Conversations Across Our America: Talking About Immigration and the Latinoization of the United States

Peggy and John Stokman

Peggy and John Stokman are a retired couple from Grand Island, Nebraska, who recently moved to Melrose. As they drove me around town, it was readily apparent that many people in the community knew them and liked them. Sometimes I referred to the speaker as “P&J” instead of as an individual; like many couples who have been married for a long time their thoughts were in sync. Often John or Peggy would begin a sentence and the other would finish it without hesitation. p&j: We used to live in Minnesota long ago. We chose Melrose because we wanted to live in the vicinity of St. John’s, St. Cloud, St. Paul, for the university and culture and things. We liked the connection at St. John’s, and we went there and asked the priest who was director of Hispanic Studies which community he would recommend. He recommended Cold Spring and Melrose , and we looked at homes in both communities. Each community was about twenty minutes’ drive to St. John’s, but there literally were no Anglo advocates here. Cold Spring had a program of outreach with Casa Guadalupe , so we knew there was an opportunity to make a difference here. Basically , we knew that in retirement we wanted to serve and involve ourselves in this type of outreach. It’s been a real rich and meaningful life for us. louis:What do your children think of it? p&j: Oh, they are supportive. louis:Do they wonder what is going on? peggy: We have to watch that they don’t feel jealous or slighted, because, you know, the needs are great and are right here and our children are sort of spread all over. peggy and john stokman 95 an emerging sense of mutuality p&j: But our children, we raised them with some of the same values. Several families are learning Spanish. They’ve been to Guatemala, and so they have an appreciation for what we’re doing. But politically we are in different places. There are several of our children who do not share the same philosophy with us on immigration. They say things like, “They’ve done illegal things, they need to go back home.” That is not a comfortable thing for us at all. But you know what, that’s where they are. And for us this issue has such a face. Maybe we’d think differently, but this is about people we love and we know their goodness. john: The rents are horrendous. It’s such an atrocity. The city is so concerned . Some of the owners have just been terrible. Everybody knows it’s an injustice. Just terrible. You just see lineups of people on Saturday and Sunday mornings at the Western Union. They are sending money home, and that is part of why they are here—to support their families back home. peggy: Things aren’t 100 percent pro-immigration here. People don’t talk to us because they know where we stand. louis:Really? I’ve heard mostly pretty positive things about Melrose. p&j: Well, we think Melrose is better than Grand Island, where we came from. john: I think to the credit of the Hispanic families here they have been good neighbors. They buy old homes and fix them up, and as people see that, they value them as neighbors and respect them. So I think that with integration a lot has happened already. louis:Do you think that the youth are more accepting of immigration and the change? p&j: Well, let’s see if we can find somebody to talk about that. I think it is pretty cliquish. That’s a good question. We are not involved with the school. But I think that the Hispanics go around with the Hispanics and the Anglos go around with the Anglos. louis:Has the church been pretty good in the community at promoting acceptance? peggy: Oh yeah, it has. A great number of people here go up to Sauke Centre. They have a Prometido Prometiera, I think—an Assembly of God Church in Spanish. john: What has helped is that every Sunday for the last year we’ve had a 96 conversations across our america 12:30 Spanish Mass. That creates a following. We have Sister Adela Gross here, and she has been great. louis:What other ways do you see a coming together of the communities ? Do people see them as making positive contributions to...