The Minneapolis City Council is scheduled to vote on Friday April 25 on a proposal to change that October holiday from Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day. Here are five reasons they should vote yes:1) Setting history straighter: Celebrating Columbus Day reduces history to a simple-minded story, and one that’s wrong on a lot of counts. He “discovered America?” Not exactly — there were already plenty of people living in the Americas. As Bill Means told MPR:”We had been edited out of existence in the public school system. Continue Reading
Next summer, a new marketplace will open on Franklin Avenue and will bring art, food, and music to a very unlikely location – the median between Cedar Avenue and S. 17th Avenue.The project is the result of a $435,000 ArtPlace grant and the work of the Native American Community Development Institute. NACDI Vice President Andy Hestness explained at a recent project unveiling that the Anpetu Was’te Cultural Arts Market is designed to bring the Ventura Village and Seward neighborhoods together and create a pedestrian-friendly roadway, something that the presence of a light rail station has not been able to do on its own. He commented, “People originally thought that plopping the light rail here would create a new paradigm. We’ve been waiting for years for this to happen, and it never did. We finally decided that we were going to do it ourselves, since no one was going to do it for us.”Jay Bad Heart Bull, NACDI president, explained that for the light rail to be strong and successful, there needs to be a strong pedestrian presence. Continue Reading
A high profile walk-out by Native American students in the Minneapolis South High All Nations program and supportive members of the wider South High community focused attention on the program last spring. This fall, things are going better at South High, according to two All Nations students.All Nations was established in 1989 in order to provide an American Indian focused program within the larger confines of South High. It’s is a citywide program, meaning students from across the Minneapolis school district can enroll in it. This year, there are 132 students in the program.This is one of a three-part series on the Indian Education program in Minneapolis Public Schools. Part one and part two focus on elementary education. Continue Reading
The road weeps, the well runs dry, a tale of spirituality, slavery, and relationships, filled with powerful scenes examining identity and other issues relevant to our lives today, is coming this fall to Pillsbury House Theatre. Minneapolis is one of four U.S. venues for this historical fiction drama by poet and playwright Marcus Gardley.This play—opening September 27—is the second part of a trilogy by Gardley, who was awarded the PEN/Laura Pels award in 2011 as a Mid-Career Playwright; Gardley is a visiting lecturer in playwriting at Brown University. At a Pillsbury House preview event on August 23, Gardley said, “I feel like this play found me. It is a mixture of Seminole stories, Biblical values, and family interactions.”The people of the story, represented by 11 cast members, are the survivors of slavery and revolts who came and settled in Wewoka, the first all-black town in Oklahoma. The community comprised freemen—the term used in the historical setting for black Native Americans, who in this second segment of the story find their beliefs and relationships with each other put to the test when new and old religions collide head-to-head. Continue Reading
Tan, rust, brick and mortar walls stand tall in the historic south Minneapolis building where Dog Soldier MMA lies tucked away. Peer into former stable windows and you can see into a world within a world where learning to stand tall is about much more than physical fitness. Vaughn Lodge opened Dog Soldier MMA in March 2013, but the story started long before, in Little Earth. Little Earth is an urban housing complex in south Minneapolis which provides affordable housing with Native preference. Over a year ago, tension was building among different groups within the Native Community. Lodge remembers, “People were coming to me and saying my daughter has been attacked, or my granddaughter has been sold into the sex trade…and for me it was like, what can I do to make a difference? What can I do to make a difference?” It didn’t take long for Lodge to decide—He had years of experience in mixed martial arts and knew that this was something he could share, something that would help. He volunteered to teach self defense classes at Little Earth and, from there, the classes blossomed into a structured, disciplined program for more than fifty young people. Lodge realized he wanted to do this full time: to open a gym, but keep it community based. A friend told him to check out the Plan it! entrepreneur training program happening at BiiGiiWiin in partnership with NDC. BiiGiiWiin is a branch of the American Indian Community Development Corporation. Lodge applied and shared his idea: “We come from a warrior culture where, culturally, we fight. We fight all the time. You go to a reservation, trust me, you’ll see fights—all the time.” Lodge wanted to deconstruct the modern trends that commercialize gangsterism and objectify women. “How do we change that back to our traditional values?” asked Lodge. Thus came Dog Soldier MMA. Dog Soldier was actually a Cheyenne warrior society from the plains, “They were the most feared warriors in all the plains…because they had a code,” Lodge stated. BiiGiiWiin and NDC welcomed Lodge into the Plan it! program. He learned fast, developed a business plan and found a location to lease. With NDC’s help he accessed pro bono legal assistance to review his lease and worked with his landlord to convert the space into a gym. He now has three different payment plans for classes offered twice a day. Dog Soldier MMA is growing but Lodge has not forgotten his roots. He continues to waive tuition for his high school students who cannot pay on the condition that they maintain a 2.5 GPA, 80% attendance and complete 20 hours of verifiable community service. “It’s a fine balance between what you give the community and then what you take for yourself,” Lodge noted. Lodge is learning to manage the balance well! Continue Reading
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) is losing its Associate Curator of Native American Art, Joe Horse Capture, to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, MPR News reported last week. TCDP’s lengthy list of articles on Joe Horse Capture is a testament to his community involvement and contributions to the art community; as MPR put it, “The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is losing a great curator.”Horse Capture has been at the MIA since 1997, helping to raise the profile of Native American art in the state. In 2010, the TCDP reported that he helped bring “Art of the Native Americans: The Thaw Collection” to the MIA for three months; the collection houses “some of the most beautiful works of North American Indian art.” He also acquired several important pieces for the MIA’s own collection–including a 300-year-old shirt that was possibly created by a Dakota woman in Minnesota. Horse Capture was behind an MIA youth outreach program called “The Young People’s Ofrenda Project”, a partnership with local schools that showcases student work within the Mexican tradition of Dia de los Muertos. “The diversity of impact on young people is really evident in this project,” he told Sheila Regan in 2012. Last month, Horse Capture appeared on First Person Radio to discuss Native American museum curators and art at the MIA. Continue Reading
Welcome to the second stop on our Around the World in the Twin Cities tour! From Mexico, we head down to Ecuador to try llapingachos, ceviche, and encocado at Chimborazo.Llapingachos (pronounced ya-ping-ga-chos), or potato pancakes stuffed with cheese, are one of the most famous Ecuadorian dishes and are representative of the highlands region, where Chimborazo owner/chef Marcos Pinguil was born. The llapingachos con chorizo are Pinguil’s personal favorite on the menu. These potato pancakes are served with rice, chorizo, fried egg, and peanut sauce, but you can also get llapingachos as an appetizer or side dish. While many people associate potatoes with Irish fare, the first potatoes were actually cultivated by the Inca people in South America. Continue Reading
