Lake Worth Area Popular With Finns

Q: Why is the Lake Worth-Lantana area full of Finns?
A: Finns came to the area as farmers during the Depression, and the volume grew steadily in the 1940s. Most were not Finn citizens but rather Finnish-Americans who’d migrated from Europe to Midwestern states, New York and New England at the beginning of the 20th century.
Finns worked on the estates of wealthy Palm Beachers, and word spread through the Finnish diaspora, with many gravitating toward Lake Worth. In the early 1930s there were fewer than 1,000 Finns in Palm Beach County. Now there are about 25,000.
Peter Makila, a Lake Worth insurance agent and one of 32 honorary consuls of Finland, came over in 1965 as a teenager, later returned to Finland, then came back for good in 1996. He said his family’s migration from the northern United States started with his uncle.
“Some of their friends came back in the spring to Duluth, Minn., and they were so tanned and looked so healthy,” Makila said. “They said, ‘Where you have been?’ ‘We’ve been in this wonderful paradise called Florida.’ He sold everything.”
The tourist industry from Finland surged in the 1970s, and many applied for permanent resident status, but that has stalled because of tougher immigration standards, Makila said.
“Still, I get on my e-mail from younger people that they’re anxious to come,” he said. “The main reason many have, which was the same thing for me: to learn English and get a better job.”
Finland’s Honorary Consul Peter Makila: 582-2335.

Tags: immigrants