Mullah Sigurd

It is not uncommon to use the argument "Norwegians have themselves been immigrants in America" when discussing immigration issues. Is it comparable?

Isn't that just a platitude? Doesn't it become too simple when we experience enormous cultural differences in our encounters with imams, arranged sibling marriages and demands for respect for our own culture and space to practice our religion?

The touring company consists of four siblings. This performance is based on the stories of their own great-grandfather, Sigurd Folkestad, the emigrant minister who traveled to five churches in Wisconsin, preached in his native language in all of them and let his second daughter marry her cousin back in Norway.

The siblings look at these stories as they have been handed down and what it is like to face today's reality with these stories as an important part of their self-perception.

Sigurd Folkestad, (1877-1963) Norwegian-American priest and author. Worked as a priest in Wisconsin for a number of years, served 1920?25 as general secretary of Nordmanns-Forbundet, Oslo; 1925?47 he was a priest in Østre Aker. Folkestad published three collections of poetry in the USA, På kongevei (1911), Flytfugl (1916) and Fra utflytter-kampen (1919).

Extract from "Norwegian - American national anthem"

By Sigurd Folkestad

We are building a home on the soil of AmericaAs free sons of Norway, we live here with the right of inheritance and inheritance, we people of Leif Erikson's far-flung ancestry.The giant from the Great Sea, storm-tossed and fought,Found the land to the west and took it as his own.To Vinland the good, where every man is free,The race has its inheritance. Centuries have forgotten it. But look, when it came,Kleng Pedersen's growing flood of immigrantsAnd cleared his way and founded his homeWith a will that wavered and said: 'We shall go forward!

Supported by: Spenn.no and Hedmark County