One year ago, Alex Maki was about to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Minnesota-Duluth. He liked his major, and he had experience working with people who have mental health disabilities, but he was not sure what career path to take.
Continue reading "AmeriCorps program provides transition year for recent grads" »
At an elementary school in St. Paul, Minn., students from various backgrounds come together to study math, history and science. But this school is different. Hispanic, Asian, black and white students are listening to lessons, speaking and writing in the most commonly spoken language in the world – Mandarin Chinese.
Continue reading "Immersion education enriches all areas of learning" »
With St. Patrick’s Day looming, many communities are preparing for parades, Irish pubs are stocking up on ales and lagers, and Irish-Americans (and others) are decking themselves out in green. But does anyone know what this celebration is about or who St. Patrick was?
Help is on the way for struggling young adults in Dakota County in the form of accessible housing.
After the school bus crash last month in Cottonwood, Minn., that killed four children, the merits and demerits of mandating seat belts on buses is now on the public’s agenda.
Continue reading "Should seat belts be mandatory on buses?" »
When my great-grandpa came from Sweden to work in the Iowa iron mines in 1916, it only cost him a couple cents to write home.
Ninety-two years later it costs 90 cents to send a letter to Sweden, something that is becoming increasingly rare as letter writing is replaced by e-mail. As Americans lose contact with their cultural heritage I try to keep an element of my “Swedishness” alive by sending frequent letters to friends and relatives in Scandinavia.
“With ‘Swedishness’… we mean Swedish thought, Swedish will, Swedish dreams, which we have brought with us as our essential wealth. We mean the planting in American soil of the seed we have not only brought with us, but which we are,” wrote David Nyvall, a Swedish immigrant to Minneapolis in his 1921 pamphlet “Svenskhetens bevarande," published the same year my great-grandpa brought his family to the United States.
Continue reading "Swedish heritage comes to life in letters" »
The Minnesota Street Rod Association is "Going Back to the '50s" this June with its 35th annual car show. It gives you a great sense of what the cars used to be like; it also gave me the idea to ask about what was it like to live in the 1950s -- when a dollar could go a long way. I decided to interview my grandmother, Jean Fillbach, about when she was a teen growing up in southwestern Wisconsin. Jean was born on a small farm near Steuben, where she still lives.