The ELPAC Report January 2003

Hiawatha Learns Somali

The Minneapolis, Minnesota, subway system will add the Somali language to the English, Spanish, and Hmong language options on its Hiawatha corridor light rail corridor. The cost? $117,000, paid for by buying fewer ticket machines.

Residents of the Somali community in the area complained that 4,000 Somalis live near the subway lines, and Metropolitan Council member Natalie Haas Steffen told the Associated Press that "I think we would be less as human beings if we can't make the decision to serve some people who are working very hard to assimilate into our society."

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