International Institute of Minnesota

The International Institute in St. Paul opened on December 12, 1919. For one hundred years, it has helped meet the needs of immigrants, refugees, and asylees beginning their new lives in Minnesota.

The national Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) created the first International Institutes in the 1910s as service bureaus for foreign-born residents and new immigrants. Following World War I, the all-female staff and board of directors of the St. Paul Institute included Lorena Harrison, the organization’s executive secretary, and Bess Leuthold Beebe, the president of the board. The 1921 staff of four caseworkers spoke German, Italian, Norwegian, and Polish and served people from thirteen countries.

The institute’s services helped new Americans overcome barriers such as learning English, becoming citizens, and finding jobs. Caseworkers took people to appointments and made home visits. At the same time, the institute’s cultural programs helped encourage new and “old stock” Americans to share similarities and celebrate differences.

In the 1930s, the institute offered classes and programs at the downtown St. Paul YWCA and other sites. An Upper Levee site served Italians, and a West Side site served Mexicans. In 1931, Alice Lilliequist Sickels became the third executive secretary; she then began what became the Festival of Nations in 1932. A three-day “Homelands Exhibit” event that celebrated fifteen cultural groups was held at the YWCA on April 22–24 of that year.

On December 6, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. In March of 1942, the US government forced West Coast residents of Japanese descent into concentration camps. In response, the institute started the St. Paul Resettlement Committee in October of 1942. Committee members found jobs and housing for Japanese Americans who wanted to leave the camps and settle in St. Paul.

During World War II, institute caseworkers responded to community needs and expanded services to work with the Red Cross to find European family members. Citizenship classes filled with resident “aliens” eager to complete their citizenship process. After the war, the institute reached out to “war brides” married to US servicemen. These women needed cultural support and English classes.

In 1946, the institute moved into its own building at 183 West Kellogg Boulevard. It built up a large membership and offered many activities to bring different cultures together. In addition to monthly international lunches and dinners with guest speakers and film screenings, it offered classes in ethnic dance, folk arts, cooking, citizenship, English, and world languages.

From 1948‒1952, the institute expanded its services to help displaced people arriving from Eastern Europe. In 1956, the Hungarian “Freedom Fighters” came after a failed revolution. In the early 1960s, the institute served Cubans fleeing their country’s Communist revolution.

The institute moved into a building at 1694 Como Avenue in 1970. After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, 3,800 people came to Minnesota from Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam as legal refugees. In 1975, the Institute hired its first Vietnamese caseworker. By the following year, the institute’s main staff was eighteen people, and thirty teachers taught English to the new arrivals. From 1976 to 1980, the number of Hmong people living in Minnesota grew from zero to 10,000.

The Immigration Act of 1990 opened up resettlement from more countries and introduced new kinds of immigrant visas. This act guides immigration policy today and has brought an increased diversity to Minnesota. Meanwhile, the institute continued expanding services to help new Americans succeed. In 1990, it started a nursing-assistant job-training program to find better jobs for clients. In 1993, the first refugees from civil wars in Bosnia, Liberia, and Somalia came to Minnesota. The institute served 10 percent of Africans who resettled in the US in 1999.

In the 2000s, the institute served refugees fleeing conflicts all around the world. In 2001, refugee arrivals temporarily stopped after the 9/11 attacks. The institute resettled a record 2,316 people in 2004. More than half were Hmong from Wat Tham Krabok, a refugee camp at a Buddhist monastery that Thailand’s government had closed. At the same time, the institute started new programs to serve clients who needed college-readiness preparation.

As of 2019, the institute has resettled nearly 23,000 refugees and asylees to Minnesota since 1980. The institute annually serves clients from nearly 100 countries and continues to help new Americans overcome barriers to success in American life. More than fifty employees and many volunteers and interns work in the departments of Refugee Resettlement, Immigration, Employment, Job Training, English and Spanish Language Classes, College Readiness, and the Festival of Nations.