Franklin Avenue, a Past and Future Native Home: An Interview with NACDI’s Andy Hestness

By |

[Image at right: Rendering of the coming Anpetu Was’te cultural market on Franklin Avenue.] Franklin Avenue was once the border of Minneapolis, marking the edge of the city. Before that it was home to the Dakota people, and since the 1950’s post-“relocation era”, it is the site of the Little Earth community, the country’s only Indian-preference affordable housing site. But Franklin Avenue, which is controlled by Hennepin County, is also one of the most danerously designed streets in the city, home to a disproportionate amount of bicycle and pedestrian accidents. In particular, the corner of Franklin, Riverside, and Hiawatha, around the light rail station, has long been a dark, unpleasant place for people to walk and divded communities around. Transforming Franklin from a dangerous eyesore into a welcoming home for the surrounding Native community is one of the top priorities for Andy Hestness, vice president of the Native American Community Development Institute (NACDI), which runs the All My Relations gallery on Franklin Avenue and works as an intermediary for the Twin Cities Native Amerian people. We caught up with him last week to talk about how Native American’s are starting to challenge and transform how sideawlks, buses, and bikes work in and around Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis’ most neglected busy street. Continue Reading

Modern Spirit: The Art of George Morrison

By |

April 17 marks the passing of Minnesota artist George Morrison (1919-2000) 15 years ago. Seeing the exhibition Modern Spirit: The Art of George Morrison on view through April 26 at the Minnesota History Center in Saint Paul, reinforces his powerful, although under-recognized, voice in the aesthetic arch of 20th century art. Comprising some 80 works, Modern Spirit makes relevant the deep well of ideas that Morrison explored and refined over a six-decade career.The Minnesota Museum of American Art (MMAA) in Saint Paul, and Arts Midwest, Minneapolis, organized Modern Spirit, and much of the work is from the museum’s collection. W. Jackson Rushing III, the Eugene B. Adkins Presidential Professor of Art History and Mary Lou Milner Carver Chair in Native American Art at the University of Oklahoma nimbly curated Morrison’s paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture into an evocative, comprehensive whole. This is the final leg in a five museum-tour that began in June 2013 at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND.Morrison’s life is a peripatic journey that takes him from Minnesota to New York City to France and back again. Continue Reading

Learning in traditional ways from Native children’s literature

By |

n Ojibwe tradition, as well as in all other Native cultures that I know of, womanhood from birth until the return to the spirit world is a sacred state, honored and respected. Countless generations of storytelling, combined with observation and experience, are the foundation of Ojibwe teaching and learning. For girls, this has been intertwined with preparation for the passages of the female life; the words themselves, ikwe for woman and kwesens (“small woman”) for girl, indicate a meaningful seamlessness in the cosmology of tribal womanhood. The position of Ojibwe woman is equal in status and power to that of Ojibwe men; this concept is so basic to our worldview that it is rarely even stated. Many Native women feel that our cultural role, including our gifts and resulting obligations, is beyond the constructs of majority American feminism, that “indigenous feminism” as defined by majority feminists is not empowering and inclusive so much as simply missing the point. We are Native women; our culture honors womanhood. The students in the American Indian Women course that I teach, both Native and non-Native, have sometimes struggled to understand (and to reconcile with some preconceived stereotypes) the manifestations of female power and position in cultures unfamiliar to them. As their teacher – a storyteller and an older Ojibwe woman – I thought that they might find it helpful to apply their own experience and knowledge to their questions by stepping back to their childhood days through an examination of Native children’s literature. Diverse though our experiences may be, we were all children once, and I believe that reading children’s literature helps us to see and learn through the lens of that commonality. Continue Reading

The Art of Resistance

By |

Art is powerful. For Indigenous communities, art is medicine with incredible healing properties. It is a way to create beauty in the messy process of decolonization. It is also a means to educate, inspire and enliven Indigenous activist movements.Minneapolis is no stranger to Indigenous activism, so the “Art of Resistance” exhibition opening on the American Indian Cultural Corridor’s All My Relations Gallery complemented the rich activist history in the Twin Cities. The traveling exhibit reflect over 30 years of environmental justice work of Honor the Earth, a national Native-led organization based in White Earth, Minn. Continue Reading

Growing the Herb: Marijuana and Indian Country

By |

“I think that decriminalizing recreational use would benefit our people greatly since so many of us use it and many have been incarcerated for possessing it. The tribes certainly could gain by better controlling how it exists within our communities as well as financially with sales and possible taxation … We have retained aboriginal rights to utilize medicines within our communities the way we see fit.”Martin Reinhardt, Professor at Northern Michigan UniversityIt’s time to reconsider the regulation of marijuana and hemp. With the Pineole Pomo Tribe of California initiating the first tribal commercial marijuana grow operation and the Department of Justice’s announcement that it would not prosecute for marijuana or hemp, the door has been opened to look at the regulatory scheme. This December, Justice Department Director Monty Wilkinson announced, “The eight priorities in the Cole memorandum will guide United States Attorneys’ marijuana enforcement efforts in Indian Country, including in the event that sovereign Indian nations seek to legalize the cultivation or use of marijuana in Indian Country.”In turn, the Pomo tribe, which is located in Mendicino County, one of the largest marijuana growing counties in the country, announced a commercial venture with two partners, Colorado-based United Cannabis and Kansas-based FoxBarry Farms. The 250-member tribe announced that it will grow thousands of plants for the medical marijuana business on its 99-acre reservation.What’s the catch? There are a lot of them, especially in any states which have not yet legalized marijuana. Continue Reading

“Coyote Dreams” in Dark Fairy Tales

By |

Julie Buffalohead’s coyotes are more domesticated than the ones from the early Native American trickster tales. The first generations of coyote tricksters were wily firebrands — sometimes heroes, sometimes fools, and almost always males. In her first mid-career retrospective, Coyote Dreams at the Minnesota Museum of American Art, Buffalohead’s gang of woodland creatures float against pink and red backgrounds, wear skirts, eat freshly baked cookies, and hold umbrellas over dead bunnies. The mythological, human, and pop culture figures that inhabit her charming world challenge racial stereotypes while nurturing the tradition of storytelling.Visual narrative (like any good narrative) tells at least two stories — the tale on the surface and the one lurking in its depths. In a majority of Buffalohead’s works on paper, however, those layers of story are inverted. Continue Reading

Event Honors Native American Women

By |

“I just don’t want to see Native American women feel invisible anymore,” said White Earth band of Ojibwe activist Winona LaDuke An event at the  Woman’s Club of Minneapolis made sure that Native women did not feel invisible. A panel discussion and musical event featuring Eve Ensler, Winona LaDuke, Louise Erdrich, Patina Clark  and Chastity Brown highlighted some of the main issues facing Native American women today, including sexual and domestic violence. Eve Ensler, author of the Vagina Monologues and the founder of One Billion Rising, a global campaign where people come together and dance to celebrate. Their name reflects a statistic that 1 in 3 women across the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. In other words, that is one billion women and girls. Their website, onebillionrising.org, says, “We rise through dance to express joy and community and celebrate the fact that we have not been defeated by this violence. We rise to show we are determined to create a new kind of consciousness – one where violence will be resisted until it is unthinkable.” LaDuke envisioned Tuesday’s event. Continue Reading

Minneapolis Marchers Honor Indigenous Women

By |

On February 14, a group of Indigenous men and women in red shawls and colorful robes marched down Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis, undaunted by the cold weather. About a hundred participants gathered to remember of the lost members of their community. The Annual Women’s Memorial March is held each year on Valentine’s day in Canada. It calls for the awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) across Canada and the United States. Sponsored by The Indigenous Women’s Net, Native Lives Matter Coalition and Idle No More Minnesota, Women’s Memorial March aims to bring awareness to the colonial and gender based violence upon indigenous women from North America. This is the first time it was held here in the Twin Cities with title Sing Our Rivers Red. Continue Reading

Who are heroes and to whom? An Indigenous perspective on Columbus

By |

Last month, October 13, 2014, it was my pleasure to participate in a celebration at the Minneapolis American Indian Center. The occasion was the resolution passed by the Minneapolis City Council to have as a co-name, “Indigenous Peoples Day,” for what white U.S. society has celebrated as Columbus Day.This is a Community Voices submission and is moderated but not edited. The opinions expressed by Community Voices contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the TC Daily Planet.Why do I rejoice at this name change? Columbus may have been a hero to U.S. Euro-Americans, particularly to Italian-Americans, however, Columbus is not a hero to not only the Indigenous Peoples of the U.S., but also to the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas. Columbus used dogs trained to disembowel Native peoples when they fled. Continue Reading

Minneapolis sinks Columbus Day

By |

Today Minneapolis joins a short list of cities no longer recognizing the second Monday of October as Columbus Day.Earlier this year, the Minneapolis City Council and Mayor Betsy Hodges signed a resolution recognizing the second Monday of October as Indigenous People’s Day. The decision places Minneapolis as just the fourth city behind Seattle, Berkley and Los Angeles to replace Columbus Day with an American Indian celebration.“The City of Minneapolis understands that in order to help close the equity gap, government entities, organizations and other public institutions should change their policies and practices to better reflect the experiences of American Indian people and uplift our country’s Indigenous roots, history, and contributions,” the city’s resolution states.Idle No More Duluth organizer Reyna Crow said she first heard of Indigenous People’s Day in the ‘90s. “I think that [Columbus Day] is an insult to not only Indigenous people, but all people of conscience who believe we need to tell our children the truth that a federal holiday celebrating a trafficker and torturer of women and children, and a murderer still exists,” she said.Crow said she plans to celebrate by attending Augsburg College’s event I am Not a Mascot, which will feature a panel discussion focusing on issues of concern to the Indigenous people of Minnesota, their allies, and a musical performance.“The event is being held to educate and network with people interested in, or organizing around a variety of issues with a common link, and to promote greater cross cultural understanding of the concerns that those of us working to confront racism and racial inequities are dealing with that might not be obvious to all audiences” Crow said.At the Minneapolis American Indian Center, the city is holding a community meal from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. with indigenous foods from throughout North and South America provided by Native chefs Sean Sherman and Cheo Smith, a film screening, community speakers and cultural performances.Celebrations broke out over the weekend as well.Felipe Cuauhtli hosted Indigenous People’s Day Hip Hop Showcase at First Avenue on Sunday, Oct. 12. The event was originally known as Anti-Columbus Day, Cuauhtli said, but they changed its name in order to reflect the resolutions passing in Minneapolis. “The reason for doing this is to talk about colonization and how colonization has effected not just native communities,” Cuauhtli said. Continue Reading