My hometown of Jacksonville, Iowa, is a spot on the map that, at first glance, seems barely remarkable, if in fact you can find it on the map at all. But upon further investigation, this small community exhibits many unique, if quaint, qualities.
Some of you remember the early seventies: there were barely fifty Danish people in this village then. But the countryside was full of other Danish immigrants and their offspring. Jacksonville supported a grocery store, a gas station, a grain elevator, a hardware store and the old country school where we all voted, and lastly, a beautiful little country church. Heck, we even had a baseball team.
Our little community of Danes was tied in with other communities of Danes in a thirty-mile radius comprising the largest Danish settlement in North America. Centered on Elk Horn and Kimballton, the settlement was skirted by Marne, Brayton, Exira, Audubon, and of course, little Jacksonville. When I was a boy, almost every home spoke some, if not fluent Danish. We ate Danish food, folk danced, carried on our Danish ways and all worshiped together in our little Danish churches. Eventually, we acquired our beautiful Danish windmill, dined at the Danish Inn and built our new immigrant museum, not to mention our winery.
If the theory about globalism, multiculturalism and egalitarianism is true, then it follows that our community is exclusionary and even bigoted. Obviously, this is false. There are many others in our State of Iowa: the Amana Colonies, the Dutch communities of Pella and Orange City, Little Italy in Des Moines, the Latino communities, Decorah’s Norwegians, Czech communities, Asian communities and many more. So, should they cease to exist? Absurd!
If we follow this theory to its fullest extent, all of these identities would be erased, and everywhere will be nowhere in particular. When I think of all the weekends that I’ve spent attending cultural festivals, feeling welcome and having fun participating in their communities, the thought of it all disappearing is tragic. All men are created equal under the law, but that is not to say that we are exactly the same, and who would realistically want that in the first place? Let’s keep our identities and live in harmony, honoring one another’s differences.
I’m Loren Christensen with a Word from the Vine.
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