Donald Trump and all maga Republicans have immigrant histories but many Americans do not have passports to prove ethnicity except their skin color

An American citizen who might be unable to show a passport❓

A family history essay published in the MinnPost non-orofit newspaper: Americans do not need passports to prove their immigrant history. Too many are wrongly profiled based on the color of their skin. 

My passport is in storage, but my family’s immigration story is top of mind:  During these Donald Trump troubling times, it’s worth remembering those who came before us in Minnesota.

During this "Trumpzi-istic" scary time of unprecedented anger, sorrow and disbelief, those of us not being pulled out of cars, afraid to go to work or school or much worse may struggle to better understand and more fully relate to what’s going on. 

My passport is in my bank safety box. My summer tan faded to “lily white.” I’m accused of having a “Minnesota accent” only when I visit my younger daughter, a public school teacher in Boston.

So, as an admitted “policy wonk” wanting to better understand and more fully relate, I’ve asked myself, “What’s the relevance of the violence currently being imposed on ‘New Minnesotans’ to current policy and political debates on ‘birthright citizenship,’ how we define an ‘American’ and the importance and relevance of ‘assimilation?’”

Also, being an avid family historian, I‘ve asked myself, “While learning to speak English and like eating hot dogs, is it also OK to preserve ancestral culture and non-English language use and proficiency❓Could any of the branches on my family tree help me better understand what’s now being felt by, done to and said about today’s ‘New Minnesotans?’”

Here’s some of what has partially answered my questions, but has still left me angry, sorrowful and in a state of disbelief:

In 1871, my maternal grandfather, Carl Johnson, was born in Sweden and then, at age 5, came to America with his mother, Anna Johns daughter. I don’t know if either of them ever became “legal” or who Carl’s father was. But there must have been an out-of-wedlock birth or divorce before they arrived. Records of the Swedish Lutheran Church in my West Central Minnesota hometown, Elbow Lake, document that my great grandmother’s marriage in 1883 to a fellow Swedish immigrant farmer, Mons Olson, took place not at the church, but before a judge in nearby Alexandria.

By 1910, my grandfather was manager of the Elbow Lake telephone exchange when he married my grandmother, Helen Gunderson. Helen was the oldest daughter of a Norwegian immigrant farmer and Grant County pioneer, Henry Gunderson. 

In 1923, my immigrant grandparents became owners of the telephone exchange in tiny nearby Wendell — rescuing it from bad service, obsolete equipment, high rates and near-bankruptcy. And, not unlike the (Roosevelt-era) Rural Electrification Act (REA), Carl and Helen (to quote a subscriber) “fixed what was wrong and brought telephone service to farm families in the surrounding countryside.”

I also know that my grandparents’ son, Harlan Johnson, subsidized his parents’ paltry income by serving in the (again, Roosevelt-era) Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). My uncle Harlan, a first-generation immigrant, then served in the U.S. Army, helping rescue North Africa, Italy and Western Europe from the evils of fascism and Nazi tyranny during World War II.

On the other side of my family tree, I know (because I have the certificate) that my paternal great grandfather, Heinrich Schröder, became a naturalized U.S. citizen after he and his brother, Herman, came to America in the early 1870s, from the Hanover principality of Germany. First in Scott County and then in rural Long Prairie, Heinrich was a successful immigrant farmer and brickmaker.

I also know Heinrich’s youngest son, my grandfather, Henry W. Schroeder Sr., became a successful community banker in Long Prairie. This first-generation immigrant’s success resulted, in part, because he forgave or delayed payments (sometimes making them out of his own pocket) on loans to Depression-era farmers and small-business owners on the verge of bankruptcy. He also attracted loyal customers by making his bank a kind of “community cooperative” — retaining ownership of 50-plus percent of the bank’s stock, but selling the rest to dozens of people in the local community.

Nearly a century later, what is now American Heritage National Bank is in its fourth-generation of Schroeder family management and fifth-generation of Schroeder family ownership. 

One of Minnesota’s largest family-owned banks, American Heritage has seven branches — from Browerville and Long Prairie through St. Cloud to the Twin Cities.

Finally, I know my grandfather’s youngest son (and my father), Henry W. Schroeder Jr., left home with his cousin the day after their high school graduation in 1941, to work in a Los Angeles aircraft plant. A year later, this second-generation immigrant enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and was a mechanic on air bases in World War II’s India-China-Burma Theater. 

Later, he also served in China during its transition from Japanese occupation. And, he was a successful small-business owner and dedicated community leader in Elbow Lake for over 60 years.

Many Minnesotans can tell similar stories. But, during these very troubling Trumpzi times, my inquiry reminded me that my great grandparents and grandparents were immigrants who didn’t speak English and attended “immigrant churches.” Until my grandmother, Helen Gunderson Johnson, died in 1967, our family had lutefisk (Scandanivian dried white fish) every Christmas Eve. 

And, every Good Friday, “Grandma Helen” attended a Norwegian-language service at Elbow Lake’s St. John’s Lutheran Church.

To this day, on Christmas Eve, I insist that our (now Norwegian, Swedish, Irish, German, English, Japanese) family eat Swedish meatballs that I make and Norwegian-inspired lefse that I butter. In 1979, while publishing the local weekly newspaper, my wife, Dana, and I helped create “Flekkefest,“ an annual celebration of Elbow Lake’s Sister City relationship with Flekkefjord, Norway.

I’ve also twice traveled to Norway, connected with distant cousins there and am a member of Sons of Norway and the Norwegian-American Historical Association. 

On July 4th (and other official holidays), our family flies the American flag. But, on Syttende Mai (Norwegian Independence Day), anyone driving by our home in Southwest Minneapolis will see a Norwegian flag – also red, white and blue – waving proudly in the mid-May breeze.

So, though I’ve made some progress on my original struggle to better understand and better relate, serious questions remain. Has the Johnson-Gunderson-Schroeder-Olson-Maron family adequately “assimilated❓” Should my grandfather and great grandmother have been sent back to Sweden because they were “illegals❓” Is it “un-American” to attend an annual Norwegian language church service❓ To maintain food or other “un-American” traditions❓ To celebrate a small rural community’s ethnic heritage or, once a year, fly a “foreign flag❓”

What about second- and third-generation immigrants who helped defeat fascists, Nazis and imperialists in Europe and Asia during World War II❓ What about their decades of support for small business owners, working people and family farmers in small rural communities like Long Prairie, Elbow Lake and Wendell❓ And, decades from now, will these and similar questions still be used to hunt down and impose deadly violence on current and future generations of “New Minnesotans”❓ I sure hope not.

Jon Schroeder, now retired, is a senior fellow for the Minneapolis-based nonprofit Education Evolving. A Macalester College graduate, Schroeder was previously a Citizens League research associate, co-publisher and editor of a rural weekly newspaper, a senior communications, policy and management staff member for U.S. Senator Dave Durenberger, and a leader in state and national initiatives to design and promote education policy reform under a joint venture of Hamline University and the St. Paul-based nonprofit, Center for Policy Design.