La Raw Maran, Emeritus professor, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, spoke on the “Past, Present and Future of Ethnic Peoples”. LaRaw stated that a people’s organized life actually requires traditional culture. He emphasized that ethnic peoples had to make drastic adaptation to survive as living communities in response to nation-building politics of 19th and 20th centuries.

American Indian adaptation today demonstrates significant accomplishments in political accommodation. Likewise, German American communities show foresight in programs to preserve and promote German heritage as German-American culture. LaRaw emphasized the German American and Ho-Chunk Nation communities are developing visions of the future that actually in many ways resemble each other and can learn from each other.