Stearns County Syndrome

Brenners Witness Kilauea Eruption #40

2025 was a year of quiet contemplation for me. A year of observing and strategizing. A year of living in worry and frustration. A year of feeling homeless despite being home. Funny, I've felt that way before in my life. Let me explain.

I’m from St. Cloud, Minnesota - a place sometimes called “White Cloud” because of the inherent everyday racism pervasive there.

In fifth grade, 1979, a Vietnamese family moved into my neighborhood. That was notable because there were only a handful of non‑white families in a town of nearly 60,000. They had worked with Americans during the Vietnam War and, when the mission failed, Door B was their only option. Despite being allies, their son was called a “gook” by my classmates.

One afternoon, walking home with a group of neighborhood kids, we saw a Vietnamese boy about half a block ahead. He was a year or two older. The white boys in my class started taunting him: “Gook, hey Gook! Ching‑chang‑chong!” One pulled at his eyes to make them narrow Asian-like. They laughed. My friend Lori and I were at first quiet, afraid, shocked by the aggressive boys, but then stepped in and told them to stop. That only egged them on. The Vietnamese boy glanced at us, assessed the danger, shot an angry look, and walked briskly on. I got the impression he would defend himself if he had to. I figured I’d help, though fighting wasn’t something I’d ever done. I felt angry and scared. The boys continued to yell until the boy turned a corner and disappeared into a house.

Growing up, I knew our family was different. Our house, full of art and antiques, looked different. Our yard was less manicured, and our outlook at school was different. When I asked my mother about the differences I noticed, she said, “They suffer from Stearns County Syndrome. People are uneducated, racist bigots in St. Cloud.” My mom has always been direct like that. I felt her tension and decided early I would leave as soon as I could. I didn’t want to live where bullying, racism, and prejudice made me bristle every day. I hoped it would be different somewhere else.

The day after I graduated high school I moved to Minneapolis, where I would spend the next thirty years calling it home. My first apartment was on Park Avenue and 38th Street — a neighborhood now infamous for police and “federal agent” violence, but in 1987 it was a diverse mix of African Americans, Vietnamese, a few Mexicans, and white people unafraid of their neighbors. I liked being part of that diversity. It felt right. I had been given a kind of sight that I knew many in St. Cloud did not have.

Back then gang activity and drugs were increasing, and many young Black men turned to dealing to survive. Those of us who lived on 38th and Park understood, we could see, that systemic racism — the kind I had seen in St. Cloud — made Door B the only option for many brown and Black people. I didn’t fully understand every mechanism, but I knew that white people held power and our systems were somehow causing real harm. Having come from St. Cloud, I knew that most people in insulated white communities didn’t understand what I could see. In places like that it’s easy to accept racist ideas as they exist in a vacuum. As a kid asked to pledge allegiance to the flag, I always wondered why my classmates seemed to miss the promise to be "indivisible with liberty and justice for all.” The hypocrisy was palpable.

Now, as Minnesota is thrust into chaos under leadership that exemplifies what my mother calls “Stearns County Syndrome,” I’m brought back to those moments when I couldn’t understand how people could be so unkind and thoughtless. As a kid, I felt the urge to move away from my home city and now I feel the urge to move away from my country. I’m ashamed of the bigotry embedded in my neighbors’ mindsets, and I’m tired of feeling helpless. But, with a lifetime of experience, I now know that running away isn’t the answer. This problem is everywhere…and so is hope.

I see cracks and small glimmers of light popping open here and there. The Trump era, brutal and clarifying, has made each of us into that little girl on the street - witnessing racism and fascism, naming it, finding our voices, and standing up for what is right and true and good. For all its damage, this moment is forcing a reckoning. People are coming together, holding each other up, providing food, kindness and recognizing our common humanity. Stearns County Syndrome is beginning to crumble. Justice, freedom, and dignity will prevail.