Missoula, Montana ready to welcome refugees – Mayor John Engen

I was 13 when the first Hmong refugees began arriving in Missoula from a place about which I knew nothing; a country across the planet I didn’t know existed. They looked different from my classmates at Willard Elementary and, a little later, my classmates at Hellgate High School, as well as the other kids in my Lutheran Sunday-school class. They had accents or didn’t speak English. They were very different from me. But everything I’d been taught by my folks, my teachers, my pastors and the world told me that different is OK. And I was never, ever afraid of the Hmong.

Mayor John Engen

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/columnists/missoula-ready-to-welcome-refugees/article_5b0dd84a-95fc-550f-99fa-7ac7adc68eaf.html