How Are We Going to Grow Rural Iowa?
We have to be bold, honest, joyful, and true to our community identities.
Algona, population 5,487 according to 2020 Census, is the county seat of Kossuth County, Iowa, population 14,828.
How does a community grow? It takes leadership. It takes investment. But most of all it takes people. More people. New people.
I like to say community is what happens when you’re doing other things. You can form a committee and spend all your time on “building community”, but I’ve yet to see spending a lot of time and resources on just community building showing many results.
When a community works together to build other things like schools, industrial parks, community organizations, festivals, and celebrations, that community can grow, if it’s also welcoming new people. That welcome needs to include investing in the newcomers' transition of coming from someplace else to becoming part of the community where they arrive.
In early April I got a call from Michelle Bell, a former Iowa FSA employee who worked in the Kossuth County office in Algona. We’d worked together for about a year before she retired.
She’d followed my Facebook posts about my newsletter Growing New Leaders: Perspectives from Coyote Run Farm and reached out to ask me if I had any ideas about how to help a situation in her community.
In recent years, Algona and greater Kossuth County had become a destination for Cuban immigrants. This worked just like it has for generations and across nearly all groups of people born in other countries and willing to take the risks to come to the United States.
A group of immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Poland, you can name any number of countries, settles in a community. They are welcomed and successful, so they send word to family and friends to join them. This is how the State of Iowa was built, especially rural Iowa and anchored to agriculture. Of course the land itself was here long before the immigrants and was cared for by Native Americans for thousands of years.
Since Iowa was a territory in the early 1800s, there have been waves of more immigrants and times of fewer immigrants, but the pattern of people from other lands coming to rural Iowa drawn by agriculture has never stopped. For several years now, this has been happening in Kossuth County with Latinos from Mexico and a few other countries. More recently Cuban immigrants have been arriving as word gets out that Algona is a great place to live, work, play, and raise a family.
Those of us like me celebrating German and Irish heritage and others celebrating any number of cultures and nationalities that make up the Great American Melting Pot, need to remember this is exactly how our state and our country have grown from our inception.
And the backlash from one set of immigrants not as excited to welcome new immigrants is also consistent. And regardless of the attempts to erase history, the atrocities perpetrated on members of The First Nations and their forcible removal is very real and consistent with some of the inhumanity we’re experiencing in the current wave of anti-immigration politics and policies.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump used and amplified this tendency for political gain. As I was on the phone with Michelle, she was concerned that when he issued the Termination of Parole Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans in March, they were experiencing the negative consequences of it in Kossuth County.
I listened to her concerns. I got as much detail as I could and started to consider if there was some way to help. She said that the Cuban immigrants simply stopped showing up in the community after the Trump Administration attempted to revoke their status and told them to leave the country in 30 days.
The community efforts to welcome these new Iowans went from being busy with people coming through the doors to get help as they settled into the community to almost no one coming through the doors as immigrants disappeared into the shadows.
As I listened to Michelle explain the situation and I tried to find a hook, she mentioned this.
“This is the first time in like 30 years that we have more kids in our kindergarten class because of the Cuban immigrants. Are they going to disappear from our community?”
At that point, I was all in. I called my friend and fellow Iowa Farmers Union member Josh Manske of Algona to figure out a trip to see him and learn more about the situation in Kossuth County.
Josh self-describes his age as “young to the old and old to the young.” I’d describe him as an early career farmer and ag leader. He is also a fellow Democrat who has been leaning in to help grow the Kossuth County Democrats.
Once I learned that new Iowans were growing the number of students in Algona’s Kindergarten class and the growth was threatened to be reversed through deportations, I had to make a visit.
Josh worked with Michelle and Jennifer Davis, executive director of Community & Culture Connections to set up a meeting to help me learn more about what was happening in Algona. The new organization is an extension of the volunteer network helping new Iowans coming to the community. They had recently received a grant to grow their efforts from the Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa.
I also got to join the monthly meeting of the Kossuth County Democrats, visit with a local pastor, and attend the Algona High School scholarship awards where two students each received a $1000 Delores Mertz Scholarship established by the Kossuth County Democrats.
I’ll say more about these efforts below, but after visiting Algona on Monday and Tuesday, my belief has been reinforced that community is what happens when you’re doing other things.
I’ve spent my life fighting for rural Iowa. It started when I was a Spartan at Anita High School in the late 1980s during the farm crisis. This was the beginning of the next wave of Iowa rural school consolidation. We didn’t just feel the decline, we lived it. My fellow Spartans organized and advocated in front of the school board in an attempt to keep our sports programs.
Wrestling got shared with another school in a 50/50 agreement. The Anita Spartans and the Cumberland and Massena Rockets became the Sprockets. If you wanted to play tennis, you could travel to Atlantic and compete as a Trojan.
We lost our early career French teacher and actually went into action trying to help her find another job. I’m not sure we were much help, but I remember classmates reading want ads in the Des Moines Register and sharing them with her. She got a job at Valley High School in West Des Moines the following school year. She retired from that urban school district a few years ago.
After I graduated, the Anita Community School District started sharing all sports under the CAM Cougars mascot with the Cumberland and Massena School District. Soon sharing sports led to sharing the high school. In 2011, the sharing agreement ended and the new CAM School District was formed including the towns of Anita, Cumberland, Massena, and Wiota.
As a rural Iowan, I’m accustomed to navigating decline. I know how to make the best of living with fewer neighbors, fewer businesses, fewer farms, and graduating classes with fewer students. But what I really want is more of all of this. And our past, present, and future provides a path for this to happen.
I’m talking about people born outside of the United States coming to Iowa to be part of agriculture and our rural communities. The Des Moines Register had an excellent story in July 2024 about this very situation for our entire state with a focus on rural Iowa, Immigration pushed Iowa's 19th-century growth; will be key to future growth, expert says.
It’s happening in places like Buena Vista, Crawford, Clarke, Sioux, and Louisa Counties. And it’s starting to happen in Algona and Kossuth County.
Mexican and now Cuban immigrants in the past few years have been key to slowing the population decline in Kossuth County. Jobs are being filled. Small businesses are starting up. Housing is being developed.
The story posted on Tuesday at the Community Foundation celebrating their grant says it best.
Formally launched as a nonprofit in 2023, Community and Culture Connections grew from a grassroots initiative to a full-fledged organization focused on helping immigrants thrive in Kossuth County. “We really need them here,” Jennifer emphasized. “If we were to lose either a large majority or all of our Latino population, it’s possible our industries could close.”
From interpreting courthouse forms to organizing English classes and cultural dinners, the organization works to eliminate barriers for newcomers while celebrating their contributions. “They contribute not only to the economy and to our job market, but they do want to serve,” said Jennifer. “They want to contribute to our community. We’re just trying to help them find a way.”
According to Jennifer, many in Algona have accepted its immigrant community, which can be felt by newcomers, including Robin and Yudi, whose wedding spurred the beginnings of the organization. “After arriving in the town of Algona, we thought that the journey would be very difficult, but thank God we met people with loving souls and a desire to support us but also our Latino community[,” said Robin and Yudi].
One of the most impactful new efforts is the Community Connections Center, which offers space for job-skills workshops, English classes, arts programming, and more. “This center should reach all of not only Algona, but the county,” said Jennifer. “We welcome everyone in the community.”
As the Kossuth County community members organized, invested in, and opened this center to serve the entire community, they weren’t just welcoming new Iowans, they were building community.
The Trump administration’s general attack on immigrants is a threat to this kind of community building across our nation. For rural Iowa, it’s an attack on our future.
Elected Republicans in the state have so far sided with the Trump Administration’s approach to dealing with immigrants. In the case of Cubans, Haitians, Venezuelans, and Nicaraguans many of these immigrants have legal status that the Trump administration is terminating. Ending their status means they have to leave or be deported.
We also have the situation where the Trump Administration is ending the Temporary Protected Status for Afghan refugees. The vast majority of these refugees helped our military operation in Afghanistan. You can hear a news account of that here at CBS: Why is the Trump administration ending deportation protections for Afghans? You can also read about what this means in Iowa from Rekah Basu in her column Deportation or suicide: The unfathomable choice facing some Iowa Afghan families.
As with the Cuban immigrants in Algona, these aren’t in the Trump Administration’s terms “illegal immigrants,” they are immigrants with legal status that is being terminated. The Trump Administration is making them illegal.
It’s also true that some people living in immigrant households in Iowa are undocumented. Often there are American citizens also living in those households. We’re in the process of unleashing massive racial profiling that is causing immigrants regardless of status to go into hiding across Iowa.
Art Cullen has a great column from early March about that dynamic in Storm Lake. Lake Avenue nearly dead on a warm Wednesday morning. I can't’ imagine that normal economic activity has returned to Storm Lake since then, especially now that we’ve deported at least three citizens of the United States.
Iowan Nicole Baart has a column about this in her newsletter This Stays Here.
The news of the deportation of three children—all US citizens—with their mothers a few days ago felt like a new rock bottom. According to the ACLU: A “U.S. citizen child suffering from a rare form of metastatic cancer was deported without medication or the ability to consult with their treating physicians – despite ICE being notified in advance of the child’s urgent medical needs.” One of the mothers is pregnant. Both were apprehended when they were attending a routine appointment in compliance with their ongoing immigration proceedings.
My trip to Algona, reinforced my commitment that for rural Iowa our past, present, and future is about immigration. A hopeful future depends on smart immigration policy so that we can have more neighbors, more vibrant businesses, more diversified farmers, larger graduating classes in our public schools, growing local economies, bigger celebrations of the arts, and expanded opportunities for recreation.
Here is a great story about last summer’s World Refugee Day celebration in Des Moines organized by Refugee Alliance of Central Iowa, Come Together for World Refugee Day. Author Jane Nguyen writes the newsletter The Asian Iowan. In her column, she tells how Governor Robert Ray, a Republican, fought to settle Vietnamese refugees in Iowa. When it comes to new Iowans, the Iowa Republican Party of the spirit and leadership of Governor Ray has been overcome by the spirit and politics of President Trump.
Since Republicans aren’t willing to work across the aisle anymore to achieve true immigration reform, it’s going to be up to Democrats to stop the draconian attacks on immigrants and to build the political power to develop smart immigration policy.
The Kossuth County Democrats are doing some excellent power building while doing other things. On Tuesday morning I went with Josh as he and another member of the Kossuth County Democrats presented the two $1000 scholarships. Here’s the verbiage from the Iowa Lakes Foundation website where people can donate to this effort.
The Dolores Mertz Scholarship honors her dedication as a public servant to the people of Kossuth County. Dolores was known for her strong support of education and her willingness to work in a bipartisan way to achieve results for her constituents and community.
This non-partisan scholarship is open to any graduating senior residing in Kossuth County. Students must complete an essay on what it means to be a citizen in a democracy and demonstrate active service in their communities. The scholarship was established by the Kossuth County Democrats.
On Saturday, June 28 there is a Fundraiser & Chautauqua Talk for the scholarship fund sponsored by the Kossuth County Democrats. That talk is being given by one of Mertz’s longtime political friends and bi-partisan partners Ambassador Terry Brandstad, former Republican Governor of Iowa.
I joined the Kossuth County Democrats on Monday night for their monthly Central Committee meeting. I had a few minutes to talk about my passion for rural Iowa and the opportunities for Democrats across all 99 counties in our state.
As I’ve been speaking around the state, I always ask about the New York Times nationwide map that shows how President Trump did against Vice President Harrris versus how he did against then Vice President Biden in 2020. If he did better, the county got a red arrow. If he did worse, the county got a blue arrow. How much better or worse he did in 2024 versus 2020 determines the size of the arrow. I always ask if anyone knows how many counties had blue arrows in Iowa. I’ve yet to have anyone answer confidently. There was one.
Then I ask if they know what county had that blue arrow. The most popular answer is Johnson County, the most liberal county in the state. No one has guessed the right answer. It’s Page County. That’s a small, very rural county in Southwest Iowa.
I then ask if they know where the two smallest read arrows are. In other words, where Trump did better in 2024 than 2020 but by the least amount. Those two counties are Montgomery adjacent to Page to the north and Adams, adjacent to Montgomery to the East.
There is something happening politically in rural Iowa. The Iowa Democratic Party and 2026 Democratic candidates need to spend less time figuring out how to message to rural Iowans and more time learning from rural Iowans.
The Kossuth County Dems had a lot of business to cover. About 30 people were at the well run meeting that lasted exactly an hour. They reported on a protest they’d organized, we’re making posters for their next meeting to hang around town, had a healthy balance of funds in the bank, had applied for a grant with an organization to support local Democratic Parties to recruit candidates, and were finalizing plans for not only the Scholarship Fundraiser June 28 where Ambassador Terry Brandstad was speaking but the Chautauqua Talk on September 20 to be presented by Senator Tom Harkin.
While the meeting was going on, I looked up a stat to share with them. Both Kossuth County and Johnson County had red arrows, Trump did better in 2024 than 2020 in both counties. Kossuth went for Trump 71% to Harris 27%. Johnson went Harris 68% to Trump 30%. So this isn’t about who won the county but which county moved the most toward Trump. Kossuth moved 4.7% more toward Trump. Johnson County moved 5.3% more toward Trump. Not only was Johnson not the blue arrow, Kossuth had a smaller red arrow than Johnson County.
On Tuesday Josh and I dropped by Pastor Russ Jacobsen’s office at First United Methodist Church. He grew up in Northfield, Minnesota. His father owned a clothing store in that college town home to St. Olaf and Carleton. While his dad was a lifelong conservative, he of course knew and admired Senator Paul Wellstone. Pastor Russ is a great story teller, easy to talk with, and deeply committed to ministry and community.
What sticks with me is the smile on his face when he talked about volunteering for conversations through Community & Culture Connections. People sign up to talk with new Iowans working on learning English. Just talking. Just practicing their new language.
“It’s so much fun,” he said. He used the word joy on several occasions. Michelle had also used that word several times talking about the community efforts to welcome and support immigrants wanting to make a life in Algona.
There was one point when Pastor Russ got tears in his eyes. He talked about one of his parishioners who asked him about one of their new immigrant conversation partners. “How are we going to help him bring his family here?”
In Algona, Iowans are showing us how to grow a hopeful future. Their efforts are helping people in need, but they are also helping themselves. They are building a community for everyone. There are more kids in school. Employers are able to grow. That family ready to upgrade to a bigger or newer house has more buyers and renters for their existing house making their move possible.
Community & Culture Connections has an art studio that’s available to the whole community. The organization rents underutilized space from First Congregational Church. There are food festivals and celebrations. Pride and joy are contagious. It’s also good business.
As the Kossuth County Democrats brought their meeting to a close, they announced that in June, they’d be gathering at the meeting room at Community & Culture Connections. “Let’s give this new space a try,” said one of the leaders.
When I arrived on Monday, Josh took me to the Mexican restaurant Cinco de Mayo. Israel the owner came over to say hello. Josh said, “Izzy, what’s your specialty?”
“Cactus fajitas.”
So in Algona, Iowa, I ate cactus for the first time. It was delicious. The restaurant was beautiful and busy at lunch. Josh said it’s packed at night with a full bar.
He said, “it used to be a Happy Chef?”
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I’m a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Please take a look at this amazing group of Iowans publishing their work on Substack who are keeping community-based local journalism and commentary alive. It’s an honor to be among this group.
My church in Dubuque runs a homeless shelter for families with children. We give them shelter and try to help them get a new start in life. It's been very successful. Last winter, we hosted a Marshallese family. These immigrants are in this country legally due to the US history of testing nuclear weapons on their home islands. This family was a delight, and they transitioned to independent living just after the new year. Then January 20 happened. Trump's new hostility towards immigrants pushed them into hiding. Again, they were here legally, and yet they were afraid to go to the grocery store. Stories like these are NOT helping to grow Iowa. This is a good family. They are exactly the kind of hard working people we want here to help build the future. Sorry, I've gone on for too long. Let me close by saying thank you, Matt, for shining a light on what the administration's policies are doing to Iowa's future.
Fantastic article. Thank you for sharing our story and efforts. It was great to meet you and feel your passion.