Stephanie Hirsch remembers growing up in the western Wisconsin city of Eau Claire when the community welcomed newly arriving Hmong refugees from Southeast Asia.
So Hirsch, now the Eau Claire city manager, said she was surprised at the hostility, fear and anger she saw last fall, when residents learned several dozen refugees would start arriving legally in the community of about 70,000. Opponents spread misinformation - including on a billboard - about how many people were coming and from where, and people packed a city meeting to protest the resettlements.
"It's very hard for me to understand that fear," Hirsch said. "I completely disagree with being afraid of people from different cultures. In fact, I'm really excited about it."
But the way lifelong Eau Claire resident Fred Kappus saw it, the city should have other priorities.
"We really should attend to the homelessness situation before we bring in people from elsewhere," said Kappus, the vice chairman of the Eau Claire Republican Party.
