Copies available at the Library Front Desk Discussion led by: CK Van Dam, SD author, and SD Humanities Scholar. The Cost of Free Land Is 2025 One Book South Dakota Growing up, Rebecca Clarren only knew the major plot points of her tenacious immigrant family’s origins. Her great-great-grandparents, the Sinykins, and their six children fled antisemitism in Russia and arrived in the United States at the turn of the 20th century, ultimately settling on a 160-acre homestead in South Dakota. Over the next few decades, despite tough years on a merciless prairie and multiple setbacks, the Sinykins became an American immigrant success story. This program was made possible by a grant from the South Dakota Humanities Council, an affiliate program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.