What is stronger than hate, than animosity, than prejudice? Empathy. This has been proven in the last few months, with the ICE occupation in Minnesota, particularly the Twin Cities and surrounding suburbs. When 3,000 ICE agents were surged into Minnesota, concentrating largely in areas where more immigrants live, the people of the Twin Cities reacted in a way that no one expected: With radical empathy. With empathy for their neighbors, and for people they did not know. How would it be to fear that you or your loved ones were going to be grabbed by federal agents and taken away, often without information as to the persons’ whereabouts, with no warning? Snatched from your job at a restaurant, from your child’s school, from your immigration court hearing, from your own home? It was a visceral response: this cannot stand! No, we must stand together, instead. We must all care for one another.
This is a more personal blog post than usual, because I live in a suburb of St. Paul, and we raised our children in a suburb of Minneapolis where a lot of ICE action has been happening. I know people who have been impacted: the owners of our favorite Mexican restaurant, which had to shut down for a while, and still keep their doors locked–you have to knock to be admitted. The son of one of our old neighbors, who was participating in the phone video documentation of ICE activities when he was assaulted by ICE agents, thrown to the ground, and had several ribs broken. The clients we served at the free store I volunteer at in Minneapolis, who had been about 50% Spanish-speakers, but during this time we didn’t see them. They couldn’t leave their homes. The food shelf next to our free store delivered food, very carefully, to immigrants who needed it. My friend who helped with this experienced such a warm reception from those he delivered to, at least once they felt secure enough to answer their door when he came. Warm smiles, hugs. “Gracias, amigo.” Teachers I know raised money to buy food and supplies for their families who needed it. Friends served as escorts to walk children safely to their school. We all tried to support immigrant restaurants and other businesses. When my family and I ate at an Ethiopian restaurant a couple weeks ago, the place was packed, and the mood was joyful.
Thomas Friedman, renowned opinion writer for the New York Times, who also grew up in Minneapolis, wrote a perfect piece recently about the sum total impact of the unexpected mass empathetic movement here. As he said:
“I spent time in my native state, Minnesota, after something else that I’d never seen in nearly 50 years: a spontaneous uprising of civic activism propelled by a single idea — I am my neighbor’s keeper, whoever he or she is and however he or she got here.
It was one of the most courageous battles ever fought by American men and women not in uniform. It was led by moms ready to donate their breast milk to strangers and dads ready to drive someone else’s kids to school because the parents, terrified of ICE agents, were too afraid to go out outdoors. It was neighbors ready to hit A.T.M.s to help out neighborhood restaurants and businesses deciding not to open — thus forgoing their income — for fear that masked ICE agents might drag away their cooks or dishwashers or desk clerks.
And the best part was this: At a time when we have a president so shameless that he insists on putting his name on every public building he can, these good Samaritans of all colors and creeds acted without fanfare. “There were hundreds of leaders of this movement,” Bill George, a longtime Twin Cities business executive, said to me, “and I don’t know a single one of their names.”
Many surely got to know one another, though, because they were all propelled by a verb I’d never heard before: “neighboring,” as in, Today I will be neighboring — going out to protect the good people next door or down the block.”
As a side note, I have always been proud of the strong civic-mindedness of my fellow Minnesotans. Our voting percentage turnout is often the highest in the nation, because we care about working together for the common good, including through good government. People often refer to Minnesotans’ tendency to help strangers as well as neighbors shovel their cars out of snow banks. And in fact, even as I write this, our neighbor from across the street came over with his snow blower to help my husband snow blow the driveway. As a small but telling observation, something I have always appreciated is that we put our shopping carts back in the shopping cart corrals. You will only rarely see one left in a parking space, because someone could have parked there, and we are aware of the common good. It would not be neighborly to leave the carts out and in the way of others.
Empathy has been cited as the primary driver of human civilization, the reason we as a species have thrived. Most assuredly, and most beautifully, that has been made manifest here in Minnesota!
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