The Twin Cities, like America itself, has been shaped by the immigrants who settled here.

Today, around 11 percent of the population here is foreign born, according to the US Census, and around 1 in 4 people have at least one immigrant parent.

Most immigrants arrived here from Mexico, Somalia, India, and Laos, and you can see their culture, economic, and civic contributions in every neighborhood, from the Latino corridor on East Lake Street to the HmongTown Marketplace on Como Avenue.

But understanding Minnesota means unfurling the decades, back to the indigenous peoples who called this their home, followed by the waves of migrants who added their cloth to the fabric of Minnesota: the French fur traders of the 1700s, and the German and Scandinavian settlers of the 1800s.

“One thing that is abundantly clear when you go over these archival materials is just how rooted these immigrant communities are in this state,” said Sheer Ganor, an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Minnesota and member of the Immigration History Research Center Archives (IHRCA) advisory council.

“There are dark forces right now in politics that try to make it seem like that’s not the case, but that’s false, and it’s dangerous. These immigrant communities are at home here,” she said.

Ganor herself is a transplant from California. She moved here in 2020 and teaches classes about the history of the Holocaust, the forced migration of German-speaking refugees from Nazi-controlled Europe, German-Jewish history, global genocide, and similar subjects.

The University of Minnesota is a place where immigration scholars can do serious innovative work, she said, where they can think expansively across different disciplines and themes, beyond how it relates to their field of expertise.

The university is home to the Immigration History Research Center Archives, a repository of stories about first and second generation immigrants, refugees, and displaced persons to the United States. Ganor was well aware of the IHRCA before she moved here; it’s one reason why she hoped to get hired.

“Immigration is at the heart of so many of our societal conflicts right now, and this is a place where we can understand its historical foundations better,” Ganor said. “It’s a place where we can have an opportunity to listen to immigrant communities.”

Last year, the IHRCA celebrated its 60th anniversary, and as the world’s gaze settles on the Twin Cities, rocked by a climate of xenophobia, the archives’ mission to provide a fuller understanding of migration has never been more important, said Ellen Engseth, curator of the IHRCA.

“Archival source material helps people connect present moments to its historical context,” Engseth said. “Anti-immigrant actions taking place in many communities, including our own Minneapolis, is embedded in a long national history of such.”

An archive ‘born of community’

The IHRCA is one of the largest archives at the University of Minnesota Libraries, with over 18,000 feet of archival materials, four terabytes of digital files, and hosts approximately 400 in-person visitors and hundreds more via distance services each year.

But in 1963, it was a small unit, originally called the Immigrant Archives, and was intended to collect the histories of immigrant groups that weren’t well-documented elsewhere in other historical societies and academic libraries.

Two years later, the Libraries partnered with the College of Liberal Arts (CLA), and it was renamed the Immigration History Research Center. The integration of archives management and academic research, and its heavy use by students and faculty, were foundational to the development and structure of the archives.

Early on, the archive focused on first and second generation immigrants to North America from central, eastern and southern Europe. Over time, the collecting scope expanded to displaced persons post-World War II and immigrants from the eastern Mediterranean.

“The collecting scope is broad and ever broadening, and that’s part of our missions,” Engseth said.

They also collect historical sources on the broader refugee experience, including Southeast Asians resettling in the United States, usually in the form of personal and family stories, oral histories, and documents from refugee and social service agencies.

Management of the archival and library collections returned to the Libraries in 2013. The academic unit under CLA is still called the Immigrant History Research Center, while the archival unit at the Libraries was renamed the Immigrant History Research Center Archives.

The team at IHRCA — including Engseth, Archivist Daniel Necas, and Archival Assistant Maura Coonan — still work closely with CLA. “We thoroughly benefit from and enjoy our ongoing relationship with CLA,” Engseth said.

Since Engseth’s tenure, IHRCA has become more attuned to, and interested in, the needs of the public and community-based archivists, rather than the interests of scholars alone. IHRCA’s materials, like the recent refugee studies, are useful to a whole host of community members — high school students, journalists, family historians, genealogists, and so on — as well as researchers, Engseth said.

“We were born out of community, and it was community who began giving us their wonderful materials that they’ve created,” she said. “We are open to the public. We pride ourselves on that.”

Countering the erasure of immigrant history

As part of their outreach efforts, the archives partners with CLA to support community-led archives in Minneapolis, like the Soomaal House Library and Archives Center, and Serpentina Arts.

“It is foreign to the community, this idea of accessing archives, even though they probably have some familiarity with libraries,” said Maria Cristina Tavera, the founder and director of Serpentina Arts.

Tavera grew up in the Twin Cities in a binational, bilingual, and bicultural home. Her mother is an immigrant from Mexico, and her father is Minnesotan of Irish descent. Her mother’s family still resides in Mexico, so Tavera always felt connected to Latin America.

“A lot of my personal artwork actually has to do with understanding our history and who we are as people,” she said. “How do people see themselves and identify their day-to-day culture? What do they do, and how do they do it? I find it really intriguing, just how we are in our ways and culturally how we behave.”

She received two bachelor’s degrees in Spanish and Latin American Studies, with a focus on social justice, from the University of Minnesota, and later a master’s degree from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, with an emphasis on Leadership in the Arts.

Tavera started Serpentina Arts in 2019 to build up other Minnesota-based Latino visual artists. A decade earlier the Latino community in the Twin Cities was much smaller than it is today, and Latino artists often struggle to find professional and creative development, as well as institutional backing through funding and grants, she explained.

“There’s a huge need for the community to have support for the Latino artists in Minnesota, and I wanted to share opportunities that I was receiving,” Tavera said. “We realize artists really have the need to meet, especially since many are immigrants, and they really want to gather and have that support.”

In 2023, Serpentina Arts worked with CLA and IHRCA on a year-long project, spearheaded by program manager Sebastian Alfonzo about the Latino experience in Minnesota, told through the eyes of 11 immigrant photographers.

The project culminated in an exhibition called, “Viewfinders/Miradores,” and blended the artists’ photography and oral histories. Attendees used headsets hanging in front of each photograph to listen to their stories. These oral histories are currently available at the IHRCA.

At first, the photographers were skeptical of the exhibition format, why a written and auditory component was needed, and what role the IHRCA would play, she said. But they realized that the archives would help expand their audiences and expose more people to the realities of immigrant life.

“There’s an erasure of our culture. There’s a great emphasis on negative propaganda about the community, and it’s really damaging,” Tavera said.

When people haven’t met any immigrants, haven’t interacted with an immigrant community, and only know immigrants through representations on television screens, it’s easy to believe whatever falsehoods they hear, she explained.

“They’re controlling the image of who an immigrant is to justify their unjust agenda. And it is really intimidating for those of us that live amongst the immigrant community,” Tavera said. “But the archives document who the community is beyond these false narratives that are being created politically. I think that’s extremely important.”

‘Not all archives do that’

The IHRCA is primarily frequented by students and researchers like Ganor, but she appreciates that it brings people from different backgrounds, professions, and experiences.

“They care about the archive being available for the university community and to people more generally outside of the university, and that’s phenomenal,” Ganor said. “It’s a place that generates really rewarding conversations.”

Ganor teaches a class called “The Century of Refugees: A Global History of Forced Migration, 1900s to 2000s,” which requires students to deeply analyze materials from the IHRCA, and that kind of archival environment is perfect for students, she said.

It provides an opportunity to ask how knowledge is constructed, who gets to participate in that process, and how we should read primary documents. What do these documents say explicitly, but also implicitly? What do they reveal about the structures surrounding them? These questions are critical when talking about migrants and refugees, people who often don’t get to participate in those very same conversations.

Archival work is the bread and butter of historians, but archives are institutions, subject to the hands that mold them and decide what’s worth preserving, and so must be constantly challenged and questioned. That tension is a fantastic learning experience, Ganor said.

“I love taking my students outside the classroom and to show them that knowledge production and learning is something that can happen in different venues,” she said. “It’s been so rewarding to be able to bring students from that class to the archives.”

This past semester, her students turned in a wide range of papers on the Spanish Civil War, Hmong refugees in Minnesota, and displaced persons after World War II. It’s a good reflection of the expansive histories housed in the archives, she said, and working in the IHRCA is the “highlight of the semester” for her students.

“The IHRCA is one of the university’s great assets,” Ganor said. “I enjoy collaborating with people like Ellen and Daniel, and the research center more broadly, because they’re really the ones who know the archive best, and they really want people to work with the materials … It’s just really wonderful for me as a historian.”

In her own research, Ganor looks for the voices most impacted by historical events, particularly those displaced following mass atrocities, which can be difficult to find in archives. The team at IHRCA is not only aware of this, but dedicated to resurrecting these less visible voices, she said.

“I’m glad that the archive itself also shares this commitment. It’s something to not take for granted. Not all archives do that,” Ganor said.

Other archives are tailored for a specific geographical region, time period, or organization, but the IHRCA focuses on the general theme of immigration to the United States and Canada, which gives researchers a broader lens to examine the historical record.

“Immigration is one of the most important factors shaping our societies today. That’s certainly true in the United States, but it’s true everywhere in the world,” she said. “The archive gives so many different angles to seriously think about this question, which is so fundamental to the political and social organization of our lives today.”

‘Leaving it for the future’

The IHRCA is ever-evolving as new materials come to the Libraries, as people’s relationship to their own history changes, and as the team supports others doing archival work, but the mission has never changed, Engseth said.

“I see a lot of continuity between what we started doing 60 years ago, and what we’re still doing today,” she said.

The biggest change is in digital access. The IHRCA has drastically expanded the amount of virtual and distance services they can provide, like digitizing materials and making them available online. With more resources and staffing, Engseth hopes to increase their capacity to reach others, beyond the borders of campus.

“Our material is transnational by nature,” Engseth said. “We have users all over the world, and to be able to engage more with those folks would take even more physical resources, infrastructure, and staff. So we would love to look forward to that.”

Recently, the team finished processing the Anne Dykstra papers. Dykstra was a refugee camp educator and administrator, and her papers provide information on the administration of refugee camps in Southeast Asia, as well as teaching materials on language and vocational skills development.

Last year, the IHRCA completed a project with the Migration Institute of Finland called “Migrant Experience, Past and Present: A New Finland-U.S. Research and Archival Partnership.” The project included an exchange program for staff, the virtual uniting of archival material physically located in two countries, and connecting the history of migration to current experiences of Finnish immigrants.

“We’ve been caring for these records for 60 years, thanks to the generosity of a community of donors,” Engseth said. “Such archival action provides a meaningful way to contribute to accurate future historical understanding.”

The IHRCA welcomes support in all forms: partnership on archival projects, donations of physical materials, and financial gifts. Potential donors, or visitors can email Engseth at ihrca@umn.edu to learn more.