A tale of two cities — Worthington, Minn., and Springfield, Ohio — with an influx of immigrants

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Residents of Springfield, Ohio, have been shaken by recent events, including the glare of negative national publicity fed by preposterous claims that Haitian immigrants there are eating pet dogs and cats. The city’s notoriety got a further boost in this month’s vice presidential debate.

The people of Springfield might take comfort from the experience of a Minnesota town which, although smaller, also had to give up its former identity as an enclave of homogeneity. That town is Worthington in the southwestern corner of the state. It’s now part of the First Congressional District, which I represented decades ago in the U.S. House.

Coincidentally, it is also the district once served by former U.S. Rep. Tim Walz, who went on to become governor and is now the Democratic candidate for vice president.

Like Springfield, Worthington experienced a dramatic influx of immigrants. The immigrants in Springfield are mostly Haitian, numbering as many as 15,000 in the past few years and representing up to 25% of the community’s population. In Worthington, an earlier wave of immigration brought thousands of Latino residents who now constitute an estimated 40% of the town’s people. When viewed as a portion of their respective populations, Worthington’s Latinos are more prevalent than Springfield’s Haitians. But in Worthington, the change occurred more gradually over a number of years. In Springfield, it has been over a much shorter timespan.

In both cities, immigrants were attracted by the prospect of jobs and opportunity. Businesses in Springfield and Worthington alike were in dire need of workers to fill open positions. In Springfield, Haitian immigrants have been credited with saving manufacturing; in Worthington, Latino immigrants have filled critical workforce gaps in meatpacking and agriculture.

In fact, those immigrants in Worthington “have become our salvation,” said Bill Keitel, a 52-year resident who attended a town-hall-style meeting last month organized by the Rural Voice, a series that some of my colleagues and I organized two years ago. The series is based on the idea that people in rural communities can offer perspectives that are relevant to the problems faced by broader populations.

Take, for example, the problems of Springfield. Worthington knows what it’s like to be a city in decline — “almost withering,” as Keitel described it — and then to see its potential revival come in the form of a profound immigrant-led transformation.

Jean Johnson, an attendee who was born and raised in Worthington, told of her family’s evolution in its attitudes toward immigrants. “I have two sets of grandparents who said, ‘Why should we have to pay for their kids?’ I think we should be honest about that conversation,” she said. “My grandfather, who made these same comments, he started school speaking German. … He didn’t speak a lick of English.”

“I think we forget where we come from,” Johnson added.

Another longtime resident, a retired nurse, related her experience as a volunteer in the public grade school. Deb Meyer described the modern diversity of Worthington’s schools as “wonderful.” In a similar spirit, Keitel said he had tried to master “good morning” in as many of Worthington’s languages as possible — 11 so far.

But even those who are proud of Worthington’s transformation agree that it has not been easy. People still are stung by a 2019 Washington Post story that featured a 70-something school bus driver who offered a greeting to the white kids on his bus but silence to the Latinos.

Still, the comments at the Rural Voice meeting suggest that most of the anti-immigrant tide has receded, replaced by recognition that, as one attendee declared, many “are not immigrants anymore. They were born and raised here.” Although five attempts to pass a school bond referendum for additional classroom space failed, it passed on the sixth. Now the school district is pondering the possibilities of a new ice arena and soccer fields.

Meanwhile, immigrants express gratitude for the opportunities they’ve found in Worthington. One such resident is Dulce Adame Willardson, who arrived from Mexico 14 years ago. She told the Rural Voice gathering that in her first job there, her manager used the familiar Minnesota phrase “You betcha.”

“Do you know how I felt when she said that?” Willardson asked. “I didn’t know what ‘you betcha’ was. I thought she said a different B-word to me.”

Willardson and her family have come a long way since then. She now works as a forensic interviewer and manager of the child advocacy program at the Southwest Crisis Center and her sister is director of communications for the city of Worthington. Willardson’s mother has teamed up with her to run a baking business called Whip & Mix on weekends. Willardson said the community response has been great.

Springfield’s story is still in its early chapters, but people in Worthington recognize the similarity to their own — all except for the part about dogs and cats. “I watch the news, and I think that is probably not the accurate narrative of what is happening in that community,” said longtime resident Amy Woitalewicz. She recognizes it as misinformation, she said, “because Worthington has been a victim of that in the past.”

Tim Penny is a co-founder of Rural Voice and president/CEO of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation.