Readers Write: Somali Americans, Venezuela, sundogs

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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In Minnesota, we don’t call each other “garbage.”

Patricia Raftery, Faribault, Minn.

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I was born here. I grew up here. I raised my kids here. In my teens, I remember the mass immigration of Hmong families to our state and saw the struggle to rebuild lives far away from where they were born. I’ve lived in other countries where I wasn’t a native citizen or had full command of the language. It came with challenges, but nothing like what the many waves of immigrants have felt that have come to Minnesota (and the U.S.). I have never fled a civil war.

If you believe deporting Somali Minnesotans is justified, you’re missing what the data actually says. Minnesota’s roughly 79,000 Somali Americans are among the state’s hardest-working low-income residents. More than 70% of working-age adults are employed, many in home-health care, manufacturing and small business. Their median household income — about $43,600 — is low, but that reflects new-arrival realities, large family sizes and credential barriers, not idleness. Poverty rates are high (around 36%), yet identical patterns appear among all Minnesotans living below 200% of the federal poverty line. Crime data is inconclusive since only race, not ethnicity, is reported, but it does not stand out as disproportionate to other lower-income communities. Benefit use (SNAP, Medicaid) mirrors eligibility, not abuse.

David Musolf, Edina

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My dad got his citizenship at the 1994 Minnesota State Fair, along with hundreds of other proud and happy new American citizens. What was funny was that the judge went down the list and called out each country of origin and then encouraged those folks to get up and cheer for themselves. My dad’s country of origin got drowned out because it (Turkey) came right on the heels of Somalia, and those folks were cheering!

The vile gutter racism directed at Somali Americans is nothing new, as is the lack of people coming to their defense, to the defense of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, or any other Somali public figures. All Minnesotans should call out this nonsense for what it is and refuse to associate with the violent and hateful movement and figures who continue to push this.

As serious as it is, it’s ultimately so stupid and so ignorant. I’m tired of it.

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This week I ate pizza, spaghetti, tacos, falafel and stir-fry. I like waffles, ratatouille, macaroons, croissants, crepes, shepherd’s pie, crumpets, bagels, matzo ball soup and brisket. Don’t forget jambalaya, shrimp creole, burritos, nachos, enchiladas, empanadas (in all their variations), gyros, spanakopita, fried rice, chow mein and pho. There are so many more I want to try.

My cupboard is filled with exotic spices from all parts of the world that I never would have tried without the influence of foreign recipes — a far cry from just the salt and pepper in my parents’ cupboard.

Thank God for immigrants. Life would be so bland without them.

Richard Crose, Bloomington

The Trump administration has stretched this further by justifying the killing of shipwrecked survivors of these boat strikes — a clear violation of U.S. military rules and international law. But the rationale totally falls apart when Trump pardons the former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in U.S. courts for trafficking 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras into the U.S. He was quoted as saying that he wanted to shove the cocaine “up the noses of the gringos.”

And if the rationale could fall apart even further, consider this: Why has the Trump administration made huge cuts to the programs and agencies dedicated to treating drug addiction?

The only thing that makes sense to me is this: Create chaos and distract Americans from the problems of inflation, health care costs and affordability that they are most concerned about. That is the only rationale that explains the total hypocrisy of Trump’s actions.

Vic Sandler, Plymouth

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In the near-daily barrage of outright bigotry and the ever-eroding protection of human rights that has become the hallmark of this administration, it can be hard to keep up. We must keep track and keep score to protect human rights for all.

Randi Markusen, St. Paul

The writer is associate director, World Without Genocide.

Apollo the sun god rode his chariot over Minneapolis with two dazzling white horses last Thursday morning. That was how the ancient Greeks would explain what I saw.

If you looked at the sky between 8:30 and 9 a.m., you also saw three suns rising. The brightest one in the center was the chariot. The horses drawing the chariot were 22° away on either side, almost as bright as the sun. Each horse carried a banner in all the colors of a small rainbow beginning with a red stripe facing the sun.

Sometimes the icebows rise up from the two sundogs and encircle the sun. That day, they did not. When they do, a bright band of light connects the sundogs to the sun. Another band rises from the sun to the icebow, forming a cross.

The Roman Emperor Constantine saw a glowing cross like this in the sky in the year 312 A.D. He thought he saw some Greek letters in the blur of the icebow. They seemed to say “In this sign you shall conquer.”

After seeing this cross, Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman empire and converted. He died as the first Christian emperor of Rome.

Centuries later in the year 1572, Europe was in the Renaissance. The Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe saw sun-dogs appear at sunset on the evening of his birthday. The date was Dec. 14, but he knew the Julian calendar was off by 10 days. The actual date was Dec. 24 — Christmas Eve.

Brahe interpreted his Christmas Eve vision as a divine sign. One month earlier, he had seen the first New Star since one that shone over the manger in Bethlehem. No wonder he was excited. He went on to write a Latin elegy describing what he had seen. It became a masterpiece of Renaissance poetry.

John Christianson, Minneapolis