Milan, Minnesota swelled with immigrants. But will the census count them?

This story was contributed by Stateline, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

MILAN, Minn. — The October chill hit Gabriel Elias like a truck when he reached the airport parking lot in Minneapolis. He recalls surveying the cold, unfamiliar landscape. The trees looked near death.

As his uncle drove nearly three hours across the Minnesota prairie, Elias began to worry. Why did his family live so far from the city? Century-old farmhouses stood in for the one-story tin-roofed houses common in the land of his birth.

In 2002, Elias was among the first people from the Federated States of Micronesia to move to Milan, Minn., the self-proclaimed Norwegian capital of the United States. Milan’s population had been declining when the first sprinkling of Micronesian newcomers arrived. Then more came.

Ten years ago, Micronesians made up a fifth of Milan’s population, then 369 souls. Now, it’s estimated that more than half the town’s 360 residents are native Pacific Islanders or their children. Without them, Milan might have dried up and blown away.

“They’ve saved our community,” Milan Mayor Ron Anderson said of the Micronesians. “They’ve also made us vibrant. We were losing our vibrancy because we were getting old.”

Milan’s growing Micronesian population has bolstered the town’s faltering economy. The Micronesians also could bring federal help — but only if they are counted in the 2020 census.

The federal government relies on the census count to distribute more than $1.5 trillion in federal grants, direct payments, loans and loan guarantees. But Milan’s Micronesians are among the rural residents who are hard to count, and the pandemic has increased the challenge. With social distancing measures in place, and other health-related needs to address, the census outreach planned for the spring and summer never happened.

Minnesota also is among the 12 states where a difference of less than 2% in the 2020 census count would change the number of congressional seats.

All rural communities are struggling to keep their population,” Anjuli Mishra Cameron, research director of the state’s Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans, told Stateline. “So, this kind of boom for the town requires infrastructure changes that they need to anticipate — and the census is a key part of that.”

Velkommen til Milan

One after another, Micronesian boys enter the Milan Public Library after an icy school day in January. They rip off their winter coats and backpacks as they dart past two older white men seated across from Mayor Ron Anderson, and straight for the row of computers behind him.

“Hey buddy! Number three is working,” Anderson says from his perch at the front desk. He’s also the town librarian.

“Hey buddy! How ya doin’?”

“Hey buddy!”

Three decades ago, Milan had virtually no minority residents, Anderson said. Now, “in this town, you’ve got a lot of brown … and that’s the biggest culture shock for us.”

“Velkommen til Milan” reads a sign above a display packed with Scandinavian art, gifts and wares down the block from the public library. A multi-room treasure chest with a hint of a garage-sale feel, the century-old spaces are among the anchor institutions on Milan’s main street. Ann Thompson, owner of the Billy Maple Trees Gift Shop attached to the Arv Hus Museum, happily walks a visitor through the offerings.

A fourth generation Milander, Thompson’s family history is embedded in the buildings. The museum was once a harness shop run by Thompson’s great grandfather.

The caption of a black and white photo that’s beginning to yellow lists Milan’s assets in 1904: “Three churches, three restaurants, two hardware stores, three general stores…” it begins, “… one bank, two furniture stores, two machine sheds, one photography shop, one hotel.”

Most of those institutions aren’t around anymore.

“We would not have a grocery store; we would not have the basic pieces to the puzzle if it were not for our immigrant community,” said Thompson, a petite woman who’s like a mother goose to the Micronesian children. “I think we’re so lucky.”

Steps away, in the old tractor and car dealership turned grocery store, a steady flow of Micronesian women in traditional skirts brave the freezing temperatures.

“We never sold mangoes before,” said Beth Dalen, the cashier at Bergen’s Prairie Market. “Now we probably buy eight cases at a time or 12.”

Other popular items line the shelves: three types of curry powder, 50-pound bags of rice, coconut milk, canned Spam, frozen baby octopus and bonito flakes, or dried, smoked tuna.

“They love, love, love salt,” Dalen said.

The Micronesian customers speak little English. They smile at Dalen during their interactions, although they avoid walking past her — Dalen explains that it’s considered rude in Micronesian culture. “Kinisou,” or thank you in Chuukese, Dalen says as the women return to winter’s icebox.

Milan or Milanesia

Milan’s Micronesians come from the island of Romanum, nearly 3,500 miles across the ocean southwest of Honolulu. It’s among the more than 600 islands that make up the Federated States of Micronesia, between Hawaii and the Philippines. Similar to Milan, Romanum takes up less than a square mile.

Locals can climb to the top of a hill, look out in every direction and see the land disappear into the West Pacific. Conventional grain farms surround Milan.

Erik Thompson (no relation to Ann Thompson) served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Micronesia between 1979 and 1981, with stints on the island of Romanum in Chuuk State. He later returned to Micronesia during graduate school, all the while keeping in touch with his “Peace Corps brother” in Romanum who had helped him adjust.

The man, Elias’ uncle, asked Erik Thompson if he could visit. In 2000, he settled his family in Milan and began working for a sanitation company that contracts with the local turkey processing plant. So began the Micronesian’s migration to southwest Minnesota.

Migrants to the U.S. tend to favor more densely settled rural areas near large cities. Milan is about as far from Minneapolis as it is from Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

As the Micronesians came, they helped to offset native-born population losses. In Chippewa County, where Milan is located, the native-born population declined 6.1% between 2010 and 2018. During that time, there was an 86% increase in the foreign-born population.

In 2000, Pacific Islanders were 0% of Milan’s population. In 2018, their share was 38%, and it’s likely larger now. Minnesota’s foreign-born resident population is also climbing, from 2.6% in 1990 to 7.12% in 2010. They’re currently about 9.44% of the state’s population.

Families have been adjusting to a new climate and a difficult new language — a well-worn path for newcomers throughout American history. Many of the children speak Chuukese at home the way the old-timers in Milan once spoke Norwegian.

Soon after Elias arrived, he followed his uncle in working for the sanitation company that contracts with the Jennie-O plant in the county seat, Montevideo.

A spokesperson with Jennie-O did not respond to Stateline’s request for data on the race of its workers since the plant opened in 1996. But locals say the majority of its workers are now Hispanic and Micronesian.

Shifting Attitudes

Elias had planned to stay in Milan only a few months, but he says he changed his mind after being overcome by a positive, spiritual change. Taking advantage of the new start, he stopped partying and drinking and did a better job managing his money.

“You got to get up every day and go to work, otherwise you won’t eat,” Elias said. “Back home, you could pick your day, pick your time, do what you want to do. Live life. Life is free.”

Elias went back to Romanum and eventually returned to Milan with a wife and newborn. Initially, Milan welcomed Elias and his young family.

“I started thinking that I’m a Minnesotan and I started doing things like the way Minnesotans do,” said Elias, who is tall and heavyset. He sat in the living room of the immaculate three-story home he shares with his wife, daughter and several new Micronesian newcomers.

But as Milan’s Micronesian population grew, attitudes shifted.

Native Milanders began avoiding the local playground where the Micronesians gather. People complained the Micronesians didn’t maintain their homes or yards and used blankets to cover their windows rather than curtains. Some yelled or cursed at the Micronesians to properly dispose of diapers and beer bottles. (There is no recycling on Romanum, so islanders just buried their trash or threw it in the ocean.) Natives also complained that the Micronesians were rude when they didn’t speak, though Elias says many Micronesians are simply afraid to speak English.

Some of the Micronesians have tried unsuccessfully to run their own businesses, such as a gas station and a cafe. Some locals say it’s because they lacked business experience and there weren’t enough customers in Milan to keep the enterprises afloat. Others offer a more cynical view; they say the old-timers didn’t want to support it.

The Micronesians are teaching “some of these old, stubborn Norwegians to have more tolerance,” said Dalen, the grocery store cashier. “To get to know their culture, and their wanting to know ours.”