When President Donald Trump called Minnesota’s Somali community “garbage” last month, it drew national headlines and led state officials to denounce his racist tirade.
Since Dec. 1, scores of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have descended on the Twin Cities for what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is calling “Operation Metro Surge,” which the New York Times reported was targeting Somalis. Five Somalis were among the first 12 arrests that DHS announced in the surge.
Minnesota is home to more than 80,000 ethnic Somalis, the largest community outside of Africa. The vast majority of Somalis here and across the United States are U.S. citizens, and most who are not have legal permanent residency.
But how did Minnesota become a hub for people fleeing the chaos of the war-torn East African nation?
The answer is best explained by the culture of both Somalia and Minnesota, according to Ahmed Ismail Yusuf, a writer and teacher whose 2012 book “Somalis in Minnesota” explains the community’s rise. Minnesota was not the first state Somalis moved to when they began to arrive in the United States in the late 1980s and early ’90s, but it is where many gravitated toward after learning of job opportunities.
“This explosion came from the ground up,” Yusuf told Sahan Journal.
Colonialism and war
Somalia’s location on the Horn of Africa made it a strategic ground for empires throughout history. In the 19th century, British and Italian colonial regimes made pacts with local sultanates. The resulting protectorates, British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland, lasted until 1960, when Somalis merged the two states into the Somali Republic.
The victory of independence was short lived. In 1969, military officer Siad Barre took power in a coup. Barre aligned himself with the Soviet Union and embarked on a modernization plan for the country that largely failed. In 1977, Barre invaded Ethiopia in an attempt to take control of areas inhabited by ethnic Somalis. He lost the war and support from the Soviet Union in the process. Afterward, various regions and clans in Somalia began to rebel against his rule in the 1980s. Barre attempted to brutally repress the rebellions and in the process committed a genocide against the Isaaq clan in the country’s north that killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced more.
By the early 1990s, the rebels took the capital of Mogadishu and in 1991 the country fell into a civil war that remains ongoing. The United States led a United Nations intervention into the nation in 1993, which largely failed.
Displaced Somalis, mostly ethnic Somalis living in Ethiopia, began arriving in the United States as refugees in the late 1980s, with the largest group concentrated in San Diego.
Jobs attract Somalis to Minnesota
Somali culture was largely nomadic for centuries, Yusuf said, leading Somalis to value reliable information and hospitality.
In 1992, a small group of Somali men living in South Dakota answered an ad about work at a poultry factory in Marshall, Minnesota, and were immediately hired. Word spread fast in the Somali community through cultural practices of war, or news sharing. A group of Somalis living in San Diego, acted as sahan, a Somali word that means something between a pioneer and a scout who confirms reports, and came to Minnesota to see if the rumors were true. All landed jobs and more began to come.
“They used their nomadic social behavior first,” Yusuf said.
Many Somalis had struggled to find stable work in the United States. A company that would hire and pay them immediately was a boon, and word spread fast that Minnesota was a place where you could find work, and where people were fairly hospitable to newcomers.
“Some of [those hired] had never seen a check to begin with,” Yusuf said. “It was such a revelation to them that they were able to feed people back home and they had cash, and that was intoxicating.”
The first Somalis to be directly resettled from refugee camps in Africa to Minnesota were largely people from Mogadishu who began arriving in 1996. The large influx of Southeast Asian refugees in the 1970s and ’80s paved the way for Somali resettlement in Minnesota, Yusuf said. Groups like Lutheran Social Services and Catholic Charities had experience helping refugees establish themselves in the North Star State.
The work done by African Americans in the fight for civil rights also helped ease the arrival for Somalis in Minnesota, Yusuf said. Progressive civil rights politicians from Minnesota like Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale helped create a welcoming climate.
Community establishes itself
By the late ’90s, Minneapolis had become home to the largest concentration of Somali people outside of Africa. When Yusuf graduated from college in Connecticut and came to Minneapolis in 1997, he was stunned to hear his language in the streets and see Somali people everywhere in certain neighborhoods.
The late ’90s drew a host of Somali American professionals to Minnesota. Abdirahman Mohamed and Fozia Abrar, the first male and female licensed Somali physicians in Minnesota respectively, arrived and began serving the community.
Somalis are very interested in politics, Yusuf said. And in 2002, he remembers going to a town hall meeting hosted by late Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn. Wellstone listened to community needs and responded to some questions with haa, or yes, in Somali. It was a milestone.
“It occurred to me that this is a viable community, that someone of that stature feels he needs to say that,” Yusuf said.
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The late ’90s and early 2000s saw hundreds of Somali entrepreneurs open businesses in Minnesota, and families establish themselves in areas of Minneapolis that had fallen into disrepair.
“The entire landscape of south Minneapolis, particularly the area adjacent to downtown, has completely changed and been revitalized,” Yusuf said.
Soon, Somalis began to take seats in local government. In 2010, Hussein Samatar was elected to the Minneapolis school board, making him the first elected Somali official in the state. Three years later, Abdi Warsame became the first Somali elected to the Minneapolis City Council.
In 2016, Ilhan Omar became the first Somali elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives, and the first Somali woman to win election in Minnesota. Two years later, she won a seat in Congress.
Since then, several Somali Americans have been elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives. In 2020, Omar Fateh became the first Somali American elected to the Minnesota Senate; Zaynab Mohamed became the first Somali woman elected to the Minnesota Senate in 2022.
Today, Yusuf feels immense pride when he observes the community. Many who either came here as young children or were born in the United States maintain their Somali culture while firmly identifying as Minnesotan. Somalis are in every profession and nearly every town in the state.
“We are in every segment of society,” Yusuf said.
