Transcripts

SPEAKER 1: The Iron Range itself is America in microcosm in many ways. So you have the Italian and the Yugoslavian and the Finnish and the Cornish and the German and the Scandinavian cultures all coexisting uneasily for a time. But they did. And I think this was the-- the fruits of the immigrants in the Iron Range, for example, represented what America really is all about, the true genius of it, or can or could represent that so that the people who came from Southern Europe to work in the coal, in the iron mines didn't really have any illusions about-- they didn't imagine any gold in the streets.

They understood the economic reality that they and the ledgers were identified as cheap labor. That's what they were. Didn't resent it. And they ultimate-- they made a God then of their children's education. And they worked from sun to sun. They didn't always work happily. It wasn't any kind of utopia for them. But most of them lived. Most of them lived to have automobiles, to have television, and to see their children graduate at the great University of Minnesota. Many of the children.

And I think my grandmother, for example, had this kind of life. She didn't ever resent the fact that the system imposed upon her husband 12-hour work days and in some form dehumanized him. At least the sociologist might say that by forcing him into the life of a mole, working underground. She didn't consider that dehumanizing. He was earning a living for his large family, and that-- and the children of that large family someday would have opportunity. And that was a college education.

And so her youngest son ultimately became a researcher, making many thousands and thousands of dollars, highly distinguished now in the Middle East. So that was the fruit of their life. And the good earth here in Minnesota made that possible, the iron ore. She never-- she saw the country as contributing this great bounty to her family and that they must exert to deserve. And it was great to her for that reason. And I think she never imagined that in some small way she represented part of its greatness. And she died with her youngest son, very distinguished and with a television set in her home and with some fair amount of affluence. And she had gone the full cycle.

So this was the Iron Range of Northern Minnesota to an immigrant. And I think that belief that the country could do that for a poor family, unlettered family, is part of our heritage, certainly, in Minnesota, and contributes to the vitality of this state, a diversity.

SPEAKER 2: Do you think that the various-- well, the differences between the various ethnic groups that came to this state are those differences being lost?

SPEAKER 1: Yeah, I think it's inevitable as we lose the first generation immigrants, of course. On the farm, the ethnic differences, such as they were, disappeared long ago. On the Iron Range, where they're dramatically in evidence for so many years, they are being smudged out, too. You don't find so many people who speak the foreign language. We can be regretful about that. But we can't mourn too long because it's the march of history.

And I think it's good that a place like the Iron Range has finally discovered that it should try to preserve some of that history. And it's doing that by establishing the Iron Range Research Center up at Hibbing to try to preserve on tape some of the uproarious and beautiful stories about the immigrant struggles and triumphs up there. But I think, again, we can regret that some of that era is passing, but we can be thankful that it has done so much, not only for the individual people, but since we're talking about Minnesota, for Minnesota.