Woman who immigrated as a child thanks her Minnesota hometown with mural

June was big for Laura Murvartian.

She became a U.S. citizen nearly half a century after arriving in small-town Minnesota from Mexico. She attended her 35-year high school reunion.

And the 53-year-old traveled from her home outside Atlanta to her southern Minnesota hometown of St. James for the dedication of a huge mural honoring the people of the town where she spent the bulk of her childhood. Murvartian had commissioned a Mexican artist in Atlanta to paint the mural to show gratitude to a place that welcomed her family when they immigrated in 1976, when Murvartian was 8.

"It was such an emotional dedication ceremony," Murvartian said. "The energy, the love, the beauty — everyone was on a high."

Murvartian tells her family's story as the American story, a common tale in a nation of immigrants. Her Armenian great-grandfather was murdered during the genocide more than a century ago, and her grandfather left his homeland and made his way to Mexico. In the 1970s, Murvartian's father, Juan, left his own homeland, moving to Minnesota for better economic opportunities. He brought his family the next year, one of the first immigrant families in a town that's now nearly 40% Latino.

"Three generations in our family, we've had to leave our homeland," Murvartian said. "That's part of the reason home matters to me."

As a new immigrant, she was excited to see snow. The third-grader loved school, and the speech pathologist, Lucille Thares, also taught her parents English. She learned to ice skate. At 12, she started walking bean fields to help the family get by. In high school, she detasseled corn. She worked alongside her dad in a corn processing plant in Fairmont. During COVID, when she heard of outbreaks among essential workers at meat processing plants, she thought, "That was us."

Murvartian graduated from Hamline University and the University of Michigan, married, had children, and had a successful career as a contract negotiator. She now works with Hispanic professional creative types.

That's how she met Yehimi Cambrón, an undocumented Mexican artist in Atlanta and a so-called "dreamer" who came to the United States in third grade. They found the perfect spot outside a St. James eye-care center.

"As my parents are getting into their 80s, I wanted to honor them, and when I think about their story, St. James is an integral part of it," Murvartian said. "You can't separate the two. I was first overwhelmed with pride about my parents' story, what they achieved. Then I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the way the community welcomed us and supported us and guided us."

Murvartian and Cambrón leaned on the community to tell its story. They interviewed residents about the town's values. Cambrón painted 22 large portraits of people in the community past and present, and at the bottom added smaller line drawings of 54 more people.

"Every brush stroke had to do right by the community," said Cambrón, who spent a month there. "I needed to listen to them and their stories, and just learn."

Cambrón knows immigration has become a heated topic in recent years. She hopes her art helps make immigration politics more human. She had stereotypes about how rural Minnesotans would act toward an undocumented immigrant like herself, but St. James upended those stereotypes.

"This was a community that helped Laura's family's transition, that welcomed her and her family, and I felt that as an outsider," said Cambrón. "I feel like I have family there now, too."

Reid Forgrave • 612-673-4647