Curtiss, Wisconsin, was settled more than 150 years ago by
Norwegians and Germans. Today, most of its residents are from Mexico. Yet the
divergent paths of immigration to this outstate farm town are more similar than
you would think.
By Barbara J. Miner
Located in the
middle of north-central Wisconsin, Curtiss is a town you pass by on
your way somewhere else. There are no “Up North” tourism attractions, no
prominent lakes, forests or rivers. The closest city, Wausau, is 41 miles to
the east.
My father-in-law grew up on a
dairy farm 2 miles outside of Curtiss, part of a closely knit Norwegian
community. Every other year, give or take a few, my husband Bob and I travel to
Curtiss on a mid-July Sunday for family reunions involving the descendants of
various Ole’s and Peder’s and Tandlokken’s from the Lillehammer region of
Norway.
When I think of Curtiss, what
comes to mind are dairy farms. Lots of them. In fact, Clark County, where
Curtiss is located, has more dairy herds than any other county in Wisconsin.
Curtiss, WI, home of the Abbyland Foods pork slaughterhouse. (Photo by
Barbara J. Miner)
With its history of dairy
farming and 19th-century immigration, Curtiss is an iconic Wisconsin village.
But it also foreshadows Wisconsin’s future. Sleepy, middle-of-nowhere Curtiss,
with 279 people, is now 70 percent Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census’
latest American Community Survey.
“The older white families that
lived here, they’ve died or moved out, and now it’s mostly Hispanic,” says
Randy Busse, the village president. Busse, a father of five, jokingly says of
his family: “We’re the oddballs in town.”
A century ago, Busse would’ve
been anything but odd. European immigration was the norm, as Norwegians and
Germans, in particular, called Curtiss home.
These European immigrants are
now invariably honored as hardworking people who built Wisconsin. Looking
through the rose-colored glasses of history, we forget the tensions that
existed – the stereotypes of Irish as drunkards, the criticisms of German
immigrants who sought to maintain their language and culture.
I wondered: A century from now,
how might Hispanic immigrants be viewed, as second and third generations learn
English and become “Americanized”? And what might the small town of Curtiss
tell us today about this latest wave of American newcomers
Bob’s family’s
history in Curtiss began in the 1870s. Ole Thompson and Peder
Pederson, Bob’s great-grandparents, were part of a Norwegian migration that
found a touch of home in the farms, forests and winter temperatures of central
Wisconsin. What’s more, the area had one of the largest bodies of pine timber
in the state, and by the 1870s, the logging industry was well established.
Which meant jobs.
Norway, by contrast, offered
few opportunities. Ole, for instance, was one of seven children, but he was not
the oldest son. Which meant he did not inherit the family farm. Which meant he
had a limited future. Which meant that America beckoned, especially those
undeveloped lands in central Wisconsin.
Like all family histories,
Bob’s Norwegian genealogy is complex. But one story stands out. When Ole
Thompson and Peder Pederson came to Wisconsin, they worked the lumber camps
during the winter. But what they wanted above all was land. Under the Homestead
Act of 1862, you could get the deed to 160 acres if you cleared and developed
roughly 5 acres every year for five years.
During the summer, when the
lumber camps shut down, Ole and Peder pitched tents next to each other and
helped each other clear land. They made sure they were on separate boundaries
so they could make separate claims.
I’ve always been impressed by
the practicality of pitching those tents next to each other. And by the
determination it took to clear 5 acres of land a year, long before gas-powered
chainsaws.
Both Ole and Peder were part of
large families that immigrated to the Curtiss area, the first arrivals earning
enough money to send back to Norway for siblings. Once in Wisconsin, they stuck
close together (and sometimes married their friend’s sister, which is how both
Ole and Peder became great-grandparents to Bob.) Those early settlers helped
establish the village of Curtiss in 1882 and laid the groundwork for its
economic infrastructure, from sawmills to banks to cheese factories. They even
set up a Norwegian Lutheran Church, because they didn’t want to be mixed in
with the Germans and wanted services in their mother tongue. Many, including
Ole, never learned more than a smattering of English. Ole’s grandchildren, in
turn, never learned more than a smattering of Norwegian.
Bob’s father, Art, was one of
Ole’s grandsons. Art boasted that he was “full-blooded Norwegian,” and he
chaired the Oslo-Madison sister city project. He traveled to the family’s
Norwegian homestead near Lillehammer and, until his death, proudly flew the Norwegian
flag at Brewers tailgate parties. No document, however, identified Art as
Norwegian; he was American.
The categorization for 21st-century non-white immigrants is
more complex. “Hispanic” was first used in 1970s U.S. Census reports to refer
to people from Spanish-speaking countries, Spain included. Some prefer
“Latino,” which identifies people from Latin America and is based on geography,
not language. This story uses the term most commonly used by people in the
Curtiss area and which conforms to government statistics – Hispanic.
 |
| Curtiss during its days as a 19th Century lumber town. |
Humberto
Lopez, 51, was one of the first Hispanics to settle in Curtiss. In
an interview at his home, half in Spanish, half in English, he explains his
story. He was born in a small pueblo in north-central Mexico, and left for the
United States when he was 16. He worked as a butcher in small towns and cities
in Illinois and Wisconsin – everything from a two-employee business that made
dog food to a slaughterhouse that butchered 200 cows a day. But he did not have
legal papers, and ultimately was apprehended and deported. Like many in that
situation, he returned to the U.S., crossing the border on foot with the aid of
“coyotes,” the name given to human smugglers. A family member had told Lopez
about work at a slaughterhouse called Abbyland, so he came to Curtiss.
Twenty-five years later, Lopez
still lives in Curtiss. He and his wife, who is from the same pueblo in Mexico,
have raised six children here. Both have become U.S. citizens; their children,
by virtue of being born here, have always been citizens.
In an odd way, Lopez reminds me
of Bob’s Norwegian relatives, and not just because he’s tall and lanky and
wears jeans, a fleece jacket and a baseball cap. He’s a man of few words. He
shrugs off events that others might dramatize – deportation, crossing the
border illegally, the realities of working in a slaughterhouse. Hardship is
part of life.
Work is the main reason Lopez
is in Curtiss. But that’s not all. In a sentiment echoed by other Hispanics, he
speaks of good schools and, equally important, “seguridad.” The Spanish word is
used broadly to mean not just economic security but the benefits of small-town
life, without the crime and problems of big cities, and where neighbors look
out for each other. Having grown up in a small Mexican pueblo, he’s comfortable
with the slow pace of Curtiss. He doesn’t mind that the town almost died after
the railroad stopped running in 1938, or that the main street is little more
than a post office, a community center and a scattering of homes.
After nearly two decades at the
Abbyland slaughterhouse, Lopez left to work at the Tombstone Pizza factory in
nearby Medford. His wife still works at Abbyland, as does his oldest son,
Oscar. In fact, it’s hard to find anyone in the area, white or Hispanic, who
doesn’t know someone who works at Abbyland.
The story of
Abbyland begins
in Abbotsford, a city of some 2,300 people about 7 miles east of Curtiss and
the region’s economic hub. In 1977, Harland Schraufnagel started Abbyland with
a beef plant in Abbotsford. From a handful of workers, the company has grown to
1,000-plus employees in eight divisions. The Curtiss-based divisions include
Abbyland Trucking, the Pork Pack plant, and the Curtiss Travel Center that includes
truck stop facilities and the El Norteño restaurant.
The heart of the company is its
meat processing, with the beef slaughterhouse in Abbotsford and the pork
slaughterhouse in Curtiss. No figures are available publicly, but it’s common
knowledge that the plants rely on Hispanic workers. As Busse, village president
of Curtiss, says, “You can’t get white people to work in the slaughterhouse.
That’s what Harland told me himself.”
When I was turned down for an
interview with Schraufnagel, I figured Abbyland didn’t want to talk about its
employees’ legal status. But that’s not the only reason. In this era of animal
rights, the last thing any slaughterhouse wants is a reporter knocking on its
door. There’s never been a comforting way to kill, decapitate, dehide and
debone a 250-pound pig or a 1,400-pound beef cow. Busse, who lives next door to
the pork plant in Curtiss, has seen the company grow. In the beginning, he
says, the plant slaughtered 100 hogs a day. “Now they slaughter about 2,200
hogs a day. That’s a lot of hogs.”
Ubaldina Romero, with
her granddaughter Natalie. Romero lives in Curtiss and works at Abbyland pork
plant. "She's the last person the pigs see before they die,"
Ubaldina's daughter, Alma, jokes. (Photo by Barbara J. Miner)
Alejandro Vazquez is one of the
many Hispanics who has worked at the Abbyland pork plant. He came to Abbotsford
11 years ago and worked second shift cleaning the plant. “Bastante sangre
[plenty of blood],” he says. But, he adds, it was only a job. Vazquez’s real
passion is his bilingual weekly tabloid, Noticias.
The 54-year-old Vazquez was
born in Mexico City and trained as a journalist. When he first immigrated, he
worked at several jobs in Illinois and Wisconsin, everything from an
electronics factory to inseminating cows. He returned to Mexico for a decade
and then came back to the United States again, this time to Sparta. While
working at a small plastics factory near Sparta, he started Noticias.
“One day,” Vazquez says, “a
friend called and said, ‘Alejandro, you need to write your paper in
Abbotsford.’ I asked why. ‘Because there’s a big Hispanic community,’ he said.
‘And if they like your newspaper there, people everywhere will like it.’”
Almost 11 years later, Noticias
is going strong. In one of the many indications of the growing Wisconsin
Hispanic presence, Vazquez distributes Noticias to more than 60 towns, villages
and cities in a dozen-plus central Wisconsin counties.
Vazquez’s two children,
meanwhile, have decided to settle in the area, which makes him immensely happy.
His 25-year-old daughter graduated with an international business degree from
the University of Wisconsin-Stout and works for an international company in
Wausau that often sends her abroad because of her fluency in both English and
Spanish. His 18-year-old son works as a welder, having returned from a brief
stint in Oklahoma. As Vazquez tells the story, “After six months he called and
said, ‘Dad, I miss you and I miss Abbotsford and I miss Wisconsin.’”
Vazquez is an intermediary between
the white and Hispanic populations. He is well-suited. During our breakfast
interview at the Abby Cafe, he is dressed casually in knee-length shorts, Nike
high-top sneakers and a Noticias T-shirt. Slightly overweight and slightly
balding with gray specks in his hair, he has the demeanor of a friendly uncle.
He also has a decent command of English.
An unabashed booster of
Abbotsford, Vazquez takes offense that anyone might question his commitment to
the community. He launches into what could be misconstrued as a lecture, but I
interpret it as a reflection of deeply held convictions.
“We don’t select the country
where we are born,” he says, speaking slowly and clearly so that he is
understood. “Next year, I will write my application for citizenship, and I,
too, will be an American. And this decision is my decision. It’s not my
father’s decision. So I am more American than many people who are born in
America. Because I decided.”
No one knows for sure how many of
the Hispanics in the area have legal papers. Everyone I talked to assumed that,
except for children, young adults and second-generation Mexican-Americans born
in the U.S., most are undocumented. Voting records in Curtiss provide one
possible indication. According to Jane Stoiber, the village clerk, there are 43
registered voters in Curtiss, and of those, only three are Hispanic. At the
same time, the U.S. Census’ 2009-2013 ACS report estimates 70 percent of the
residents are Hispanic. (The Curtiss ZIP code, meanwhile, serves about 1,200
people in the village and surrounding areas, and about 16 percent are Hispanic,
according to the census.) “There are more Hispanics that are able to vote; they
just haven’t registered,” Stoiber says.
As I traveled the back roads of
Clark and Marathon counties, I was struck by the overwhelming quiet. No sirens.
No interstate highway traffic. No big-city bustle. No big hills, just gentle
rises and falls, with straight sand-and-gravel roads that stretch to the
horizon. If the wind is not blowing, time itself seems to stand still.
Change does not come quickly to
Clark County. But if you take a longer view, the changes are significant. I
think back, once again, to Bob’s Norwegian ancestors.
Norwegian immigration to
Wisconsin began around 1840, made possible by the Black Hawk War of 1832. After
the Sauk leader’s defeat in what is now southern Wisconsin, Native Americans
were pressured to sell their land and move west of the Mississippi River. White
settlers rushed in, and in 1836, the Wisconsin Territory was established. In
1848, Wisconsin became a state. Eager to attract more immigrants, the state
established a Board of Immigration and published Wisconsin guides that were
translated and distributed in Europe. The modern-day system of passports and
visas hadn’t been invented, and European immigrants didn’t have to worry about
being branded as “illegals.”
On Feb. 2, 1848, a few months
before Wisconsin became a state, the U.S. and Mexico signed the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American War. Overnight,
Spanish-speaking residents of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah,
and parts of Wyoming and Colorado were no longer Mexicans. The
always-complicated relations between the countries began a new chapter.
Even before statehood and the
Mexican-American War, there were Hispanics living in Wisconsin. But it wasn’t
until the 1950s that Mexicans gained a significant foothold. In big cities,
they would often work in the tanneries or factories. Most, however, came as
migrant agricultural workers under the federal Bracero Program that ran from
1942 to 1964. By 1961, there were an estimated 18,000 migrant workers in
Wisconsin, mostly Mexicans.
The stereotype
remains strong
that Hispanics in rural Wisconsin are migrant workers. And while many still
work in agriculture, they are permanent workers. What’s more, the Wisconsin
dairy farm, an institution central to the state’s identity, would not survive
without the immigrant workers. “If the Hispanic workers were deported tomorrow,
we’d be shut down, just like half the state,” says Steve Bach, a dairy farmer
near Abbotsford who has a herd of more than 1,500 cows.
Bach estimates that about half
of his hired help is Hispanic. That’s in line with a study published by
UW-Madison in 2009, which found that 40 percent of the workers on dairy farms
were immigrants, most from Mexico.
Bach, like other farmers, isn’t
crazy about reporters. Issues of immigration and legal status are
controversial. Besides, there’s rarely any downtime on a dairy farm. Plus,
there’s the concern the reporter is fronting for an animal rights group. A
farmer I’ll call Tom D. Harry allowed me to visit. But the rules were clear. No
name – “Tom, Dick or Harry will do,” he said – and no photos with his workers’
faces. “I don’t want to get any of my workers in trouble,” he said.
Harry, who is in his mid-70s
and has been a farmer his whole life, has a picture-perfect Wisconsin farm near
Abbotsford. He has hundreds of dairy cows and, except for members of his
family, all of his workers are Mexican, five full-time and one part-time. Two
of the full-time workers have been with him for 13 years, the others for seven
or eight years.
Dairy farming has never been
easy. Every day, regardless of weather or whether you’re sick, tired or just
wanting a break, the cows need to be milked. Today, the norm on all but the
smallest farms is to use milking parlors and milk three times a day. “Anybody
milking 150 cows or more, or anybody using a parlor, they pretty much got
Hispanics working for them,” Harry says. Echoing comments by others, Harry says
the farmers depend on Hispanic workers because “the whites don’t want to do the
work. They all want 9-to-5 jobs.”
Harry’s farm’s milking schedule
– 5:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. – means that workers are needed 24/7. With
factory-like precision, cows enter the milking parlor in groups of 20. Workers
swab the udders, attach the milking machines, and when the milking is done,
shepherd the cows back to the barn and bring in a new group. Even if I had been
allowed to interview the workers, there wouldn’t have been time.
Neither Harry nor Bach had much
good to say about federal and state immigration policy. “The whole thing is
stupid,” Harry says. “Let’s face it, agriculture needs these workers.”
The prohibitions on getting
driver’s licenses made the least sense to them. Ten states provide access to
driver’s licenses regardless of legal status, but Wisconsin does not. The
exception is undocumented young people who fall under a 2012 Obama
administration policy granting increased protections.
When I met Harry in his farm’s
driveway, before I barely had time to introduce myself, he launched into a
complaint as we walked to the barn. “And then they can get a $700 fine if they
don’t have a driver’s license,” he started, explaining how it was easy for his
workers to get in legal trouble. He then backtracked and told the story from the
beginning.
A few years back, he got a call
from a worker at 3 a.m. The worker lives in nearby Abbotsford, and said a cop
had been following him and called in his license plate. Harry believed his
worker when he said he wasn’t breaking any driving laws. But, Harry surmises,
when the registration showed a Hispanic surname, the cop pulled his worker
over. “My son and I go to get him, and he also gets a fine for driving without
insurance. It added up to $700.”
Harry drove his worker home,
and asked him how he would get to work on Monday. “He said he would drive,”
Harry says. “And they all drive, ’cause how else are they going to get to their
job?”
Julian and his
wife, Victoria, are in their early 30s and have lived in Abbotsford
five years. He admits they do not have legal papers but, with the confidence of
youth, he readily gives me his last name. Like farmer Tom D. Harry, I don’t
want to get anyone in trouble, and so I don’t use it.
Julian and Victoria grew up in
a small town near Ixtepec in southern Mexico, where he worked in the
cornfields. But after economic changes brought on by the 1994 North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), when U.S. corn flooded the Mexican market,
agriculture jobs started drying up. Julian and Victoria headed to the U.S., first
to Indiana and later to Atlanta.
Like many recent immigrants to
the area, their first language is Mixtec, a grouping of indigenous dialects
common to southern Mexico. They speak Mixtec to each other but generally speak
Spanish to their four daughters, who range in age from 4 months to 6 years.
Unlike Lopez and Vazquez,
Julian and Victoria hope to earn enough money to return to Mexico and build a
home. “Los abuelos están en Mexico [the grandparents are in Mexico],” Julian
explains.
Julian had a sister living in
Abbotsford, and she knew he wasn’t happy with Atlanta. He worked at a factory,
but the pay wasn’t great and he didn’t like the commute. What’s more, he missed
small-town life and working on a farm. “My sister called and said, ‘Come here
to Abbotsford. The work pays more, and you can get more hours,’” Julian says in
Spanish.
For the last five years, Julian
has worked at a dairy farm 15 minutes from home. There are 10 Mexicans at the
farm and four whites. The Mexicans work in the milking parlor while the whites
drive tractors and work the fields.
Julian has an easy laugh and a
friendly smile, and shows nothing of the toll of working six days a week while
being the father of four young girls. Dressed in blue jeans, slide sports
sandals, a black T-shirt and an Adidas baseball hat worn backward, he looks
like anyone else in his generation, white or Hispanic. During our conversation,
it unfolds that Julian not only works six days a week, but 13-hour shifts on
four of those days, beginning at 4 p.m. and ending at 5 a.m. He earns $8.50 an
hour, no overtime. Nonetheless, he likes it better than the factory because
it’s close by and he can work more hours. At no point does he complain, and at
one point he merely says, “Luchar para vivir [fight to live].”
Two days later, I interview a
family with a father in his mid-40s who also works on a dairy farm. The family
is more cautious, and a look of fear spreads over the mother’s face until I
reassure her I will not use her last name. Both children are U.S. citizens in
their 20s, and both live in Marshfield, but the parents do not have legal
papers.
The family came to the
Abbotsford area two decades ago. The father, Jorge, works six days a week at a
dairy farm of 200 cows. He is salaried, $800 every two weeks. The owner has
moved away from the farm, and they live in the farmhouse free of charge. A few
years ago, Jorge took a week off due to health problems. Other than that, he’s
not had a vacation in 14 years.
Back in Milwaukee, I tell some
of these stories to Bob, especially the long hours for the dairy farm workers.
He thinks of his late Uncle Ralph. As the oldest son, he inherited the farm
homesteaded in the 1870s by Peder Pederson, whose last name was later
Americanized to Peterson. Ralph worked decade after decade without a break. He
lost his leg in a logging accident and eventually ceded the farm to Tom, his
oldest son. Tom held on to it as long as he could, nearly working himself to
death. About 15 years ago, a Mennonite farmer came to the door, opened up a briefcase
full of cash and offered to buy the farm. Tom reluctantly took him up on the
offer, knowing it was the end of the Pederson/Peterson family farm but feeling
he had little choice.
Variations on this story are
common in Clark County as older white families face two main choices: expand
and hire immigrant labor, or sell to the Amish and Mennonites increasingly
settling in the area.
Jose and Serafina Hernandez, at their
home in Abbotsford, WI. The couple emigrated from Mexico to California in 1970, and came to Wisconsin in 1998. (Photo by Barbara J. Miner).
When I started working on this
story, I wondered if Curtiss was an anomaly. But perhaps it’s merely ahead of
the curve.
Wisconsin’s Hispanic population
remains centered in the state’s southeastern cities, especially Milwaukee. But
a growing number are moving to rural areas to the north and west. According to
a March 2014 report by UWMadison’s Applied Population Laboratory, in
Trempealeau County along the Mississippi River, the Hispanic population
increased by 595 percent from 2000 to 2010. In Lafayette County, along the
Illinois border near Iowa, it increased 467 percent. In Clark County, the
Hispanic population grew 220 percent.
In Abbotsford, the changing
demographics are most apparent in the schools and churches. Reed Welsh,
district administrator of the Abbotsford School District, took his first
teaching job in Abbotsford 38 years ago and hasn’t left. He lives a block and a
half from the school and has been a football coach, social studies teacher and
high school principal.
Welsh first noticed the
changing demographics about 20 years ago, when a Spanish-speaking student,
Oscar, joined the football team. Today, the K-12 district is almost 40 percent
Hispanic, with the figure approaching 50 percent in the early elementary
grades. The area’s economics have also changed, and the school provides just
under 70 percent of its students free or reduced-price lunches.
Under a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court
decision, undocumented children have the right to a public education. But Welsh
goes beyond that legal obligation. Soft-spoken, calm, with an aura of
competence that has no need for bluster, he says, “I am all about Abbotsford
and this school. Anybody who walks through these doors, we’re going to give
them our best shot.”
Welsh admits that “as a school
district, we’ve had a few bumps along the way.” He likens the situation to
stages of life. “When that first wave of families came in, it was as if the
veteran teachers had grandchildren, and we wanted to make it work. Then we went
through those teenage years, with a bit of rebellion, and I remember stopping a
few rumbles before they occurred. And now we’re in the adult stage. Things are
running well as a school district.”
The Hispanics have also become
essential to the district’s finances. While schools in some surrounding areas
are losing students (and state aid), the current enrollment in Abbotsford of
about 720 students is some 10 percent higher than 15 years ago.
If anyone has a better handle
than Welsh on Hispanics in the area, it is the Rev. Tim Oudenhoven – a priest in his early 30s who
looks young enough to be one of Welsh’s high school students. Father Oudenhoven
is a Green Bay-area native of Dutch, German and Bohemian ancestry. He took
Spanish in high school and college, and that was enough to get him assigned to
serve Hispanics within the La Crosse diocese after he was ordained five years
ago. Known to Hispanics as Padre Tim, he spreads his time between four
parishes, often hours apart.
In Abbotsford, Padre Tim
celebrates Mass in Spanish every Sunday at 1 p.m. at St. Bernard’s. The
Hispanic church membership has doubled under him, to some 300-400 people. More
than 135 children and teenagers are signed up for catechism classes. On the
Saturday I interviewed him, he was to perform five baptisms in Spanish.
Padre Tim doesn’t care if his
parishioners have legal papers, but he’s aware that immigration issues cause
the most problems. For some, leaving Mexico – or returning – may be a matter of
life or death. “A lot of the people I serve come from very tough areas of
Mexico, especially these days with the drug wars,” he says.
For many, immigration “becomes
a dance,” Oudenhoven explains. “The children may be legal, but the parents
aren’t. And there’s no way right now for them to become legal. They’d have to
go back to Mexico, wait 10 or 15 years and, if they’re lucky, get papers.”
And, of course, there’s the
constant fear of the immigration authorities. “La Migra [immigration officials]
came to Sparta in September and detained 12 people in the middle of night,”
Padre Tim says, citing the most recent example he knew of. Within Abbotsford,
there were raids a couple of years ago with black vehicles coming into town and
apprehending people, according to Welsh.
More recently, problems tend to
happen when people are stopped for other reasons, perhaps driving without a
license, and found to be without legal papers.
Padre Tim’s sense is that
intercultural relations are generally civil. The problems, he says, stem mostly
from misunderstandings: “Some whites think Hispanics are breaking the law by
not having papers, and so they are bad people. Or they are trying to milk the
system and ‘we’re paying for them.’ But of course, the Hispanics pay taxes.
“On the Hispanic side,” he
continues, “there’s a lot of fear. If they are here illegally, they don’t want
anyone turning them in. And if one person is mean to you, you worry that
everyone will be mean to you.
“Generalizations, on both
sides, get us into trouble.”
When I interviewed Padre Tim,
it was over breakfast at Medo’s Family Style Restaurant in Abbotsford, a
classic diner complete with homemade pies and fresh-baked bread. At one point,
he talked about how whites and Hispanics tend to live in parallel but separate
worlds. In between bites of his waffles, Padre Tim nodded toward the kitchen,
took a sip of coffee and said: “I know for a fact that there’s a Hispanic
working back there. To most people, he remains invisible.”
Curtiss children at play this May at the Lion’s Club park (Photo by Barbara J. Miner)
During my
final visit
to Curtiss, I drive over from Abbotsford on a Saturday afternoon to hand
out “thank-you” photos I had taken a week earlier. I go to the Lions Club park,
which consists of a children’s playground, an open-air pavilion in case of
rain, and a baseball diamond. It also acts as an informal town center.
The Abbotsford High School
graduation had been that afternoon and, as I enter the park, it’s clear there’s
a party. I realize it is for Jessica, the daughter of Humberto Lopez. He
recognizes me, gives me a big ¡Hola! and before I know it, Jessica’s mother is
handing me a paper plate and telling me in no uncertain terms to get some food.
Memories flood over me. The
park pavilion is the exact same place where the Tandlokkens/Petersons hold
their family reunions. The exact same picnic tables, the exact same buffet
setup at a wooden counter in front of a small but serviceable kitchen. Even the
Nesco cookers look the same, except they have beans and rice instead of
pork-n-beans.
I look outside and, I swear,
the young group of men standing just outside the pavilion could easily be Bob’s
cousins. Backlit by the setting sun, you can’t tell if they’re Norwegian or
Mexican. But you hear their laughter and notice their casual banter, the
fingers hooked into their pants pockets, the beer bottles resting against their
hips.
The next day, back in
Milwaukee, I tell Bob about stumbling into the celebration and how it brought
back so many memories. But, I tell him, there was one noticeable difference.
The Mexican celebration had an amazing sound system, with really good Mexican
music. This was a party just getting started.
Bob tried to be offended. But
he knew what I meant. The Norwegians have many admirable traits, but dance
music is not one of them.
Barbara Miner is a Milwaukee-area freelancer whose most recent feature
for Milwaukee Magazine was a profile of Milwaukee’s 53206 ZIP code.
This article first appeared in the August 2015 issue of Milwaukee Magazine.
This article first appeared in the August 2015 issue of Milwaukee Magazine.
