Fargo's newest pioneers

It's a city of blond homecoming queens, old-fashioned barbershops, and American Legion bingo nights. There's a Buster Keaton flick showing at the cinema, a 1964 Schwinn in the bike shop window, anti-abortion billboards at every other intersection, and churches in every neighborhood.

But look closely. Fargo, N.D., is also a study in an America that is changing.

A Vietnamese restaurant has popped up on Main Street. There's an Eastern European waitress at Bonnie's and a 'Middle Eastern' salad on the menu. The photo shop has pictures of an Indian wedding waiting to be picked up, the local schoolteacher knows to wish a studenthappy Ramadan, and the little gift store on Broadway has African tribal masks to go with your china tea set.

A decade ago, 95 percent of North Dakotans were white, Christian, and born in the state, according to the North Dakota data center at the state university. Today, with an aging population, an increasing number of natives moving away in search of better employment, and a small but continual influx of foreign-born newcomers, that percentage is 92.4.

Over the past 10 years, the Lutheran Social Services (LSS) of North Dakota has resettled in the state some 6,000 refugees from 15 countries: from Bosnians to Sudanese and from Iraqi Kurds to Somalis. These refugees, unlike immigrants, are invited to the US and given assistance in settling in their host community. Almost always, the newcomers are escaping dire circumstances in their homelands.

Some arrived with nothing but a plastic bag of clothes to call their own; others came claspingdegrees in law or medicine.The vast majority, say LSS caseworkers, quickly learned English and got jobs within eight months.

"Once we survived that first winter," says Thomas Taban, a Sudanese refugee who just graduated from college here, "we knew we could do anything."

North Dakota (population 642,200) is still one of the least diverse states in the nation. Blacks and Asians, for example, each respectively make up 0.6 of the population - as compared with 12.3 percent and 3.6 percent nationwide. But even the slight demographic change taking place is beginning to be noticeable, especially in the bigger cities of Fargo, Bismarck, and Grand Forks. [Editor's note: The original version misstated the name of Grand Forks, ND.]

Some old-timers don't like it, though. Kathy Thoreson, director of LSS's Center for New Americans, gets a few angry calls every month. There are complaints that the education level at schools is being dragged down, concerns that jobs are being "taken away" (in fact, North Dakota has only a 2 percent unemployment rate), and demands to know why Fargo can't invite refugees from Norway or Sweden, instead of from "all those strange places."

Misconceptions abound. Even Ms. Thoreson's own elderly father, she admits, recently confided in her that he just couldn't understand why people would not want to stay in their own countries.

"I could not speak a word of English when I arrived, and I always felt people were talking about me," recalls Ermina Delovac, a Bosnian refugee who is now a case manager at LSS. "Maybe they were."

Whether legitimate or not, the fears and sentiments of the community can't be ignored, say LSS staff. And so, over the past two years, they have severely cut back the numbers of those resettled in North Dakota. In 2001, some 600 refugees found homes here. Last year only 59 were picked up at the airport.

Nonetheless, resettlement workers still think that the community here, like those all over the country, is slowly recognizing the benefits an influx of refugees can bring, especially to states like North Dakota with declining populations and labor shortages. The resettlement agencies may have tried to push the process too much, too soon, they admit - but they believe the setback is temporary.

"There was negative press and lots of negative talk a few years back," says Ms. Delovac. "We overwhelmed the community, and there was a backlash. Of course 9/11 didn't help much either, with lots of frustration and anger mistakenly directed at the refugees." But, she stresses, "I do think there are a great many, an increasing many, people who are open and supportive of the resettlement process."

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