The title of the lead article in the 'Opinion Exchange' section of the May 3 Star Tribune was "Alienated immigrants: An American tradition." Commentary editor D. J. Tice drew comparisons between the Scandinavians of last century and the Somalis of today. Tice wrote about Ole Edvart Rolvaag, father of future Minnesota governor Karl Rolvaag, who came from Norway to the Upper Midwest in 1896. In his 1926 book Giants in the Earth, Ole Rolvaag disclosed how he felt: "a feeling of utter helplessness, as if life had betrayed me...the sense of being lost in an alien culture. The sense of being thrust somewhere outside the charmed circle of life." My husband's maternal grandparents came (separately) from Sweden as young adults in the late 19th and early 20th century. They married in Minneapolis in 1902 and had two daughters, but their lives would be difficult. They were diagnosed with tuberculosis, depression and possibly schizophrenia. Both were hospitalized at the Anoka State Hospital where they died in the 1930s. Rolvaag described the Scandinavian immigrants' anguish: "If you couldn't break through that magic hedge of thorns, you were lost indeed. Many couldn't and didn't -- and many were lost thereby." Bill's grandparents were undoubtedly overwhelmed by what they encountered in Minnesota -- not unlike other immigrant groups described in the article: "Irish, Italians, Germans, Jews, Japanese and all the rest." The Swedish couple who suffered so much would be proud of what their grandchildren and great-grandchildren have accomplished. Tice wrote about America being a nation of immigrants, whose "sense of being lost in an alien culture" usually dies with the first generation or two. He concluded his article with these statements: Our newer citizens deserve understanding and tough-minded support as they strive to do the same...Anything less would be unworthy of those who went before us, and who, as Rolvaag put it, "toiled and suffered and died that their children might inherit the promise."