Don’t judge, get to know your immigrant neighbors
Fri, 12/12/2025 - 8:16am
admin
By:
Alex Malm
A few years ago, my wife and I entered the world of homeownership.
When we first moved back to Minnesota, we lived in an apartment, and about halfway through our lease, we decided instead of paying rent, it was time to look for a home of our own.
We searched different places in the metro, and we found a home we fell in love with.
On the list of things we looked for: good schools, access to public transportation, relatively affordable, big enough to raise a family, and relatively safe.
I can promise you, one thing on the list was not the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood.
In fact, we noticed only after we began moving in that we looked much different than most of our neighbors.
We happen to live in a predominantly immigrant neighborhood. As I have mentioned before, my wife and I are in the minority by a lot.
And I couldn’t be happier.
Like anywhere else, we are in more of “wave to each other in the morning” relationship with many of our neighbors.
But we have gotten close with others.
Rafi from across the street will come over with pupusas from time to time. One of my next door neighbors came over to lend us a hand one day when we were working on my deck.
I also happen to live next to one of the best neighbors anyone can have.
A couple of weeks ago, my in-laws decided they would take us up on our offer to host Thanksgiving at our place.
One issue: Our couch broke, and we hadn’t replaced it.
Instead of making my 70-something in-laws and my almost 50-year-old sister-in-law sit on the floor or a dining room chair all day, we ran around looking for a decent, cheap couch. Of course, this is 2025. By “running around,” I really mean looking on Facebook Marketplace.
The Saturday before Thanksgiving rolled around, and we landed a couch, which was about a half hour away in the metro.
My wife and I checked it out and decided we would purchase it.
I called my neighbor, who is a small business owner and was working, and he said he would come help us that afternoon.
No hesitation. No demands to help him with something down the road. Just a commitment to helping his neighbors.
We got in our car, and he got in his truck, and we drove over to the home. Before we left, I tried handing him cash to help us. He refused.
I tried again after we got back to the house and moved the couch inside. He still refused.
In fact, my wife told him we would buy him supper since he refused our money.
Not only did he refuse again, but he said he was in the process of making tacos and brought some over for us.
All three of these generous neighbors are immigrants to this country. I can say with certainty, overall, they have been some of the best neighbors I’ve had.
But the reality is, the idea of where someone was born, how long they have lived here, or anything like that shouldn’t even have to be a topic of discussion.
While it is nowhere close to what my neighbors experience, I am hypersensitive to these types of discussions.
For example, I have noticed more and more the last few years that people are not as willing to meet people where they are at.
In my example, east coasters are generally much more blunt, don’t have as much interest in what people describe as “Minnesota Nice,” and on many occasions, use different terminology to describe things such as the names for daily meals.
More and more often as time goes by, I have noticed people don’t try to just sort things out.
My wife is from Mankato, but she lived in Rhode Island with me for a few years before we got married, and she worked in Boston.
She really caught my attention once recently when we were bickering. She told me it wasn’t just that I am blunt because I’m from Rhode Island, but that at times, I can just be rude. She used much harsher language.
Perhaps she was just mad or annoyed or what not, but she had a good point. Instead of just attributing disagreements to being from different places and having different life experiences, wouldn’t it be much better to actually have civil conversations with one another?
I have heard many people tell me over the past few years, and in the past few weeks, for that matter, “That is just Minnesota Nice” or “It’s just because you’re from the East Coast,” and then explain that is why it is hard for some people to relate to me.
But it goes both ways.
I was watching a public television show from back home, and the host was talking negatively about how one of the spokespeople for the governor’s campaign just uses general talking points. In particular, the host said something to the effect of it being a red flag when a press release carries an out-of-state area code.
This was not, in any way, shape, or form, the same bigotry my neighbors face. It was more about weighing in on the challenges the governor is facing in his re-election campaign. But it is an example of what people face when they are from somewhere else.
For me, not only do I face challenges here because I’m from Rhode Island, but people in my home state also aren’t as welcoming as I probably thought growing up.
Keep in mind both states are in the same country. I can only imagine what it is like to be from a different part of the world, working hard to fit in or get along, and people not wanting to get to know you as a person.
Hopefully, we can all do better to get to know each other as individual people, celebrate our differences, and learn from each other.
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