When Minnesota was a new state, thousands of settlers arrived, many of them from Europe. But in recent decades, the state has attracted large numbers of Hmong and Somali refugees. There are also thousands of people from India, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Mexico and the People’s Republic of China living in Minnesota.
The state has become more racially diverse in the last 10 years, and demographers said that's especially true among children. About 83 percent of Minnesotans were white, non-Hispanic for the 2010 census, compared to 88 percent in 2000.
November 24, 2000 - The diversity of Jewish families within Minneapolis.
November 29, 2000 - An old Minnesota controversy has a breath of new life thanks to a semi-retired chemist in Wisconsin. Barry Hanson has gathered a team of experts to study whether the Kensington Runestone might actually have been carved by wandering Vikings in 1362. Most experts agree the stone is a hoax, carved in 1898 by a Swedish farmer and stone mason. But Hanson says he began to doubt those claims when he first visited the museum ten years ago:
December 4, 2000 - NOTE: dated reference in story... A group of La Crosse, Wisconsin residents and city officials is scheduled to make a decision today (Monday) about what to do with a popular city landmark that's fallen into disrepair. It will cost tens of thousands of dollars to shore up the concrete statue "Hiawatha." But some critics say the statue represents an outdated and offensive view of Native Americans that the city should get of. Mainstreet Radio's Art Hughes reports.
December 27, 2000 - MPR’s Jae Bryson reports on local Muslims arriving at St. Paul's RiverCentre for Islamic holiday Eid al-Fitr. The prayers and feasts of Eid al-Fitr mark the end of Ramadan, the month-long period of fasting and material deprivation. Organizers say the event, one of two Muslim High Holy Days, attracted more than 10,000 people.
January 3, 2001 - Law firms in town that specialize in immigration cases are swamped with clients trying to take advantage of a rule allowing illegal immigrants who meet certain requirments to become legal permanent residents without having to leave the country first. Immigration lawyer Audrey Carr says Congress has made an exception like this before, but she says the difference now is that illegal immigrants now have more to lose if they don't take advantage of the law.
January 15, 2001 - The theme at 2001 Martin Luther King Day rally and march in St. Paul was progress in race relations. But many of the speakers gave their view of the distance to go before equity and justice are achieved.
January 25, 2001 - Police and city staff members in Saint Paul will develop recommendations over the next few weeks as to how the city should analyze racial profiling statistics the police department has been keeping since last spring. The city council met with police chief Bill Finney yesterday (Wednesday) and asked him to return in a month with specific suggestions for how the numbers should be analyzed. Minnesota Public Radio's William Wilcoxen reports...
February 1, 2001 - Governor Jesse Ventura is defending the health care plan he proposed in his two-year budget. State lawmakers and health advocacy groups have criticized Ventura for not spending enough money on long-term care, the University of Minnesota's Academic Health Center and health insurance for children. Minnesota Public Radio's Tom Scheck reports...
February 22, 2001 - Ned Kelly is probably best known as the Australian bushwacker, or bandit, who made inch thick armour out of farm implements. He was hanged in the 1880's for the murder of three policemen, not long after the rest of his gang was killed in a shootout with police. Yet despite this a criminal life and his sticky end, Kelly is a national hero in Australia When Booker Prize winning author Peter Carey began considering a book on Kelly he says he was more interested in what this said about Australians. In his novel "True History of the Kelly Gang" he tells the story from Ned Kelly's point of view, as the son of pennyless immigrants living under a corrupt colonial system. Carey told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr some Americans equate the story to a western, but he sees it as much more than that....
February 23, 2001 - One of the original land grant missions of the University of Minnesota was to bring education and its benefits to all residents of the state, whether they attended the school or not. The U of M's extension service was created to implement that mission. Originally set up to serve mainly farmers, the extension has evolved along with changes in the state's population. As a part of our series, "Universal U", Mainstreet Radio's Mark Steil reports the extension now serves both rural and urban areas and reaches out to some of the newest population groups in the state.