not that far off from normative behavior in the United States but for the monks not to say told the world. And they have to learn how to. If it were the 19th century the Hmong may have found some adjustments to life

here easier. Citizenship then depended more on being a resident. The knowing the language. Many also may have continued farming instead of working the factory floor. But like in the past newcomers often create their own communities and the needs of the community provide opportunities. My toe and her husband started up the first Asian grocery in the Fox Valley because they couldn't find work elsewhere. Everybody come here just a refugee as myself. You can do it all you need to do. You need to put your time into it you need to see how important to you. And I know you can do it. According to history's patterns finding a job was always one of the biggest hurdles to fitting in. And usually that would ease acceptance into the larger community. OK. What type of materials to see here Doctor.

The distinctions of language have faded for one half of Wisconsin's Hmong population. For those born here language seems of the difficulty many are bilingual. And actors translators and cultural guides for their families. Do you know what year. The children may be caught between two worlds. But this room is their playground. For young kids. It's in your wall more process. Growing up in America the only problem that we have is when someone said you are an American you look different therefore you are numbered. That's when really kicked us in the butt for saying they were different. Other than that it's just a strive to become the best of the good to make a better life for us. It would.

Be. Like other new comers past and present. The Hmong have also held on to parts of their cultural identity at the annual New Year's festival. The women still wear head dresses representative of their candidates and the young girls and boys still play the flirtatious game of chess. We have a very nice coach the Colts have been here and we are even though many of us let myself become Christian. I say very they have to have a high respect for my courtroom. I highly value of my culture because it define who I am. The Hmong came here as refugees dropped into a very modern very Western world to which they have adjusted quickly despite their differences and challenges but it is a process that is ongoing. That kind is really.

A love affair. Again last year in Wisconsin over twelve hundred immigrants to create an oath of citizenship. Continuing the pattern of all those who are coming from home. And the number each year. Each person brings within their own identity and adds it to Wisconsin's identity. It seems appropriate then that this particular ceremony is held at Milwaukee's annual holiday folk fair where we remember those who came here in the past or the past and the present can celebrate our separate and our shared to. Justice was done at Ford House. At first. Part in 1924. That's very good for us. But. It's up hard that we begin to overcome death.

We may set conflicts aside but only at the beginning stages the complex don't get set aside until. Our children feel free to marry one another. And until they can live. Comfortable where the troops live work where that chose to fight for something or to. Worship where they wish to ours. And. How they wish to. All of those things we still have a law that all we may have a long way to go before our diversity is not marked by conflict. But we've already come a long way to that. Those who came before have shaped our identity and made us who we are today. Those who stand here today will help shape who we are in Wisconsin's future. Well write to me. Thank you.

Major funding for Wisconsin stories was provided by AT&T providing business and residential long distance service throughout Wisconsin. S.C. Johnson Wax a Wisconsin manufacturer of home cleaning and home storage products. The credit unions of Wisconsin serving the financial needs of two million Wisconsinites and

their families. And the Wisconsin commission celebrating one hundred and fifty years from Wisconsin statehood. Funding also provided by first star corporation Harley Davidson incorporated. Marshal and corporation. The Outdoor Advertising Association the Philip Morris company's W. H Brady company Webber Stephon products company and Wisconsin manufactures and comers.