Radiolab - For Whom the Cowbell Tolls

Episode Date: March 29, 2019

When Nancy Holten was 8 years old her mom put her in a moving van. She fell asleep, woke up in Switzerland, and she's been there ever since. Nancy is big into animal rights, crystals, and various forms of natural and holistic healing. She’s also a viral sensation: the Dutch woman apparently so annoying, her Swiss town denied her citizenship. In this episode we go to the little village of Gipf-Oberfrick to meet Nancy, talk with the town, and ask the question: what does it mean and what does it take to belong to a place? This episode was reported by Kelly Prime and was produced by Kelly Prime and Annie McEwen.  Special thanks to reporter Anna Mayumi Kerber, the tireless fixer and translator for this story. Thanks also to Dominik Hangartner and to the very talented yodelers Ai Dineen and Gregory Corbino. Support Radiolab today at Radiolab.org/donate.  A tasty note from Latif: Towards the end of the story, I casually mentioned a place called Greg's Poutine in Toronto.  Turns out, it's actually called Smoke's Poutinerie. (Confused it with Greg's Ice Cream.) Go. It's delicious. 

Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radio Lab. Radio Lab. From W. N. Y. C. See?

Yeah. Okay, here. Here, should I just test you? Yeah, yeah. If you could see if you can be a citizen. Oh, God. Okay. What is the Supreme Law of the Land?

The Constitution? Yep. You got it. What is freedom of religion? What does it mean? What is freedom of religion? Like you can practice any religion you want without being persecuted? Yeah.

Great. Done. These questions make me nervous because it feels like they're too easy and that I'm going to be wrong. Gotcha. Who is in charge of the executive branch? The president. If the president can no longer serve, who becomes president? Vice president.

Yeah. Hey, I'm Chad Abram. I'm Robert Krollwich. This is Radio Lab. And today we're going to start off by sort of sitting in on a conversation. It's telling me to study for the English test. Between our producer and reporter Kelly Prime and producer reporter Latif Nasser, who is right now in the process of becoming a U.S. citizen.

Estimated case completion time is August 2019. When did you start applying? Right after I got married? So I want to say like 2014 maybe. Whoa. Yeah. Getting married is the fastest way of getting citizenship. Dang.

Yeah. What are your feelings as you approach this date? It's a weird time It's exciting It's exciting because like my kid was born here So my kid is an American citizen But I'm not an American citizen That's kind of like a weird thing

Like I feel like I want to be that for my kid Yeah I feel like as a Muslim guy There are protections that I'll get as a citizen That I may not otherwise get But I mean like for my family My family is We've immigrated a lot

My family like two maybe three generations ago, my family moved from India to East Africa, Tanzania, and then my parents' generation, they immigrated from Tanzania to Canada. But what's funny is, like, my family, my dad, my mom, like, when they came to Canada, they were so grateful that Canada accepted them. My parents so badly wanted to be Canadians, but because they were sort of these outsiders, they kept coming really close, but like not quite getting it. Like my dad, he knew, like, as a Canadian dad, the thing you're supposed to do is, like,

go down to the ice rink and sign up your boy for hockey lessons. Right. But instead, he signed me up for figure skating lessons. And so, like, for years, I took figure skating lessons. I was, like, the only brown kid in the class, the only brown boy. Did you guys watch hockey? Yeah, no. Well, so the thing with hockey, like, in Canada, hockey is such a thing.

Like for me, when I was in high school, I would go home. I would like do my homework really quickly. And then I would watch hockey night in Canada. And I hated hockey, but I would watch it because I knew the next day at school, like, that's all anybody would be talking about is the Maple Leafs game. It was like like assimilation homework or something. You know, it was like, okay, let's memorize the names of these players. Okay, goal. Who scored a goal?

Was it a good goal? Was it an interesting goal? Like, where's the puck actually? I don't even, can't even see it. You know, it was like there's this club and this is the homework for the club. And in order to be part of the club, I have to do the homework. And for everybody else, the homework is fun. And for me, the homework is homework.

So here at the show for the last, I don't know, six months a year, pretty much ever since Latif did a show about voting. And elections, yes. You know, we've been thinking about democracy and citizenship. These big sort of amorphous concepts and trying to figure out how do we make something about them. It's hard, though, because big ideas are mushy and hard to pin down. Yeah, so we let it kind of lie for a bit. But then two of our reporters walked in with stories that really brought those big, fuzzy ideas down to Earth. So, for the next two episodes, what we're going to do is we've got two very different stories from very different places in the world.

About what it means. And what it takes to belong to a place. Starting with Kelly Prime, with a story that takes place. I guess you probably know this by now. Yeah, in Switzerland. Right, so I had found this kind of viral article that hit all over the world that was a Dutch woman too annoying to get Swiss citizenship. That's a good title.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so there was this woman, Nancy Holton, and from what I could read just on the very click-bait stuff was that she is a vocal vegan. She's anti-Cowbell, anti-Church bell, and that the town turned against her and refused to naturalize her. You said anti- Cowbell? Yeah. Cowbells are the most Swiss things in the world. Like you go to Switzerland and on every postcard is this like adorable cow with big eyes and brown spots.

And it has this giant decorative bell on its chest. And that is like Switzerland. And this lady, Nancy, who's like a militant animal rights person, she says that the loudness for the cows, that it is disturbing for them and it is cruel and that it is a Swiss tradition but it's got to go. I see. And her social media presence

is always smiley and always happy, but she posts things like, I don't eat babies, do you? So she just seems kind of like over-the-top self-righteous, right? Yeah. But the idea that a town could deny her citizenship for being annoying

for her personality, essentially, I just decided I've got to go find out what that's about and, like, meet this woman. So I flew into Zurich, and I rented a car. What I need to do? And I picked up my fixer and translator and a curber. Forward, I think is down here. Oh, here it is.

Okay. Let's have a road trip. And we headed out of town into the Swiss countryside. Okay, we just drove in a cornfield to pass a tractor. I think we're here. After about an hour, we got to the town where Nancy lives. called Gipfriq. Gipfrik?

Yep, a lot of Fs. What's, where is that? It's in the very north of Switzerland, and it's like this quaint little town. Oh, beautiful flowers. Look at that. It's surrounded by fields, but once you get in,

it's like these houses kind of packed together in these little tight, churny roads. Pretty shitty parking. Nancy lives in this pink four-story apartment, and I was, like, ready to meet, like, a militant vegan, essentially.

Like a grand provocateur or something. Yeah. But Kelly, hello. Hi. What's your dog's name? Bella. Hi, Bella. Instantly, she was just super warm, like incredibly warm.

Yes. That's it. She had this very, very shiny blue eye shadow on, long, brown, flowy hair. And she's never, ever not smiling. And here, I'm a beautiful home. So we walk into her apartment. The sun comes very good here in the house And I like it when it's

How do you say that? Bright. I don't know how you say that, yes. The walls are pink. There's a blue couch. This is the woman from my twin's daughters. She has three daughters. Yes.

And I have a white cat. His name is Crystal. So we settle in and we had actually taken off our shoes at this point. You're taking a picture of our feet? Yes, because I'm, I'm, I'm like a very a for bar foot life style,

not fetech. She is just a very strong advocate for barefoot walking. It's a feeling of freedom and it's healthy. So she takes pictures of her feet and post them to YouTube and Instagram, social media,

as part of one of her many campaigns to get people to walk around barefoot more often, which she herself does anytime it's warm. With the bicycle, And in the cafe, to go to shopping. Nice food.

Thank you. How is she making against me? What do you do for work? I work. I work as, hmm, now come the long list. The list is very long. So it starts off with model. She's a hair model.

Actress, writer. Freight journalist. Freightalte. I'm a spiritual learerer. And also a coach. An angel coach. Like spirits? Yeah, she takes people down to the rear.

outside her house and communicates with angels there and helps coach people through their lives using the help of angels. Wow. And you have what kinds of, do you know what kinds of crystals these are? Yes. They are my friends. They help me. So she has crystals on the window cell.

Rosent quartz. Yes. Rosenquat is good for the opening for the heart. And is that a crystal for the hamster? Ah, yeah, exactly, yeah. Teddy, his name is Teddy. Very long-haired hamster. It's an Angora.

Hamster. Who has an eye infection and a tumor. And here's a tumor. So she put the crystals inside the hamster cage to help with his tumor. I talk with the animals, Hollandish. Dutch? Yes. I'm Dutch.

So Nancy was born in Holland and when she was eight years old. My father and my mother have she had she'd her mom got divorced and just kind of up and took her to Switzerland. Put her in a van with a bunch of stuff and she took a nap in the car and when she woke up, her mom said, do you like it here? And she said, oh, the mountains are nice. And then her mom was like, great, because we live here now. And I, wow.

And Nancy says it was a rough transition. on the first school I couldn't speak any German at all and apparently this teacher asked her to open up a window I should the fence open and she was just like

Wait, what? And as a kid was relatively strong demopped also she was holanderine so she was mobbed at school a lot

for well first of all for being Dutch so they called her Dutch cheese She dressed differently Yeah Had a rather tough time

In the beginning in school So it was hard to fit in I was not so self-bewosed So she says she started to turn inward And keep to herself And even at home with her family I was either alone as kid In the family setting

She was not allowed to speak her mind I could not voice her opinions Or feelings Then would I just more She says even as a an adult, she just never really felt self-confident or like learned how to stand up for herself. But then she says in 2003, she was 29 years old. The self-verbustsine is by me come. I had an initial experience, a spiritual experience.

So she was living outside of Zurich and she already had a three-year-old daughter. She was pregnant with the twins. And she says she felt under a lot of pressure. to have an abortion. In fact, they were already sitting at the doctors, and she just had to sign a form. But all of a sudden, she said,

One night's sleep. Just let me sleep one night. And she says she stood up in that moment. There is at me, has click made off in her head. And I was the first time, must I for my kids and I'm upgustained and have me

And she said, no, I'm not going to do it. That's where she said she got the strength from to stand up for her kids and stand up for herself. That's when Nancy says all these things that she had felt all her life about barefoot walking and not eating meat and expressing a spiritual connection to the natural world. She had kept all those things inside of her. And now she was going to let them out. She was going to fight for them. And just a few years later, she moved to Gip Overfrick.

And as it then as well, we were then freedly out of her found I just here so nice. She fell in love with it. She said she's like never loved anywhere like this. And it's the most idyllic, beautiful place in the world. For all for my kids, but also for me, that I said, I'm going here. This is my home. Like, I'm staying here in part because living here,

she was just able to be so much closer to nature. She took us to the same. stream by her house and we walked through this cold wet grass and it was lightly raining and and as we're walking down this little embankment to put our feet in the water. So now you feel like how this whole thing is starting to work. Like you feel getting a little warm but you have like all these sensations throughout your body up to your mind. Like it's just really refreshinging.

And she was like, it's my she's like, it's regn't yet. But when the sun shines, this place is, it's my heaven on earth.

This place, her place of strength, the flowing water carries away all the worries and sorrows. And, yeah, gives her the strength that she needs.

And at this point, Nancy feels like she's found her voice and she's found her home. and she wants to make it official. Like, she wants to be Swiss because she just hadn't gotten her citizenship before. And, like, her kids are Swiss. She wants to be politically active. She wants to be able to vote.

And the process for citizenship in Switzerland is pretty intense. You have to do all these tests, like paperwork, language exam. But the final step for Nancy is that the town gets to vote, where literally the town is mailed little pamphlets. And those pamphlets have someone like Nancy Holt. and a little CV about her. So everyone in the town can read her basic biographical information, come to the town meeting on the set day at the school gymnasium,

and raise their hand for whether or not she gets to be Swiss. No kidding. And so at the end of the day, it's this very public kind of like consensus? Yeah. Wow. And that's where the trouble started, because Nancy had some ideas about how the town might be improved, starting with the church bells.

She says when she said when she moved into her apartment, she just noticed that the church bells in her town, the churchy the whole time, would ring really early in the morning and they'd wake her up. What do you say at 6 o'clock in the morning? 6 o'clock in the morning, that's heavy because then I'm waking up and I can't sleep with open, window in my sleeping room. So Nancy filed a formal complaint. And I have then a plea

letter to the municipality. Asking for it, you know, to stop, basically. The reason the bells ring in the morning, it's not really just about announcing time. There's actually a pretty long Christian tradition in the community. That is a prayer's uproof,

It's like it's a call for prayer, which she considers outdated. Nancy's like, look, I've got free religion and I do not want to be woken up in the morning to pray. So the local paper found out about Nancy's complaint. She basically told them about it. And when the article came out, that's when the town started talking. From the beginning, it was like, it was so much of gossip. I ended up going around the town and trying to talk to people about Nancy. It's like a pretty small town, like I think 3,000 people or so. And one of the people who agreed to talk to me was Andy.

My name is Andy, Andreas. I'm a Swiss German. I grew up in this village here. His family has actually been in Gip Oberfick. for three generations. I'm just right from here. And he told me that after the church bell article, people would be meeting up, you know, at the pub,

after a soccer practice or choir. And you have a beer and you start talking to each other. A little while later, you take another beer and opinions get a little bit stronger. You know what I mean. So I think there people would start talking about her and say, have you heard or have you read or have you seen? She doesn't like bells, clock bells.

in the morning, why does she rent an apartment beside the church? This is Ursula. Ursula Roth. I'm Swiss. I talked to her and her husband, Max. My name is Max. I have 64 and a half year. And some of their complaints, I honestly felt, were very reasonable.

If you decide to go to an apartment and you choose your apartment beside the street, don't wonder if they're cars. And if you decide to take your apartment besides the apartment, The church, don't wonder that they are bells. So the town was starting to, like, notice her and get mad at her, and people would yell things at her when she was biking. Oh, wow. So it became like, okay. I mean, partly because it wasn't just the church bells.

Nancy had been making noise about a lot of things. Here, in Gipf Obefrike, gives a tradition that one in the year mouss, swenze-swainze. So this tradition in Gipfriq. Like, for example, she had complained about. this one tradition where townspeople can bring mice tails to the town hall. Once a year, people can bring like the tails of mice to the town hall and you would get like one franc and 10 cents. Really?

Yeah. It's like population control? I think originally, yes. That goes back like 100 years, 150 years ago. Now it's a tradition. So Nancy went after that. Oh, what did she do? So she started to pretty.

procedure with like writing letters to the municipality and to all sorts of like animal rights groups. She got an article in the paper. At one point she showed me and there was this horrific bundle of tails as the image. Yeah. Oh wow. So Nancy's real thing more than the church bells is like animal activism. And in fact, just a little while after that church bell article came out. A week later, came then a journalist and had asked her, one of the reporters asked her, Are there are all the glockon,

or have they not other glockon not like church bells? Are there any other bells you don't like? And she said, As tier shudershutern, Q glockon. Well, yeah, cowbell. This is the healthy cowbell.

Literally, this is how it happened. Any other bells you don't like? With it. And then came the median vests world. I kicked the hornet's nest, and that's when it all happened. So it sounds like she's in a,

ever, ever graduated escalation of attacks on Swiss culture suddenly trips the big one. And there came a huge cheat storm. There's plenty of space. Now, I have to say I didn't totally get why cowbells would be the tipping point. And I mentioned this to Andy. The cowbells are an image of romantic feelings in Swiss culture. And he was like, here, I can show you. So we took a drive up into the hills around.

Gip Oberfrick with Andy and his daughter, Alyssa. Can you guys hear them? It was the end of the day. We parked the car. We had pulled into this long driveway leading to a farm. And we saw all these cows. And what very quickly became clear to me in that moment is that cowbells in Switzerland aren't just about postcards or what to sell in a gift shop or whatever.

So 31. 31 cows. I really like it here. The sunset, like there's the sun just touching all those fields. It's just beautiful. They really represent this particular way of life in Switzerland, an agrarian way of life, a rural, simpler, farming way of life. It's like the cowbell is attached to the Swiss version of the American heartland, like the Nebraska. a farmer.

You going to feed him some grass? Yeah. I don't know. And in Switzerland, for a lot of people, that feeling is connected to the cowbell. I think you know also. Heidi. Heidi, for example. It's a story about a Swiss girl growing up with her grandfather.

Let's have a race to the grandfather. In the Alps. Everything gets like... Well, well. Like the beautiful life. in the Alps and you drink milk and you've got red cheeks and the cowbells are there. It's some kind of a stereotype of a society where there are no problems, where everything is beautiful, where the sun is shining.

And please make every little boy and girl in the world as happy as I am. Amen. Heidi, Heidi, Dinah Veltz in to back. So when Nancy, like, launched an attack, that was a little bit. like, do you think it felt like it was like attacking people's sense of well-being? Absolutely, it's a declaration of war. If I'm coming to a foreign country, I first have to look how do they live, and then I have to make the choice, is that okay for me, or maybe it's not okay for me? If I'm coming in and tell you, you have to live like I think it's okay.

So it's a little bit strange. Yes. This is Ursula and Max again. People said, it's not okay that Nancy comes in and tells us how we have to do it. She's a foreign person and she will tell us how to live and that's not okay. Do you remember how you felt before your meeting? So people in the town are not happy about Nancy's Cal Bell stance. And in the midst of all this, the night of Nancy's citizenship meeting arrives.

that I didn't know what I today was. She's really, she's glad that she didn't know what she she didn't know then what she knows today. That was hardcore. Like the whole thing was hardcore as she describes it. You know, it takes

her an effort to go back to this particular night. So, I must just just a deep, the night of Nancy's citizenship meeting, she shows up at the school gymnasium. in the evening. There are rows and rows of folding chair set up, and there's one row in the back where the prospective citizens can sit. And so Nancy walks in, she sits in that back row.

And I'll say these meetings are usually like calm and pretty sparsely attended. There's like maybe 80 to 100 people. But this time there was twice that. Like the place was packed. And the first thing that happened is they go through some administrative stuff, like how much budget are we going to use to fix the road? Or like should we put a roof on the, the roller hockey rink. But then came the citizenship part of the meeting. I think they couldn't really control themselves. The townspeople just like kind of lost their cool. People like peasants, farmers, they would stand up and they would get angry and say, well, that's not right. We're against it. And the things that were said were really surprisingly

violent. They would get so emotional. I mean, the discourse was horrible. And the atmosphere was very hateful, was very loud, and no, we don't want. This is Herbert Mosch. I live here in Gipfobberfrick. I was astonished about the power of saying, no, we don't want. People were getting up, yelling, saying she doesn't belong here. For me, it was a shame. And he got up at one point to speak on her behalf.

I raised my hand, yeah, and then I spoke. and but it was, we did not have any chance. Then the one was, in the whole room, loud, stark, out, out, out, out, out, and apparently the whole room just started booing him. So, really, boo. In the whole room, boo. And Nancy is there for all of this, listening to everything people are saying, just sitting quietly in the back.

And it was then also very, very many arguments that under the girtle line going. At this point, And in the assembly, people started speaking out against Nancy, accuser of, you know, like, against mass-tieerhaltung, bringing veganism into Switzerland. She's against tradition. She's a against tradition. She's a terrible mother. The armen kids.

The poor kids. There's a lot of comments that, you know, are below the belt. That was insofar and slim, because my twinningsdicts are next to her. And this whole time, her daughters are sitting right there next to her. At this point, Nancy's asked to leave the room. She goes out with her daughters and stands behind these big double doors. And she waits. And then she hears applause.

Heard I then applause. By me was it ungeared. They have applauded because she had been rejected. Moment. Sorry. Having it so obviously, having a room full of people where the majority is really not on your side is really hard. That is, it's a, it's a very difficult, yeah. I should add that in addition to what went on in the room that night, there was actually a Facebook page that went up called Nancy Go Home.

And the cover photo is a field of cows with Nancy's face photo. Photoshopped on it and it's got a big circle and an X through it. And some of the comments on there were like, she should eat meat for once to come to her senses. In the old days, this bitch would have been chased away with a dung fork. Such women were burnt at the stake as witches. Coming up, Nancy fights back. Radio Lab will continue in a moment.

Hey there, this is Greg in Huntington Beach, California. Radio Lab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org. Chad, Robert. Radio Laugh. Okay, we're going to go back to the tale of Nancy Holton, who has just been flatly rejected for citizenship by her neighbors. Yeah.

So I assume that this is not the end of Nancy's tale. Uh, no. I mean, the meeting was like pretty awful for Nancy. I'm like, I'm like, But throughout this whole thing, you know, her daughters are super supportive. And at one point... My daughter had me said, Mama, you're like, you can't give up, Mom. You need to do this.

Then I've said, okay, then make it this. And what she did was she wrote to the Canton officials. The Canton is like the region. And she wrote to them asking for another try. And she sprayed the stationary with perfume. Vanilla Cocos perfume. It was vanilla. Coco. Cruelty-free vanilla perfume.

From body shop. Without tear, I don't do animal testings. To give it a little bit of her flare. And the response is good. They said, okay, you can try again. Did you think about stopping your campaigns against the specifically Swiss cowbells and church bells? I just feel like if it were me,

I would probably think, like, oh, there's so many ways to help animals. maybe I would try to choose one that doesn't cause so much friction in my community. Was that ever a thought? Like maybe something not about the cows and the churches? Never. She's like, as long as the animals need a voice, I'm going to continue. People in her family journalists would say, Nancy, keep it down. But for Nancy, she said that wouldn't be honest, that wouldn't be me.

and I don't want to crawl up someone's ass. How do you say that? Oh. How do I put this? Suck up. Yeah. And by this point... Nancy Holten from Gipf, Aberfrick, shriecht,

she doesn't conflict. The media had gotten hold of Nancy's story and things just took off. Nancy Holton... She just kept writing and posting about the Cowboys. and telling people they shouldn't eat meats. Ah, that's just there. And then, she also had she also

the cow glockoning wanted to do that gar-out-mack. And I use, just to be clear, I use this thing in order to reach even more at people. She got on TV protesting pig races. Erawatted Nentze Holtan and a dozen bit stride.

And the use of animals in circuses in Hortostoolewb in Nentze Holten, Since the press on the chiselings vanshe since the press was involved, everything changed. anywhere in Switzerland where you are, and you would say, give Fobberjigs. say, ah, there is Nancy Holtz. In all Switzerland. So along the way, all these articles about Nancy, they end up putting a spotlight on the town, too. Our village was seen from the outside as being seen, How does that make you feel? It's very difficult to hear that.

I think this was the anger that was formulated. At this point, Nancy goes in for her second vote. And this time, she actually bakes vegan gingerbread to give out around town. And the town rejects her again, which again kicks up the media. But Nancy Holton, the fruleg's slagzeil by, bis on Dutchland. time. A left wing Dutch woman has been denied a Swiss passport because she's too annoying. Nancy Holton. It goes international. And she even ends up being a joke on the bluff the listener test on wait, wait, wait, don't tell me. It's tough to get the Swiss to take a side. Even the Nazis

couldn't do it. But when it came to 42-year-old Nancy Holton, they couldn't help but take a stand. She's that annoying. How annoying? She's pain in the ass. as a person. Oh, sorry. Nice. Yeah, she can't be painting the ass. I think even... So when I was in the area, I stopped by a local newspaper.

And I met with this reporter, Najah, and an editor, Rolf. And of course, they knew all about Nancy Holton. The frenzy of the people and the, you know, the hatred that they had. It was kind of big. You know, there are readers in the valley of Frick, where he's coming from. They say, if they have to read, read one more story about her. I will cancel my subscription.

But it's a critical story. So the reason Rolf said it's a critical story is because it's not so much a story about whether Nancy is well liked or not, whether she's annoying or not. It's more about who gets to decide who can be Swiss

and who cannot. From, say, a U.S. perspective, it's maybe hard to kind of wrap your head around the fact that there's so much kind of local autonomy to make these kinds of decisions. but I think that there's just a very strong tradition in Switzerland that these, you know, are local matters and they should be dealt with in the local community. So this is Jens Heinz-Muehler. I'm a professor of political science here at Stanford University.

And he says that the whole question of towns voting on someone's citizenship was at that time a huge issue in Switzerland, and it still is. Yes. Yeah. Because like back in the early 2000s, there were more and more and more people immigrating from countries like Kosovo, Turkey, former Yugoslavia. And when that happened, people started noticing something. They were basically at the time some media reports about some seemingly discriminatory rejections. It looked like some towns were purposely rejecting immigrants from those countries. And in fact, in 2003, there was actually a court case in Swiss federal court because there was this town in central Switzerland and eight Italian applicants got in while 38 applicants from former Yugoslavia were rejected.

And the court looked at that case. And what they basically said is that under Swiss law, immigrants should have a right to appeal if they're rejected. Now, in order for you to make an appeal, you need to know, right, like why you were rejected. So the decision-making body, like, needs to provide some justification for why you're being rejected. Basically, they said the problem with these town votes is that people can vote yes or no for any reason they want. There's no way to tell why that person was rejected. And because it seemed like people who were getting rejected were mostly from Muslim. the majority countries.

There was a potential that certain immigrants might be rejected just based on their membership in a certain ethnic cultural group, which violates the anti-discrimination class in the Swiss constitutions. The court's way of solving this is to say that the towns have to justify their rejection. And if the person gets rejected, that person has to be able to appeal the decision. And so in the wake of that ruling, it became much more common to have politicians decide on those naturalization applications. and the naturalization rates actually went up quite dramatically.

A lot more people started getting citizenship. And it increased particularly for those applicants that basically faced the strongest discrimination under the direct democratic vote. And so what's happening now is that the question of towns voting on citizenship has gotten all tangled up in the issue of immigration. And there's actually this political party. The Farmers Party, the Baueren Party, SVP.

It's a very old, very rural party. Arguing basically that town should go back to voting on citizenship. Yes. This, by the way, is Lillia. Yeah, my name is Lydia Honziker. When we spoke, she was an elected representative in the region and head of the Immigration Support Group Integration Arau.

And she basically told me that the SVP, which has actually grown pretty dramatically the past couple decades, their big thing is immigration. People voting, right, parties, They fear the changes. They, I mean, they fear everything. And, I mean, when you see these campaigns, it's so clear and so easy to understand what they mean. Just as an example, a while back, the party was campaigning for this law they wanted to pass

where you could deport an immigrant who commits two crimes in 10 years. So they put out these posters and on the poster are three white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag, like literally kicking it off. And the party says that it's just meant to represent the black sheep of the family, you know, like a troublemaker. But I think it's, it's, it's, this, this black sheep is a black sheep, and it's not the black sheep of the family. It's the black sheep because it's black of color.

And I think it's a racist campaign. We got like that party from the right side of the political spectrum. And they're kind of strong here. They're very strong. Andy from Gip Oberfrick again. And every move against. direct democracy is perceived as a loss of control. Gip Oberfrick is actually one of the last towns in Switzerland still holding on to this town vote.

Swiss people feel a little bit like that fear of being invaded from everywhere. I think it's a fear of loss of culture. So knowing all that stuff, I kind of wasn't sure how to see Nancy's story. Like is Nancy's attempt to get citizenship? town shooting her down, is that part of that larger story? I just wasn't sure how to think about Nancy in that context until I met this one last person in Gipfrike. So I was talking to some people about Nancy and they said, oh, you want to hear about Nancy? Talk to that farmer down the hill. So I went down there. You drive down this hill, steep, steep hill to get to his farm. There's this really

old house and right next to it, a barn with cowbells hanging from it. And I came across him and his wife. They're sitting around this round plastic patio table and they're both wearing blue. He's in a worn t-shirt and he has got this white bristly mustache. They're both drinking a beer and they're like, yeah, come on down. So Anna and I sit down at the table. Could you introduce yourself? Rudy Zuliger. His name is Rudy Zuliger. Onderdorf, Kleibur, Pansion. He says he's retired with a small pension.

He's lived there for his whole life, multiple-generation farmer. Yeah, the father is here here 1937. His father bought his house. They moved here in like 1937. He remembers being a kid and the bombers flying over. He's like Swiss forever. That is one. One of the oldest houses here.

But nobody really knows how old. Apparently, already at the point, like about 200 years ago, when this became Switzerland, not Austria anymore, already then people didn't know how old the house was. And right next to the house, could we go to the horses? Is a barn. So we're looking at two horses, one of them is blonde. Both of them are blonde.

A lady and a valach. Where he keeps his horses. It's a horse is of his nephew, and his nephew is a butcher. And freights. Pointing out he's also bachelor. With the remark that, um, it's interesting. It's interesting. Bachelors never get children, but never go extinct.

Yeah. That's like town humor. That's village humor. So anyway, these horses are where Nancy comes in. Nancy helped. Because Nancy rides her bicycle down the little road by his house, barefoot, by the way.

She would cycle by and peek into the stable and check on the horses from the street. The way he's imitating her, it's like in a way that, you know, it's visible for them to see that she's peeking in

from the street. Nancy complained about the stable here, about that there wasn't enough light. She had two times. She came and made like a fast like a little loud bird. And then she pressed charges against him. Yeah.

A government that came by found everything was okay. But Nancy didn't give up. She kept on complaining. This was years ago now. And apparently she still comes by here twice a week. To get off her bike and make a little show of checking on his horses. And on that, he's just shaking his head. And on some level, it's like this is not all that surprising.

Like, that's what people say over and over again. She's so annoying. She just drives you crazy. But on the other hand, I feel like this is when I kind of realized the emotional impact of what Nancy was doing here. Like, I mean, for one thing, this guy has been working with horses on this land for decades. And not only that. A son of his is a vet. So he actually knows when there's something wrong with the animals, they're taking good care of.

In general, he says, yeah. And it was clear to me that. Nancy was really poking at something that was painful for him. It says it with a bit of a heavy heart that this type of farming, that's not sustainable. They'd hold their children, like, be good in school, get a proper job, do something else. And they all did. He used to have fields of cherry trees, and they would grow wheat, both for them to eat and to sell to people. They used to have cows as well, with small bells.

The cows would all graze on the hills around the farm. So when you, in the evening, start looking for them and getting good. and back into the stable. He'd find them by following the ringing of their bells. And... Sunday morning, every day of his life, he's woken up to the sound of the church bells. Or in the bad se shift,

oh, whee. That is home. Hearing those church bells in the distance. It's like, you know, it's a feeling of home that that sound releases to you. And now times are changing. Yeah. People employed by tax.

companies in the city are now moving out to the country to live there and just commute in. And everything's getting really, really expensive. They can't afford to farm anymore. They've leased out their land. This way of life is over. Yeah. And so there's this massive sense of palpable culture loss. Yeah.

People are coming in. It is changing the way he has lived his entire life. And that is sad. And it was clear that name. Nancy coming around to check on his horses, it was like, that was just one last insult. Then he would have no problem, he couldn't keep quiet, acted like an angry wasp. She had it really targeted, you know, like all the things that hurt. And so he didn't want her to become a Swiss citizen.

He would have definitely voted against her, but he felt like too angry to even go to the assembly. He was just like really, really. disgruntled with the entire town. So Gip Oberfrick is one of the last towns to do these town votes, but they don't have the final say anymore. Because of those court rulings I mentioned earlier, everyone has the right to appeal to government officials in the region, which, after being rejected by her neighbors, twice, is exactly what Nancy did. And she won. Against the town's will. naturalized by a ruling from the canton.

What did it feel like to get your citizenship? Elighterung. Great loss, a big feeling of relief. And only then realized how much it actually meant to her as well. And that sometimes you just really, really have to stick to your guns. Did this experience change the way you think about democracy? So the whole procedure made her slightly disappointed in democracy,

but also taught her a lesson, as she says. So today she would say democracy is power, and this power should be given to people who deal responsibly with it. And if they use this power on an emotional level, then so he should man this power should be taken away from them. And honestly, sitting there with Rudy... So he said, well, this is now what's democracy. I felt conflicted, because I understand why he wouldn't want Nancy to be a part of his town.

And I also kind of, I get why it would be painful to give up that kind of a choice. But then the conversation took a term. A lot of people have been naturalized in Gipfowbricka, he explains, often from like Kosovo, Bosnia, Serbia. Or Turkey. When one person gets naturalized, they would bring a partner. A woman or a man. From their home country.

And when the partner then comes and stays here five or ten years, years, then they will get that, like, they will get a Swiss passport too. And that's like this development. It gives him a little bit of a headache. Why a headache? Why a headache? Mentality is just different. Mentality is different.

In that moment, I realized that behind Nancy's story, behind this, this kind of clickbait tale of the woman, too, annoying to get citizenship. There are all kinds of things that are a lot harder to talk about, harder to separate out. There's a real loss. There's fear of a changing world and the promise of democracy, the promise that people could have a voice and a power, but also xenophobia, hostility. And all that made me think about the conversation I'd had with Latif, about his his family moving to Canada and, you know, him watching hockey, like all the things that his family tried to do to make a home in their new country.

Yeah. I'm wondering if you think that if your family had faced more outright hostility. Yeah. Do you think they would have, you know, bought in on the club as much? Yeah. Like, I think we certainly, like, I think there were certainly dark times for my parents where people would call them Packies all the time. And yeah, I'm sure they didn't get jobs.

And I'm sure they didn't get jobs. Yeah. Yeah. Certainly, yeah. And they bought in anyway? Yeah, they did. Like, I think it was, in part because it was like, oh, okay, this is the only place that took us. Like, we got to really make good here.

It's not like we have any other options. But I do think, like, I do think, like, I think my parents felt a lot of, probably felt a lot of pressure to conform in some way. Like, like being the first, you know, immigrant generation who maybe you still have a trace of an accent. maybe because of the food you eat, you still smell a little different. I'm sure that generation, usually that first generation, is like super sensitive about those things. And like, basically comes at it like, oh, I'm going to be the most Canadian, like more Canadian than any Canadian. Yeah. It's almost to the degree of like erasing, you know, you're like, oh, okay, like forget that I came from another place.

Like, let's just erase all of that. Yeah. And I think about that and how assimilation to me has always seemed like a sad word. like a giving up of something to be somewhere, you know? Yeah. But at the same time as that sits in my mind, I think about, okay, what if lots of Lutifs immigrate to Canada. Yeah. And they all think, like, wow, thank you so much.

Hockey's not for us. And now suddenly hockey is no longer the thing that holds social capital. And in some way, Canadian identity loses that thing. And now it's also feels sad. Hubbadi or some Indian sport or something. Yeah. know where to put that. Yeah, like, I get that, I get that feeling, like, where you're like, oh, like, this is a thing that I love. And all of a sudden now there are people here who don't love

the thing that I love. And my love is being diluted or like my, or like, or, or, or even potentially supplanted. And that, like, I think that's a fair thing to feel. Um, there's also a way to like to sell it, you know, like, it's like, okay, like, let's get some Indian kids in the NHI. I remember, there was this guy Mani Malhotra Hold on, is he still in the NHL? I was like obsessed with Mani Malhotra. He was like an Indian, Canadian guy

who was like a hockey player and I was like, oh yeah, cool. Like if he's in there, like I can start to feel my way into it. And I think it's just a matter of like, sell it, like share with me why you think this is so great and let me have some purchase in it, you know?

And then all of a sudden like, like I'm going to love it. Like I will. Yeah, so we did a lot of work on trying to figure out, well, what happens to people if they get citizenship. In some way, Let's-Fev's story speaks to something that Jens Heinzheimer told me, that really kind of flipped the way that I was thinking about citizenship. Folks who, you know, got Swiss citizenship compared to those who didn't, they're much more likely to know important facts about Switzerland.

They're much more likely to read Swiss as opposed to home country, newspapers. is showing that the orientation has really moved towards kind of Switzerland and being informed about what's going on. They even report less discrimination. You know, taken together, I think this really suggests that the citizenship, it's not, as some people argue, the end point of integration. It's not like the crowning achievement of an integration process and people work very hard to become citizens and then kind of ends there.

It's more that the citizenship itself can be an important catalyst that kind of facilitates the social, political and economic integration. So I visited Nancy on the day she was going to vote for the first time as a Swiss citizen. She kept saying how nervous she was. She kept going like my heart's going. And I wish I had this on tape, but I was not allowed to record in the meeting. So I had just parked the car. And just as I parked the car and was getting out at the meeting,

Nancy rode up on her bike. And she had been talking all day about how she didn't wear shoes. And I saw that she was wearing shoes. And they were sparkly, sequin-y, silver shoes. And I was like, why are you wearing shoes here? And she said, it's my first meeting as a citizen. And I just really want to make a good impression. Oh, wow.

And it was just so interesting that the more she was rejected, the more she was like, no shoes, no cowbells. Like, I am Nancy. And the second she has accepted. She wears shoes. She starts to compromise. There was a like, so that maybe one of the quintessential Canadian food

is really a Quebecua food, but a Canadian food is Putin, right? I love Putin. So there's a putteen place. It's like a chain. I think it's called like Greg's Poutine or whatever it is. In Toronto. It's the most Canadian. I know.

And so Greg's Poutine. Poutine on the menu, if I'm remembering last time I went, it has like a chicken ticca masala Poutine or something. Like you're like, oh, awesome. Like, that's cool. Like, yeah, like, let's do it both ways. Let's like mash this up. And now we're all living in the same place, you know?

Oh, my heart is getting physically warm. It's like the most hopeful putteen metaphor I've ever come across. That story was reported by Kelly Prime, produced by Kelly McKeown. Big thanks to Latta Fnasar, of course. And a huge thank you to reporter Anna Mayumi Kerber. So you mean Anna Mayobi Kerber? That's who I mean, yes. She went around and arranged everything and translated for this story.

Also to Dominic Handgardner, who works in the garden. using his hands, as a reporter. And, of course, to our yodlers, Ali Deneen and Gregory Corbino. Well, I guess we should yodel out of here.

Yeah, let's do it. I'm Chad Ibram Ron. I'm Robert Krollwitch. Thanks for listening. I feel so honored. Got to do it. To play the message, press two. Start of message.

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