Not because anything dramatic happens. Actually, it's quite the opposite.

Everybody just looks… totally normal.

American families wandering around, kids in strollers, teenagers hanging out, middle-aged dads wearing super aggressive 90s shorts, and women still sporting big hair.

You see Americans eating at the food court and looking with wonder at this enormous new temple of shopping that had just opened its doors.

That was the Mall of America in 1992.

At the time, it was practically a monument to American consumer culture. Bigger, brighter, louder, and more over-the-top than anything we'd ever seen at the time.

And looking back at this opening-day footage today, what jumps out isn't just the goofy clothes, hairstyles, or the wonderfully hideous early-'90s décor.

It's the people…

The crowd looks like the "Midwest America" most people remember from that time.

Now, fast-forward a few decades later, and the same mall tells a very different story.

The shorts and big hair are gone, replaced by long black burkas.

Minnesota has changed so much over 30 years, including the arrival and huge boom of the Somali and East African populations. And when you watch recent footage from inside the Mall of America, that transformation is painful and impossible to miss.

When a landmark as recognizable as the Mall of America changes so much within one lifetime, people are going to ask what the hell happened and how it could happen that quickly. And what it also says about other transformations happening in American cities.

Especially now. Because across the West, immigration is changing neighborhoods, schools, shopping districts, and entire cultures at an alarming pace that would've been almost impossible to imagine 30 or 40 years ago.

And Minnesota has become one of the scariest American examples of that transformation.

Today, if you walk through the Mall of America, you won't see a bunch of average-looking Midwest Americans. Now, you'll see a flock of black burqas and Somali men and children.