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The changing face of the community

The Pelican Rapids Public Library puts out the welcome mat for immigrants in the community. All photos by Brenda Hough.

Pelican Rapids is a small, rural community in west central Minnesota. In the last decade, over 700 refugees and other immigrants have moved to the town, increasing the population to 2300. Eleven languages are now spoken. In response, the Pelican Rapids Public Library has been proactive about reaching out to and addressing the needs of these new residents. The library has also been proactive about encouraging conversations and communication to help the whole community not only tolerate and understand but also embrace the changes.

Stories on display

As recently as 2001, many of the adult immigrants were not aware of the library and the services it provides. In 2003, however, the library opened as a public library and a Multicultural Learning Center.

The “Faces of Change” exhibit is an example of the innovative projects Pelican Rapids has undertaken. The library staff and the friends of the library created this display by interviewing over 40 community members, both long-term residents and new immigrants, about their life experiences. Essays created from those interviews and photographs were framed and displayed in the library. Beyond promoting cultural awareness, the exhibit attracted immigrants to the library to see their photographs; once there, they would end up taking advantage of some of the library’s resources. They began to tell their friends about the library, too.

One of many colorful "culture kits" created by resident immigrants to celebrate the diversity of cultures represented in this small community.

Another exciting library project – made possible by grant money – was the creation of “culture kits.” A group of 20 students and their parents met to view and discuss the video "A Place at the Table," a production of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which discusses how it feels to be an immigrant teenager. Then each student donated over 12 hours of work to the library. After learning how to conduct interviews, they went out and spoke to several immigrants: young people and old people, recent immigrants and those whose parents had immigrated over 90 years ago. Using the information from the interviews, the students helped library staff find items from different countries – music, videos, picture books, fiction books, cookbooks, language learning books, maps, flags, toys, games, and other cultural items – to create the colorful kits. So far, kits have been created for 10 countries: Norway, Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands, Vietnam, Somalia, Ukraine, Bosnia, Kurdistan, and Mexico. There are future plans to add kits from France, Italy, Belarus, and the Philippines, as well as a Native American culture. The kits are designed to grow, and the donation of items for the kits is encouraged.

Yet another project celebrating the town’s diversity involved the women of the community, who joined together to create a “Tapestry of Friendship,” a quilt representing different cultures. The quilt has served as a beautiful bridge between cultures while the women who created it have become friends.

Partnering for progress

The Pelican Rapids Library works in close partnership with the Refugee Services Program.

Other organizations in town also encourage library use by the new immigrants. The staff from the Lutheran Social Services Refugee Resettlement Office takes new arrivals to the library, shows them the public access computers, and signs them up for library cards. Four “English as a Second Language” classes are offered each week at the library. Rosetta Stone, a computer program for learning English, is on the library computers, as is another Rosetta Stone program, which teaches American finances to non-English speakers. The Pelican Rapids Multicultural Committee invites immigrants into the library to speak about their lives; the Pelican Rapids High School tapes these immigrant talks for later showing on the high school’s public access television channel.

Wired to the world

The library has 15 public access computers and a T-1 connection to the Internet; these computers are constantly busy. Bosnian refugees scan photographs of their children to send to relatives still in Bosnia. Other immigrants and refugees use the computers to read newspapers in their own language. Volunteers have translated computer use policies into Spanish and Somali, and young adults from Somalia and Mexico teach computer skills to new users (they also read to children in their own languages).

“The library is the place in town where everyone feels welcome, where refugees find hope, where children dream, where anyone can explore new worlds. Without a doubt, the Pelican Rapids Public Library is the heart of this small community.”
(—from 2004 Library Journal award application)