The Hansen Family Journey

Jennifer Bickle

Assimilation My Great Grandpa Laurits Hansen moved

from Denmark to America and assimilated by changing his first name to Lawrence.

The Hansen family also had their four children speak English. The Danish language was lost through out the generations.

Pull Factors

The pull factors for Lawrence to come to Minnesota:

More opportunitiesAbility to purchase larger

amounts of land to start his own dairy

Having freedom in America was important.

Denmark was controlled by monarchy at that time.

Primary Sector Lawrence Hansen worked or owned a dairy. He

also had beef cattle that he raised to eat and sell to local butchers.

His son Raymond followed in his footsteps taking on the hard labor of working on a dairy.

Internal MigrationAfter Lawrence’s death his wife Elsie moved her family to San Diego. Within California Ray Hansen, my great grandfather, moved from San Diego to Compton. He then moved his family to Chino.

Urbanization My great grandfather was forced to sell

his dairy to the city of Compton in the early 1950’s due to the cities urbanization.