MPR: An Eye on Rochester

An Eye on Rochester
By Art Hughes
May 5, 1999

It's been nearly three years since the start of a series of racially-motivated conflicts in Rochester. The violent clashes - mainly between white teenagers and immigrant Somalis - marked the city's awakening to deep racial divisions some say had been kept hidden below the surface.

Since then, youth groups promoting cultural understanding have grown, minority groups have found a stronger voice, and city leaders launched an on-going education campaign. Still, Rochester residents of color say it's been a challenge to establish even a basic understanding with their white counterparts.

SAMBATH OUK IS A CAMBODIAN IMMIGRANT who's lived in Rochester for the past 14 years. The high school senior writes poems and stories about people and issues he sees around him. His talent and likable demeanor make him a popular speaker at local events. Rochester NAACP President Nate Adams praised Ouk at this year's Martin Luther King Junior Day rally.

Adams: This brother is really about what Dr. King was about: peace, love for everybody and bringing this community to a close community and us being one.

How to Build Respect for Differences

Recognize that many of our ideas and beliefs about race and culture were learned as children. Ask yourself, "As a child, what spoken or unspoken message did I receive about people of different races and cultures? "

Prepare in advance how you will respond to discriminatory remarks, jokes, and behavior.

Support institutional efforts to embrace diversity. Ask institutional leaders about their plans for diversity.

Read about another racial or cultural group or attend a local cultural celebration.

Do smile. Don't stare at those different from yourself.

Understand the changing demographics of Minnesota and how they will contribute to economic prosperity. For example, according to the Minnesota Planning Department, "nonwhite workers will account for almost half of the gain in the state's labor force from 1990 to 2020."

12.2% of students in the Rochester public schools are students of color. Consider volunteering with these students or volunteer with refugee and immigrant families through the Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association.

Source: Rochester Diversity Council

Ouk wears khaki pants, v-neck sweaters and an easy smile. He makes good grades and wants to go to Hamline University this year. Ouk's outspoken devotion to racial harmony make his three-day suspension last month for fighting in school that much more puzzling. Oak says he just snapped after a group of black students taunted him and his friends over several weeks with veiled racial put-downs.

Ouk: With the verbal tension between us and a couple other physical fights that went on, you know, I just couldn't take it anymore. And one of them said something to me and I responded in a way that I know I shouldn't have.

Ouk is a member of a youth group called UNITY that promotes cultural understanding. At a forum sponsored by UNITY, other students of various races - Somali, Chinese, Hmong - told stories of being singled out because they are different.

Those who reported the incidents to police or school officials say they felt brushed-off. The others say they didn't think the police would do anything anyway.

A dramatic change in Rochester's population fuels the tension: Between 1990 and 1997, city planners estimate the combined number of African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians living in Rochester more than doubled from about 4,500 to more than 9,200. Now people of color make up nearly 12 percent of Rochester's population.

Many of the new residents moved here to benefit from Rochester's strong economy, touted on the cover of Money Magazine. Conflicts boiled to the surface starting in August of 1996. A 12-year-old Somali boy had eight teeth knocked out when he couldn't outrun a mob of whites yielding baseball bats; a 64-year-old Somali man was pushed to the ground, beaten and kicked by several whites; and a 13-year-old paper boy of Somali descent was attacked and beaten by a car-load of white teenagers.

Since then, city leaders have made a conscious effort to put race on the agenda. There have been advertisements, school programs, and discussions among employers. Mayor Chuck Canfield now reminds residents of their responsibility to keep racial conflict at bay when he speaks in public such as this press conference in city hall.

Canfield: We as a community are growing in our understanding of how we fit together. I think we're starting to get it. I think I'm starting to get it. I'm feeling more comfortable with it. You remember the city that you grew up in in 1955, and things are different now.

What's different now, says Mechelle Rugg-Severson, an independant diversity consultant, is that Rochester residents are finally facing the uncomfortable truth so often avoided in smaller communities.

Severson: There is nothing going on in Rochester that isn't going on in other places. We had a cross-burning in Zumbrota, we had a cross-burning in Austin. Every city has struggled with these things. The benefit is we're starting to find out about it.

Severson says acknowledging the problem is a good first step, but changing course is a slow and painful process.

Rochester's Mayo High School is a round building with hallways leading out like spokes of a wheel to numbered doors. Students hang out at doors according to their social status. Door six is for the athletes and other popular students, door one is for the alternative crowd, many sporting pierced eyebrows and baggy pants.

Local human rights activists are alarmed at the degree to which students of color don't feel comfortable using the same door as white students.

Principal John Frederickson downplays the apparent segregation at Mayo, saying racial tension here is not any greater than at other high schools or even other public places.

Frederickson: Whenever you put 1,800 kids together in a building there is a potential for conflict, just like when you pack a lot of people into the Mall of America.

Rochester Mayo is Sam Ouk's school. He says this is where many of the problems begin, and that administrators could do a better job reducing the reasons kids turn on one another.

Ouk: All they do is kick kids out of school when there's a problem and let them handle their problems elsewhere.

Ouk says without a place to go, kids have little hope of successfully resolving such conflicts; and then hard feelings and mistrust are inevitable. Concerned residents and city leaders say it's hard to tell yet whether their response to the racial attacks has made a difference. Assaults and bias crimes are down mirroring national trends. But, as Sam Ouk and others point out, many crimes are not reported. And even when they are, it doesn't always move the discussion of diversity forward.

	Sign up to receive e-mail newsletters

	Audio help

	Text: Sm : Md : Lg