What is the first thing you think about when you think of Montana? Likely something about the landscape—big skies, wide open spaces, towering peaks.
The stories we tell about places matter. And right now in Montana, as is the case in many places, there are those who seek to tell a very narrow story of who is and isn’t welcome in their state. Is Montana a state for everybody? Or is The Last Best Place reserved for a narrow slice of the populace? Is this a state just for cowboys? And if so, who gets to be a cowboy?
But what if Montana’s story looks like this: A hot summer night. A crowd descends on a downtown Helena park. It’s fire season, so the air is smoky, but that doesn’t stop nearly fifty neighbors from showing up together. They’re all Helenans, but they come from across the world. At least 15 countries in total.
If you want a different story of Montana, look no further than the potluck spread that evening in the Centennial Park Pavilion.
Torta de Frango (chicken pie) from Brazil
Cuban Yellow Rice
Persian Tardig with Barberries and saffron
Huston/Peenstamp from Netherlands
Bittergreen peanut stew from Cameroon
Mujdara
Liberian Coconut Candy
Japanese Curry
Korean Japchea
Venezuelan Malta Soda
The reason for the gathering? A celebration of migration, a living reminder that The Last Best Place, like all places, is truly made great by people from across the globe. The event’s organizer, Amber Johnson, knows that first hand. Since moving to Helena, she’s been lucky to experience the full diversity of a town often understood to be homogenous. She built friendships through Latin dance, shared food with friends from across the globe and built neighborhood connections through her day job at the county health department.
And so, on that smoky night in July, a crowd of fifty people gathered around a generous spread of food to say, in essence, “we all matter.” MCs from Mexico and Cuba welcomed the crowd—neighbors from Cuba, Liberia, Cameroon, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Iran, India, Japan, Argentina, Kurdistan, Jamaica, Mexico, South Korea, and more. 50 in total, from a toddler to an 85 year old. Their first move together was a simple icebreaker game, followed by dinner. For the rest of the night, they ate together, talked and laughed, folded origami butterflies and, of course, danced: a Bollywood number leading into a Latin dance party. Throughout the evening, the same refrain: “we should do this more often."
That’s all to say, the smoke didn’t deter the group, nor did the bluster from politicians who’d like to pretend that Montana can only truly be home to a small swath of its population. Because that’s the thing about being a neighbor. Once you’ve chosen to open your doors, they stay open, regardless of anybody else’s rhetoric.
There was no long-winded speech at the Migration is Beautiful Gathering. No clearly laid out thesis statement. There didn’t need to be. Everything that needed to be said was summed up by a pair of attendees, during the popcorn game early in the evening. The prompt was to consider, “what do you love about Helena?” Amber, the organizer, found herself in a group with two men, from India and Cameroon. Their answer was unanimous and enthusiastic.
“The people.”
Of course.
WHAT DECLARATION DID THE GROUP MAKE? That Montana, like all the United States, is strongest when we lay out the welcome mat to all.
WHAT WENT IN THE BOX: A copy of Emma Lazerus’ iconic immigration poem, “The New Colossus" and a flock of those origami butterflies—a reminder that we are all meant to travel from place to place, enriching homes both old and new.
