What if Bill's parents hadn't been immigrants and poor?

If you go to the outdoor concerts on Friday evenings during the summer in Iowa City, you'll often see young people dancing down in front of the band. There is one
young man there, probably in his mid 20s, who reminds me of Bill Sackter. I'm not sure why, but there is something about him that gets me thinking of Bill's life as a young man.

Bill, for whom Wild Bill's Coffeeshop in Iowa City is named, spent his 20s in a state hospital in Minnesota. That would have been in the 1930s. When I watched this young man on Friday evenings one recent summer, I thought about how different Bill Sackter's life would have been had he been able to grow up in a community instead of an institution.

Actually, most individuals with disabilities do grow up in communities -- not in institutions. They did a century ago; they do now. In his book, The Unlikely Celebrity, Tom Walz says that overall less than 10 percent of individuals with mental limitations ever lived in state hospitals.

But if you were poor -- or from an immigrant family -- your chances of being institutionalized during much of 20th century were greatly increased. Bill was both. His parents were immigrants from Russia. His family struggled to make ends meet; when his father died the economic struggle was even greater.

Bill's limitations were viewed as a hardship for his family (in part because of their poverty). School officials recommended he be sent to Faribault state hospital.

In his book, Tom Walz quotes Bill's recollection of this:

"Then they took us before some kind of board that judged how crack-minded you were. They told my mama and me, standin' there with the psycho teacher and the principal, that I was a har'ship to my family, and I'd probably be a ha'rships to the community. They commit me, buddy, took away my citizenship, and shipped me off to Faribault..."

Besides being poor, Bill's parents were also immigrants -- Russian Jews who came to the United States to escape persecution. But they ended up in a city where institutionalized prejudice against Jews was then widespread. Jewish doctors could not join the staff of most local hospitals. Services and social clubs were closed to Jews. Even AAA Auto Club wouldn't allow Jewish members. Discrimination against Jews was so great that writer Carey McWilliams, writing in the 1940s, called Minneapolis the "capital of anti-Semitism in the United States."

This strong anti-Semitism continued into the 1950s, according to local historians. For more information, one good source is the Minneapolis Jewish Federation. You'll find their website at: www.jewishminnesota.org/minneapolis/minneapolisFedAbout. Another is "Minneapolis Past," a video produced by KTCA TV, Twin Cities Public Television.)

One can't help but wonder how different Bill's life might have been if he hadn't been poor or the son of Russian Jewish immigrants.