A glance at the history books shows how hard this country's immigrants had to fight to get into the mainstream. Minnesota Public Radio's Mary Losure and Dan Olson produced this feature about the Finns who came to northern Minnesota at the turn of the century. The voices of early immigrants are from taped interviews preserved in historical archives.
Kids ride plastic sleds down a hill and out onto the frozen lake.
Others ride a traditional Finnish wooden sled whipped round and round at the end of a long pole. This is the Finnish sliding festival or Laskienen . Inside the old gymnasium, a crowd listens to the Finnish national anthem. People put their hands on their hearts. The oldest ones know the words.