Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Integration Challenges And Langkær Gymnasium, Nete Schmidt

The Bridge

Denmark used to be a fairly homogenous country where stereotypes of homogenous Nordic-ness could be happily and easily applied. Immigrants, often seasonal farmworkers, were invariably white. A young woman named Stefania was one of the many Poles who came to Lolland-Falster in the years 1893–1929 to work in the sugar beet fields in order to send money back to her family. She was thirteen when she arrived, with fake papers. At that time, Danish farmers and squires often hired young Polish women to do the most difficult work in the fields—weeding and harvesting the sugar beets. At the time, this …