Couple looks back on how their families’ past put them together

DES MOINES — With days until the Nov. 5 presidential election as the country’s immigration status and policy are campaign issues, Iowa’s immigration past is what put Jasmine and Jeff Newland together.

Jasmine Newland of Des Moines is a descendant of former Iowa Gov. Robert Ray’s plan for the state to accept about 1,500 people looking for a home. In 1975, Iowa was one of 29 states asked for help by the Tai Dam people, a combination of people from China, Vietnam, Thailand and Laos looking for escape from the Vietnam War and a safe place to live. Ray approved the request.

Before the end of the decade Ray toured northern Cambodia and saw the lack of food and massive amounts of disease, strengthening his plan for Iowa to be a place to recover. Iowa was the only state to have directly sponsored refugees.

“I was born in Des Moines,” Newland said. “My mom was one of the many refugees Ray brought from Laos. She was in the first wave he brought over.” Her father would arrive later. Jasmine has two siblings, a younger brother and sister, both in Des Moines.

Jasmine said her parents and extended family experienced the struggles in the refugee camps in their home country. “I can’t imagine being put through that myself,” she said.

Jasmine had her own challenges in Des Moines.

“People started asking me where I was from, maybe starting in fifth grade.” She said she had no problems creating friendships in middle school and high school. “But I would still get asked the same. For me, it didn’t click to what they were asking. I am from Des Moines. It was just kids being curious. I was different,” she said.

Jasmine, now 31, didn’t refine her answers to those questions until after high school.

“I had asked my mom where our family is from. Mom explained she was born in Laos. She told me the story of how my grandpa was fighting in the Vietnam War fighting for the American side. If the Communists had found out he was fighting for America, God knows what would have happened. Grandma and grandpa wanted to pack up the family and flee. They ended up in a refugee camp,” she said.

Jasmine said she heard enough to change her perspectives.

“Just hearing that and how I’m not American was kind of eye opening for me. In a good way, I understand where my background is. I can explain to people who actually ask.”

Her mother has since passed. Her father still lives in Des Moines.

Jasmine attended Des Moines-Roosevelt High School, which she said showed more cultural diversity as her high school years passed.

“It was probably more African-American and Hispanics. We had a few African-Americans who were straight from Africa,” she said. She said she couldn’t remember students who had parents as immigrants, though. She estimated her graduating class was about 600 students.

“I stood out but they were used to other people. I wouldn’t necessarily think how I was thought of myself. I felt for them. I didn’t have any experiences that were any different after I told them where I came from. I gave them a geography lesson. ‘Where is that?’”

The connection Newland has with Robert Ray is personal. She met one of his grandsons, Jeff, at Roosevelt. They met their senior year as they were in the same circle of friends.

That relationship and friend group continued after high school. They both attended the University of Iowa and still had the same connections with others.

“We didn’t get close until the later college years. We got a little closer, but not in a traditional, date-relationship,” she said.

The environment in Iowa City was different.

“I didn’t have to explain myself. There are a lot of Chinese foreign exchange students. I think sometimes I would be put into that group. It wasn’t negative,” she said. She majored in health and human physiology, emphasizing in probiotics.

Jasmine said she pays attention to the immigration news. “But a lot of it is so negative. I won’t say all of it is negative.”

She still has the stories of how people during her parents’ time viewed the United States.

“All of the refugees and immigrants knew the U.S. as the happiest place where you come and get a job and become rich. You earn money to make a living for yourself,” she said.

She said her dad believed the ideal of that while in Laos.

“You have to work for the money you earn and where you want to get. He realized that once and he had to do it,” she said.

Afterward, Jasmine and Jeff both returned to Des Moines, as did the relationship. Jeff pursued optometry school in Florida in 2017. He returned to Des Moines in 2021. The two married two years later.

Jeff said working in health care has a made a connection to his older patients and his family.

“They see a picture on the wall,” he said about family pictures in his office including ones with Ray. “They ask. I hear numerous stories. One would say I met him back in 1994 at a McDonald’s, or a board meeting. They remember very good details.”

Ray died in 2018 before Jasmine and Jeff met.

“I have a different relationship. Jasmine never met my grandfather but I told her he made you feel like you were the most important person in the room, regardless of where you came from, your political view. That is what resonated,” Jeff said.

Jeff knew his grandfather was taking a risk inviting the people to Iowa in the mid 1970s. Jeff said jobs were hard to come by and some people just didn’t like the idea.

“We still have the same similarities and differences,” he said about society. “Today’s politics are different. To me, Iowa has always been a welcoming state. We are prideful. We care about neighbors. It’s been amazing to see what his decision in the 70s and how they have created some positive things in my life, like meeting my wife.”

Jeff said he feared what could have happened to those people if Iowa was not a place to go to give them a better, safer place.

“There’s some impact there,” he said.

Jeff, 32, said the influence of other cultures has shown in the Des Moines area, just in the past 15 years.

“These people are intertwined in our communities now. I’ve seen Des Moines become more diverse than when I was in high school. We’ve seen the suburb development. Just look at the restaurants that have the Asian culture,” he said.

It’s not just on menus either.

Jasmine and Jeff attend an annual festival in Des Moines that celebrates the city’s cultural diversity, “especially southeast Asia” Jeff said. The event include concerts, food and other amenities.

“It’s cool to see,” Jeff said, giving credit to his grandfather for that infusion in Iowa. “People want to shake my hand, but I had nothing to do with it.”

Jeff said he didn’t fully comprehend his grandfather’s work until he was in middle school. He said as a child both sets of his grandparents lived in the Des Moines area and it was common for Ray to attend his games and other activities. Jeff has two siblings and five first cousins.

Jeff remembers Ray attending school field trips like to the state capitol or Terrace Hill, where the Iowa governor lives during their term.

“This is weird. No one else’s grandparents are here,” Jeff laughed. “Then I started to connect the dots in early middle school. As I grew older I understood the conversations more,” he said. Ray’s daughter Lu Ann is Jeff’s mother. She was one of three daughters of Ray and wife Billie.

There were multiple times when Jeff was with Ray in a restaurant or grocery store and people would approach them.

“An Asian man started crying in a store. ‘I’m alive because of you,’” Jeff said the man told Ray. “I heard that a couple of times a year. They have a new life here.”

Jeff said Ray still paid attention to politics after his time in the governor’s office. Ray served from January 1969 through the November 1982 election, which he did not run for re-election. Ray advocated for the Refugee Act of 1980 which established a foundation for resettling refugees. Ray’s influence moved other Republican legislators to support the Refugee Act.

“You could still see his emotion. I could get a grasp he’s never regretted his decision and he would still do it in today’s world to make it become a better community,” Jeff said.

Jeff said he didn’t treat Jasmine any different when they met during high school. “Our relationship blossomed over our natural chemistry. I never thought of her background or story. My grandfather is the one who introduced us to each other but he wasn’t in the picture when we met,” Jeff figuratively said.

As their relationship developed he learned and met more about her family and its past.

“They all shared the excitement and the story. It almost made you want to cry. They knew my background and my grandfather. I don’t know if it put pressure on Jasmine but it all worked out in the end,” he said.

Ray also was the featured speaker at their high school graduation.

The family history of Jasmine and Jeff has plans to continue to the next generation as they had their first child, a son, earlier this year.

“He will learn the legacy. He is the combination of both of us. He will learn the history,” Jeff said.