Willmar, Minnesota, pop. 21,000: The Times, They Are A-Changin'.

I'm not a big fan of Thomas Friedman, but I like his article in The New York Times entitled "President Trump, Come to Willmar." It's about Willmar, Minnesota, a town of 21,000, has absorbed a large number of immigrants over the last 20 years -- and has thrived while doing so. The high school has students from 30 different countries.

It has almost zero unemployment. If you can fog up a mirror, you can get a job in Willmar — whether as an agriculture scientist or as a meatpacker for the Jennie-O turkey plant. The math is simple: There just aren’t enough white Lutheran Scandinavians to fill those jobs.

Some small towns in Minnesota, like Willmar, are doing well; others are in decline, plagued by unemployment and an opiate problem:

In Minnesota, the towns that are rising are places “that have said we need a trained work force with a good work ethic and we’ll embrace a redefined sense of community to get that,” explained Dana Mortenson, C.E.O. of World Savvy, a global education organization that also works in Minnesota towns. And the ones that are struggling — and losing both jobs and population — “are often the ones who can’t manage this new inclusion challenge.”

Social networks, globalization, climate change, economic opportunity, demographics and war are throwing more people together with more “other” people in more remote places than ever before. What’s happening in Willmar tells you just how deep this is going and why every town in America needs to get caught trying to make diversity work — or it will wither. It’s that simple.

A trickle of immigrants became a flood:

Diversity came to Willmar slowly, gradually — and then quickly. First, in the 1980s and 1990s, came a trickle of Latino seasonal farm workers who mostly went back south for the winter. Then the growing Jennie-O turkey processing plant needed a steady supply of meatpackers, and that led some to stay. And then, about 12 years ago, Somali and Karen refugees to the U.S. got word through their networks that there was work in Willmar and cheap housing. They, too, first came in a trickle, which became a large wave about five years ago — some arriving directly from African refugee camps.

According to the mayor:

“We had 1,200 to 1,600 Somalis when I started as mayor in 2014 and now we have 3,500 to 3,800,” said Calvin. “We also have 800 Karen people from Burma.” Add to that over 4,000 Latinos and you have a town of 21,000 that had been virtually all white and Christian its entire existence become nearly half new immigrants in the blink of two decades.

🎵 Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.🎵