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| Another lesson not yet learned |
By: SUZANNE ROOK, Managing Editor
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Posted: Saturday, January 2, 2010 1:30 am
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My parents had lots of sayings — some wise, some useful — few which I fully understood until many years after I heard them.
One of my father’s favorites was from philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
During a conversation this week with former German professor and author Yogi Reppmann and his wife, Gitta, about his book “Triumph of Will” I found those words spilling out of my mouth. It was as if suddenly the dots had been connected in a real and meaningful way.
In his book, the German born Reppmann, who lives half the year in Northfield, writes about German immigrant Henry Finnern who in 1918 bowed to anti-German hysteria and converted his German-language Iowa newspaper to an English language publication.
But while our discussion of the book was interesting, it was the parallels we drew between 1918 Denison, Iowa, and modern-day America that were so striking.
Many of Denison’s early 20th century German immigrants couldn’t read Finneran’s newspapers, Reppmann told me. Coming from poor families and with little education, they could speak in their native tongue, but couldn’t read or write.
In Northfield, school officials have a similar situation — with many Latino students arriving unable to read and write in their native language.
It took generations for the new Iowans to acclimate, Reppmann said, though many still learn German first and English only after they start kindergarten. In the days before federal No Child Left Behind legislation there was no governmental pressure to achieve, but plenty of stigma, plenty of fear.
With World War I in full swing, anti-German hysteria raged in America’s heartland, said Reppmann. What began with neighbors wondering what allegiance the immigrants had to their new country soon turned into the eradication of everything German.
During World War II, Americans again failed to learn the lessons of history and looked with suspicion at their fellow countrymen and women, sending 120,000 of Japanese descent to internment camps and testing them on their loyalty to this nation.
Irish immigrants in the mid to late 1800s and Italian immigrants a few decades later were treated as outsiders, labeled, mocked and discriminated against.
And still today there are Americans who look at those who are different than they are with jaundiced eyes, expecting that looks belie the spirit, the intent.
In November, one of Northfield’s most high profile Latinos, Rural Enterprise Center Director Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, told me that he came to Northfield from a small town about an hour away because residents there looked at him as if he were a dog. In Northfield, he said, he is treated with respect; something lacking in many parts of our nation and even our state.
I wish I had the answer for combating prejudice and hate, but I don’t. What I do know is that in history there are lessons more important than dates and places. There are actions and their consequences. And if we can’t learn those, we, as Santayana so wisely said, we are unfortunately doomed to repeat them.
—Reach Suzanne Rook at srook@northfieldnews.com or at 507-645-1113. |
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