Brooklyn Park, Minnesota

According to the Brooklyn Park Historical Society, European settlers began to move into the area in 1852 shortly after the Treaty of 1851 opened Dakota homelands to homesteading by the U.S.. In 1854, Brooklyn Park gained its namesake from a group of settlers from Brooklyn, Michigan. That year, the first school was established in the area, and in 1858, the first township officers were elected.. However, Brooklyn Park was not incorporated as a village until 1954, when its population was a mere 3,868. Brooklyn Park became a charter city in 1969, and there has been dramatic development and population growth since. Brooklyn Park has become a bedroom community of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

According to the 2010 Census, 50.9% of the residents of Brooklyn Park are white, 24.2% are black, 15.4% are Asian, and 6.4% are Hispanic or Latino. Only 4.75% of the households in Brooklyn Park are “non-family households,” and 88% of the residents hold at least a high-school diploma. The American Community Survey reported that the median income between 2005 and 2009 was $62,100 and 9.5% lived below the poverty line.¹

Brooklyn Park has experienced a significant influx of immigration from Hmong, Liberian, and other ethnic groups in the past twenty years. The Hmong population in Minnesota was, as of 2020, estimated between 40,000 and 60,000, with around 100,000 Hmong living in the United States.² Several charter and private schools in Brooklyn Park are home to large immigrant populations, such as Prairie Seeds Academy, which attributes much of its soccer success to the fact that “lots of immigrants play soccer, so, of course, they might play a lot better than other kids.” The Liberian community, estimated at 3,600 in 2009, also uses soccer as a means of integration into the Brooklyn Park community. A presence in Brooklyn Park for twenty years, Liberians began immigrating to Minnesota after the deadly and destructive civil war in Liberia.³

With one of the most open immigration policies in the United States, Minnesota has become a home for millions of immigrants, and Brooklyn Park is no exception. Additionally, Brooklyn Park also neighbors the larger religious communities of the Twin Cities, which host a wide variety of synagogues, mosques, and one of the largest Hindu temples in North America. Minneapolis and St. Paul host the largest Hmong, Somalian, and Ethiopian communities in America, and this provides Living Word Christian Center the opportunity to engage in a broad-reaching ministry in the Twin Cities greater area.