- Wisconsin Stories is a partnership of
the State Historical Society of Wisconsin
and Wisconsin Public Television.
? ? [People talking]
- Man: That's the whole farm, then, up there.
- Women: Well, that's where I was born.
So, my folks had two farms.
- Man: My dad's side of the family.
- Woman: This is your great grandfather.
- Man: Maybe learn something about yourself.
I'm learning about the past.
[Chatter]
? ? [Chatter]
- Together, family, what we have right now, it's very important.
- Narrator: We are who we are, because of the past.
- [Chatter]
- We are who we are today, because of this place
we call Wisconsin.
Because of the people who came here.
- Man: I shall speak my mind freely to you,
as to how I feel,
when one looks into the future
and finds the way difficult.
I have recently begun to think about America - not for me,
but for the children.
? ?
- The people who came to Wisconsin
did so over a very short time.
In little more than the state's 150 years,
a sparsely populated wilderness was changed.
Indian lands became farmlands.
Forests became factories...
and prairies became bustling towns.
? ?
People changed this place and were in turn changed by it.
There's our stories of struggle,
of acceptance,
and of conflict.
Stories that continue into today.
- Raise your right hand please.
- We are who we are today, because of the people, a mixing.
Now as in the past,
of natives,
of early immigrants,
of recent arrivals,
layer upon layer, generation upon generation,
we are who we are
because of the people who call Wisconsin
their home.
? ?
Major funding for Wisconsin Stories
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serving the financial needs of two million Wisconsinites
and their families;
and the Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Commission,
celebrating 150 years of Wisconsin statehood.
Funding also provided by:
Firstar Corporation,
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Marshall and Illsley Corporation,
the Outdoor Advertising Association,
The Philip Morris Companies,
W.H. Brady Company,
Weber Stephen Products Company,
and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce.
And now, Wisconsin Stories.
? ?
[Narrator: Christmas Day, 1824, Fort Howard,
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 outpost.
? ?
"The hall was well-filled.
"The variety of costumes would have engaged
"the study of an artist.
"Bells and bow, men and women
"were attired in all the grades of dress,
"from the highest Parisian down to the buckskin coat
"and moccasins of the Aborigines.
"Good-natured joined to good cheer
"made this rousing Christmas dinner
"one long to be remembered." Albert G. Ellis.
? ?
The partygoers of 1824 included many of the local
Menominee Indians, the largest population in the area.
French voyagers who had long married into native groups.
Yankees, descendants of the colonists
from the eastern states
moving westward to make their fortunes,
buying land, then selling it to the immigrants,
people already trickling in,
some Irish, English, Scottish.
Altogether making the Fort Howard party
the most diverse gathering of its time.
- Holzhueter: Must have been one heck of a party,
and most of them did know one another.
They had foods from all the groups.
They danced dances from all the groups.
They dressed the way all the groups dressed.
And I think in that respect, it looks a lot like today's
modern folk fair very much on the surface.
So, the Folk Fair of Milwaukee in 1998
is an extension of the folk fair
or multicultural gathering in Fort 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 identities,
sharing them, enjoying the flavors of each.
We have reason to celebrate who we are,
that we survived the process of finding a home,
in fact, that we survived at all.
? ?
- On July 1, 1838:
I, [Norwegian name],
arrived at the place I now live
near the center of Clinton Township in Rock County, Wisconsin.
For a whole year I did not see any countryman of mine,
but it's secluded.
The next summer I built the cabin
and received a group of immigrants
from my home district in Norway.
In that way, this region very quickly
received a lot of settlers.
- Narrator: There are patterns to all immigrant arrivals.
A brave few at first, then coming in waves.
Over 500,000 before the state was even ten years old.
Evidence of this early, mostly Northern European, wave
can be found on state maps
by the towns that reflect ethnic settlements.
Towns such as Belgium and Denmark,
Genoa, Luxemburg and Marquette,
New Lisbon and New London,
Erin, Stockholm and Wales.
These people were pushed out of their homelands
by poverty, overpopulation and oppressive governments.
Pulled to this new place by the promise of land, freedom
and economic opportunity.
- Europe was war-torn at the time.
It was not very pleasant to have lived in Europe
in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
[Farmer: Come on.
[Crickets trilling]
- It was very unsettled,
particularly for people without very much money.
They had very little opportunity.
Both farm families and factory workers
were accustomed to extremely long hours and hard work
and lack of mechanization, so the handwork was an accepted,
labor-intensive stuff was accepted,
by Europeans when they came here.
The thing that made a big difference
was they could now put this hand work, all this labor,
into creating a stake for themselves,
with new possibility for economic advancement in America.
? ?
- These first immigrants quickly set up farms and towns
just the way the new state government thought it wanted.
But, the big landowners who made up the government,
mostly Yankees,
soon came to view the immigrants with mixed emotions.
- Great joy in the part of businessman
that this money is coming in.
The small landholders could make the larger land holders
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
"and until they can comprehend their utility.
"When their children are educated and Americanized,
"then we are safe."
- We should have learned from these past experiences
that if you are kind and tolerant and accepting,
it can all work out, the democracy,
the democratic form of government is 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 identities.
By looking at a few of the many examples from our history,
we can begin to understand
why we have reason to celebrate who Wisconsin is today.
? ?
"Our present reservation is a cut over track.
"At the time of purchase, it was about to be abandoned
"by the lumber man as worthless.
"If we were to be assured that this little oasis of land
"would be ours indefinitely,
"the effect upon our spirit would be all out of proportion
"to the real or sale value of the land:"
Elmer David, Sr., Stockbridge-Munsee band, Wisconsin.
- Narrator: The search for land in the 1800s
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
but to come here, as the government removed them
from their own lands to make way for white settlement.
- Our forefathers signed the treaties
and there were things that they had to give up in those treaties,
mostly land,
and I don't believe they did that frivolously.
I believe they did that with a heavy heart,
but they knew that if they didn't do it
our people might not survive.
- The land the eastern tribes came to
was negotiated away from the local tribes
like the Menominee.
The Oneida went to land around Green Bay
and a small conglomerate called the Brotherton Indians
east of Lake Winnebago, though the Brotherton
did not keep their reservation status.
After many removals,
16,000 acres at the southern tip of the Menominee reservation
was set aside for the Stockbridge-Munsee.
- The Stockbridge had been Christianized
in the early 1700s.
That's a hundred years.
When we came to Wisconsin,
we were the probably the first English-speaking people here.
- A mere six hundred people made the final trek
to Wisconsin in the 1820s.
The last survivors of the tribe
who welcomed Henry Hudson and the first Dutch traders,
who fought for the American cause in the Revolutionary War.
A nation who, thanks to a popular novel,
were thought to have died out.
- Thanks to James Fenimore Cooper,
who wrote a book, "The Last of the Mohicans."
A fiction, some people have that impression.
And we are the Mohicans, the people of the waters,
that are never still.
The Hudson River, the tide came up and down, yeah.
But we called ourselves the Muh-he-con-neok.
When Europeans came; they probably couldn't
pronounce or spell that.
- "Where are the 25,000 in number?
"In the 4,000 warriors constituted the power and population
"of the great Mohicanu nation in 1604.
"They've been victims to vice and disease
"which the white man imported.
"The smallpox, measles and 'strong waters'
"have done the work of annihilation:"
John Quine, 1854.
- The Stockbridge band was so-called
for the town in Massachusetts, near their first removal sites.
Over the next 200 years
joined by remnants of Delaware's Muncee tribe
their attempts to find a home brought more moves.
The last one, as late as 1937.
Travels, that are the basis
for the present-day tribal symbol: a walking stick design
called "Many Trails."
- The main thing about is that we've survived
and I think that's... that's something deep in us,
I think.
We're-- We're a people.
- The Stockbridge Mohicans have lived on their present land
for just more than 50 years,
most of it barely making a living off
the swamp and sandy soil of the cutover land.
But enough time to start a process
of reclaiming their identity, as well as other things
lost along the way.
- But this is the one thing
that we found from a long time ago that's ours.
It's 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.
It means a lot to us,
because it survived, I guess.
We survived and they survived.[Chuckles]
- 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.
- See, I went to mission school,
and that was another thing. The missionaries came.
If you went to government school,
and if she said anything in an Indian language,
you got your mouth washed out with soap.
- But I tried-- Particularly sad,
because we don't have any,
anyone who speaks the language fluently.
My grandfather was one of the last ones.
My grandfather said,
"Well, we got to learn to live in the white man's world."
He thought we'd be better off there.
We learned differently, since, but...
sure didn't teach many words.
But, we're gathering a few of those.
The bells are basically the same thing as these,
that these are more traditional.
When you're dancing, you're praying to the Great Spirit.
And, the bells are supposed to be like something to make noise,
so the great spirits hear you.
- It is the younger generation who are now taking up
traditions that were once forgotten or forbidden.
- Travis: It ain't as bad as it used to be.
We got our reservation's drum.
- It is the interest of the young Mohicans
that further fuels efforts to assert the 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 singers.
That's one of my ways of keeping our traditions alive.
[Singing, drumming]
- I've heard it described as cultural grieving.
When we became aware, we'd lost our language.
We'd lost her ceremony.
We'd lost even our kinship pattern.
And we'd lost our names for things.
That's a tremendous loss.
And then that cultural grieving sets up.
Yes, they're going through that.
- 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.
- We approve enrollment into the tribe.
We approve land assignments.
Indian Child Welfare issues
may come to the council, occasionally.
Pretty much typical, probably, of any other government.
It's just that some of our issues are,
are maybe a little more unique.
- The council has always existed,
but without land or much money to work with,
economic development was almost non-existent.
- And there was never anything we could find
that would work until gaming came along.
It's like it was the magic business that did it.
You just build a casino, and they will come.
[Slots' dinging]
- Casinos are what most people come to see
on today's Indian reservations.
But what they don't see is what has happened
because of the casinos.
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 our 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,
but say it's a godsend.
- Another benefit of gaming has been enough money
to buy back some of the land that was sold during hard times,
returning it from private ownership to tribal land.
- And that's the way you prefer to do everything:
communally, together.
[Singing, drumming]
- The Stockbridge-Munsee Mohicans have survived
their many trails and today their numbers are growing.
But it is 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 say I belong
to this group of people.
That's one of the richest things I can think of.
This is, for me, is home.
[Water rushing]
[Bugle playing]
- "In the events of 1848, the mighty spirit of the time
"drove me into the tumult of the political agitation.
"If I cannot be a citizen of a free Germany,
"then I would at least be a citizen of a free America:"
Carl Shorts.
- 1848, the same year Wisconsin became a state,
Germany erupted in war,
a war fought for democratic reforms,
a war the reformers lost.
- For the refugees, it was immediately a necessity that they leave.
For the pure 48'er, you're talking about either
somebody who participated in the revolutionary activities
in the Palatinate, the Rhineland.
Or, people who adhered to their ideas.
- These 48'ers 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 material
was being written in German.
The popular stuff wasn't coming out of America or England.
It was coming out of Germany.
So they were relatively well-accepted
within the American community,
the intellectual community in America.
- 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
"nor carried gold and silver with me.
"I give God honor and thanks:"
Joseph Krings, Jefferson County.
- The cities and farms of the frontier
seemed the perfect place for the 48'ers
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, they could,
particularly people with money.
They often entered into political life, here,
very quickly, almost immediately.
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 of art, music and literature,
athletics and exercise, rowing on the river,
and their organizations and their Turnverein.
- The Turnverein or Turners
were a mainstay of German idealism.
Part of the Freethinkers and the then radical philosophy,
that to train the body and the mind
would make for stronger individual.
- "Free speech, free press, free assembly,
"so that men and women think unfettered,
"and order that their lives by the dictates of conscience.
"Such is our ideal which we strive to attain
"through a sound mind and a sound body."
[German folk music]
- This was a center. This was a neighborhood center.
Lectures, performances, certainly music every week.
Christopher Bach, and his sons, later on.
There were other clubs here.
There were the sharpshooter's club.
And actually, they formed President Lincoln's bodyguard
at his first inauguration.
- Milwaukee grew quickly as more Germans arrived.
Thousands, more. And more of them,
for purely economic opportunities,
rather than their ideals.
Numbers and reasons that disturbed
the established Yankee landowners.
- 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 to become part of the establishment.
Those were the Germans whom the Yankees feared.
- The Yankees still controlled the government
but in some communities, it was an uneasy rule
of the minority over an 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 Debar,
"employed in the capacity of a farmhand by several farmers,
"among them, John Muehr."
- Newspaper accounts are confusing,
but it appears Debar, a feeble-minded Yankee boy,
protected by the tight-knit Yankee society,
had gone to collect his wages
and ended up attempting to kill Muehr, his wife,
and finally, did murder another farmhand.
- "We learned from the sheriff
"that there is such strong feeling against this man
"and the opinion is that he will be lynched before long."
- The predicted lynching came to pass.
The Yankee Debar was apprehended and given a hearing,
but even the militia, called out to control the crowd,
did not save him.
- "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 him as everything,
symbolizing everything wrong about the Yankees:
politics, coddling, sticking together.
All those things.
You should find him guilty immediately.
That's what they wanted.
It's a terrible tragedy.
[Drumbeat]
- Tensions died down and the politically minded Germans
turned their attentions to the Civil War.
Carl Schurz became an advisor to President Lincoln
and though not all Germans supported the war
many Turners volunteered.
This was again a fight for freedom, against slavery,
and they gave their lives for their ideas.
After the war, Milwaukee continued to blossom
and was called the Deutsche Athen, 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 it's more modern neighbors,
renovated as an official historical landmark of the times.
And some of the Turner's radical ideas are still with us
such as physical education,
now adopted as a regular part of America's school curriculum.
[Girls cheer]
The downtown hall is still active,
but during the heyday of the German Athens,
Milwaukee was home to seven Turner societies
with a total of 33 statewide.
- It was a very large membership, here in the 1890s.
There were 10,000 Turners
at a Turnfest here in Milwaukee, that did their exercises
and it was so popular and so well done
that they then went down to the Columbian Exposition
in Chicago and repeated it down there.
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 I was a horrible shock
to the German community in Wisconsin.
It threw everything back.
It destroyed a great deal of pride.
Wisconsin was always looked upon
as a German state during World War I, and disloyal.
And Wisconsin Germans answer the call
and 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 II.
? ?
[Narrator: Today, over 1/2 of Wisconsin's population
is of German descent.
People who have no inhibition about celebrating that fact
at festivals held all over the state.
This is what we may think of as today's
German American identity.
But their influence left a significant mark
on the cultural and educational life
of all those who now call Wisconsin their home.
[Cheering] [All: Prost!
[Singing German song]
? ?
- Most important thing was, for the Polish community,
was their church; the church was central.
The people who built the church
wanted this to be a sense of the fact that,
that their faith spoke loudly and clearly,
and that voice spoke loudly and clearly over centuries.
And that sense of a devotion to God
has never ever left.
It's an expression of who they are.
[Pipe organ music]
- Who were these people,
these Polish immigrants that poured into Milwaukee.
They were people of faith, surely.
People who today we would call, "the working poor."
Yet, these people were devoted enough
to build Saint Josephat,
a church so magnificent the Pope would bestow upon it
the title of basilica.
And determined enough
so that even today, their church and their identity
remain landmarks of the city's Southside.
- At one time-- I don't think during your time--
they used to teach, like, Polish mostly.
[Talking over each other]
- When I was going to school
they weren't teaching that much Polish anymore.
- We learned a lot because we spoke Polish at home.
- We were allowed to speak two languages; it came in handy.
- Oh wonderful!
- Our parents spoke Polish,
and our grandparents spoke Polish.
And if they wanted us, they'd say, "[Polish word]."
- That's right.
[Talking over each other]
- 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, Poland, the country,
had been divided by war.
The people made subjects and serfs 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 30, 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
considered the Poles brutish and strange
and were content to let such laborers keep to themselves.
By the turn of the century,
St. Josephat was a Polish city within a city,
with 12,000 members, the church at its center.
- Going way back into the early years of the Polish people,
going back a millennium,
Polish nationalism and Polish Catholicism
have always been pretty much indistinct.
The line between them is virtually seamless.
And you see that very clearly in a place like St. Josephat.
Saint Josephat, the Basilica, started out as a dream,
a dream of a glorious cathedral
patterned after Saint 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 themselves.
- The stones were brought up on donkey carts.
People the -- One of the stories is
that the women moved the dirt in their aprons.
All of the stories-- And I'm sure there are many legends
that go along with it and everything else.
This has 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 them.
- Father Wilhelm Grutza, the head pastor and a bargain hunter,
went to Chicago to buy materials.
There he heard that the U.S. Post Office
was being dismantled.
He bought the building, and the materials
were reassembled to fit a more ecclesiastic design.
They even used the doorknobs from the post office.
And to this day, they have the scales of justice
and the key that you'll find on federal currency.
As you can imagine,
this was a fairly expensive proposition.
And when they opened the church in 1901,
they had a debt approximating
about 6 million dollars in current money.
And the parish has never been wealthy.
And in those days was a good deal
less affluent than it is even today.
- Swieconka is a basket that was passed in the church.
- It was a collection of pennies.
- Everybody threw something into the basket.
- Which they still do.
- They still do it,
but years ago, at least, every child got a penny at least
to put in a basket, so we learned how to share. - Yes.
- It was difficult for the people at the time
to give even what they did, but they still did it.
- It took over 26 years of collecting pennies
to pay the debt, but then, this was more than a church.
St. Josephat was the center of life.
People were born and baptized
and buried here.
Schooled, and couples joined in marriage.
- We were always involved. We lived more in the church.
- When we were going to church, we had church in the morning.
We had vespers in the afternoon.
And if you sang at the Christmas Mass at midnight,
you still had to come for 10 o'clock Mass the next morning,
whether you were tired or not.
So you were sitting in church most of the time.
We weren't getting in trouble, really.
- It was a long aisle to walk.
[Laughter]
- Could change your mind a few times before getting to the altar.
And you wondered whether the groom was going to be waiting for you when you got there.
[Laughter]
[Tool scraping]
- Time has changed Saint Josephat, time and a leaky roof.
But just as the basilica began to show its age,
the people again came to the rescue,
funding an extensive and, again, expensive restoration.
This time under the direction of someone
who represents yet another change:
the basilica's first non-Polish priest.
- As the whole restoration was happening,
he wanted to make sure that it has never lost sight
of the fact that this is still a Catholic Church.
And it's a Catholic Church that has open doors.
And we have a sense of the fact that
our Lord's ministry is to everybody.
[organ music, singing]
- The congregation here is still mostly of Polish ancestry.
But new immigrants, mostly Hispanic,
have also found a home in this neighborhood
and inspiration in its church.
- The art and the way that, the way the art
is depicted within this church
lifts the mind and the heart to God
and reminds every one of the fact that this will be,
this will be important and beautiful
for another hundred years.
And then on, if God wants, for however long we last.
- The Poles who built Saint Josephat,
meant for their identity to last.
The Polish saints remembered,
their heroes revered,
and the worship of the Polish Madonna,
Our Lady of Czstochowa, to continue
even if they did not.
Encircling the dome, they left their promise in Polish:
From [Book of: 1 Kings: "I have heard your prayer.
"I consecrate this place.
"I place my name forever here."
- There are still people in this parish
who live within the confines of this neighborhood
who call this church their home.
They are the ones who are still here.
They're the ones who built it. Their families built it.
They have to have an incredible sense of pride here.
- It was not easy. We had hardships.
We didn't have a lot of anything,
but it was a beautiful life.
- Beautiful church. - It's very special.
[Organ music]
- Out of hardship came a monument to faith.
Faith in God and faith in finding a new home.
A story about perseverance and determination,
characteristics that appear throughout Wisconsin Stories.
[Organ music]
[Spiritual song] [Clapping in rhythum]
? ?
? Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah ?
- We had to accept conditions as word.
It was a matter of survival.
I guess I've lived too long and remember too much.
[Laughter]
Because there's still people
who don't like to be reminded of those things.
- In the early 1900's, "those things" 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 the better life.
- We came here in 1917.
Well, John McCord came and recruited people
to work at Fairbanks.
That was right after the United States
had declared war on Germany.
- World War I
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 of Beloit, Wisconsin,
recruited black men from towns like Pontotoc, Mississippi.
- And of course coming from the country to town,
it was an adventure, but not too bad.
It was better than where I left.
- 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 your dad."
And I went up to the factory and if I hadn't heard him,
I wouldn't have recognized him with the soot
and what have you that he had on.
And I thought, "Oh my god, it's just 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 or a pair of shoes or anything like that.
- The 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 these blacks,
this housing was acceptable with 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 dump, the river and the railroad tracks.
These were the fences around the Edgewater flats,
cinderblock 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.
It's just a mystery to me where did we all sleep?
[Laughter]
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 old saying was, "Baseball today and Fairbanks tomorrow."
This was a step up for the people who came 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.
? Oh, wade in the water... ?
- Wisconsin becomes a way station for some persons,
because coming up the Mississippi River,
on a boat, would drop you at Galena going north.
And the best route to Lake Michigan
led through southern Wisconsin.
That's mostly how we think, the few people,
who came through 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 Fugitive Slave Act
people who assisted slaves could be arrested.
- ? Oh, rock of ages ?
- Runaways came here and so did freed slaves.
People trying to find a home, as far away from slavery
as they could travel.
[Spiritual music]
- They came to the rocky hills of western Wisconsin
and settled in places like Cheyenne Valley
and Pleasant Ridge.
- [Spiritual music]
- 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,
a division between those still visibly black
and those who could pass as white.
- I had an interview 20 years ago, now, with Otis Arms.
He was very old, and he was only a few months away from dying.
And he recalled, with tears in his eyes,
about being snubbed by his first cousins
on the streets of Hillsborough.
And it hurt him deeply,
because they didn't want people to know.
- [Spiritual music]
- You know how long I've been in Racine? 50 years!
50 years. I came here in 1946.
And 50 years is 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 schoolteacher,
a woman who only wanted to buy a home.
- The only houses that was shown us
without discrimination was--
said advertised-- the real appearance was advertised:
colored invited.
I bought one of those "color invited" houses.
[Chuckles]
It was substandard.
And what that do to your heart? Boy!
Well, you've got the means.
We should be able to buy what our hearts desire
and our means permit.
- Times have changed.
Acceptance of conflict
was no longer the means to survival.
- We got to fight.
I say, "You're gonna have to fight for what you get,
"because they're not going to give you anything, now."
- 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 organized, and we meant business.
- The local efforts of the 1950's
became the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
By 1968, Fair Housing was the law of the land.
Since I've been in Racine,
there's been a lot of results, you know, of progress.
I thought I was active, but since I've been retired,
it's-- I've done more.
I haven't stopped, haven't stopped,
because problems, you know, I just 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 can get rid of some of the racism ideas
that we still have here,
this would be an even better place to live.
? Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine ?
- Going north was always more than a journey
of miles traveled.
It was a journey away from oppression towards freedom.
And as history reveals,
this is not always a journey made by choice.
? I'm gonna let it shine ?
? Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine ?
- ["Star Spangled Banner"]
- Few Americans are aware of the sacrifices
that the Hmong people made
during our involvement in Vietnam
and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
I hope that as Hmong veterans interact with other Americans,
your sacrifices and contributions
will be acknowledged and appreciated.
Watch out. [Applause]
- 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 shared 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.
[Applause]
- 150,000 Hmong came to the United States after 1975.
Over 40,000 now live in Wisconsin.
In the past, immigrants were often pushed
from their homes by poverty.
The Hmong were pushed out at gunpoint.
They are refugees, rather than immigrants,
with a history recorded in their traditional story clothes,
as well as in their memories.
- I remember we constantly moved from one place
to the next place, due to the fact that
the Communist Council come after us
and we were never in one place for very long.
Fungchatou Lo is now an American citizen
and a Wisconsin resident.
His childhood however was spent in a refugee camp in Thailand.
- I remember 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 of 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 would not believe that I would become a professor,
"because I was eating garbage to survive."
- Today assistant professor Fung Lo
is only 16 years away from that world.
He arrived here young enough to begin a new life
and adapt to a new world.
- The old people, they have a harder time
to adjust to life in America.
The minute that they put the foot
into the airplane in Thailand to come to the United States,
they saw that as, that life had ended there.
And many of our elderly committed suicide.
And due to the isolation
and due to the frustration of life in America.
- Many of those farmers were 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 thoughts and feelings.
- Some just do not have the ability
to learn the new language
in order to pass the citizenship examination.
- There's 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 elderly and disabled veterans.
- The adaptations the Hmong have to go through
are, I think, more difficult on all scores,
than those 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 Hmong, not the same thing at all.
It was a totally different world.
And they have to learn how to fit in.
- 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
than 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.
Mai Thao and her husband
started up the first Asian grocery in the Fox Valley,
because they couldn't find work elsewhere.
- Everybody come here.
Just refugee, as myself, you can do it.
Well, all you need to do, you need to put your time into it.
You need to see how important to do
and then 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.
- And what type of materials does it use?
- Dirt. - Dirt?
- The distinctions of language
have faded for one half of Wisconsin's Hmong population.
For those born here, language seems of no difficulty.
Many are bilingual and act as translators and cultural guides
for their families.
- [Speaking in Hmong language]
- The children may be caught between two worlds,
but this world is their playground.
- [Laughter]
- For our young kids, it's a very normal process
growing up in America.
The only problem that we have is when someone said,
"You are not American; you look different,
therefore you are not American.
That's when you really kick us in the butt,
saying, "Hey, you're different."
Other than that, we strive to become the best that we can.
Try to make a better life for us.
[Hmong music]
- Like other newcomers' past and present,
the Hmong have also held onto
parts of their cultural identity.
At the annual New Year's Festival,
the women still wear headdresses,
representative of their clans.
And the young girls and boys still play
the flirtatious game of ball toss.
- We have a very unique culture,
a culture that has dated back 4,000 years.
And we-- even though, many of us like myself,
become Christian,
I still very have a high respect for my culture.
I highly value my culture because it defines 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.
[Hmong music]
- The Constitution and the laws...
- ...of the United States of America...
- ...of the United States of America
- Last year in Wisconsin
over 1,200 immigrants took the oath of citizenship
continuing the pattern of all those
who have come here to find a home.
And the number each year is growing.
- [Oath of Allegiance ceremony]
- Each person brings with them 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.
Where the past and the present can celebrate
our separate and our shared identity,
just as was done at Fort Howard
at that first holiday party in 1824.
- It's very interesting that
it's at parties that we begin to overcome differences.
We may set conflicts aside there
but only at the beginning stages.
The conflicts don't get set aside
until our children feel free to marry one another.
And until they can live comfortably,
where they choose to live.
Find work-- where they choose to find work,
not simply what's available.
Worship where they wish to worship.
And travel how they wish to travel.
All of those things,
we still have a long way to go about it.
- 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 end.
Those who came before have shaped our identity.
Made us who we are today.
Those who stand here today will help shape
who we are in Wisconsin's future.
- PA address: So, welcome, and congratulations.
[Applause]
? ?
Major funding for Wisconsin Stories
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S.C. Johnson Wax, a Wisconsin manufacturer
of home cleaning and home storage products;
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and their families;
and the Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Commission,
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Funding also provided by:
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