[letsgonova19087]

I was in Minneapolis for the NCAA tournament in March and I recall one of our cab drives, a Somali, telling us in great detail of the huge Somali population in the state. It sounded totally random...a while back a few Somalis were traveling the country looking for a place to live, found Minneapolis, and decided it was a nice place. They sent word back home, and news traveled fast...now it is the largest (according to him) Somali population in the US.

[MineralMan]

Yes, there are a lot of Somalis and other West Africans in the Twin Cities. Most seem hard-working, and peaceable enough.

I've encountered quite a few recently, since a lot of the low-end health care aides seem to be Somalis. Since my father-in-law has 24/7 aides, I've met a number of them.

Most of the Somalis who have emigrated to the US are refugees. They're Muslims, all right, but I don't get any anti-US vibes from the ones I've met. Just the opposite.

The biggest advantage I've seen from the Somali influx is better availability of goat meat since they arrived. There's a Halal butcher shop not far from me, and I bought a whole goat kid for a barbecue not long ago. It was a big hit.

The guy at the shop was a little surprised to have me order a kid, but he picked out a very nice one for me.

[VOA]

It sounded totally random...a while back a few Somalis were traveling the
country looking for a place to live, found Minneapolis, and decided it was
a nice place.

Probably not random. They realized it's a place with a lot of smart, but
politically-correct people that will let immigrants take advantage of them.
IIRC, some Muslims at a charter school in the Twin Cities have gotten the
art classes totally overhauled to be consistent with their veiw of
art: NO human portrayals.
(Just as the Taliban did in Afghanistan; some guy saved a lot of art
in Kabul by painting over the human figures with something easily
removed. This was shown on a National Geographic special.)

I suspect that the Somalis are not happy with the mild "right turn" the
state has taken in recent years.
(I wonder if some folks have quietly been registering apprehension
about being America's first Shari'a state with their votes for Republicans)