WHAT’S NEW IN THE COMMUNITY: Sept 2017
Dr. Arne Vainio named Physician of the Year Dr. Arne Vainio, M.D. (Mille Lacs Ojibwe) was named Physician of the Year by the Association of American Indian Physicians at its 46th annual conference on July 28 in Shawnee, Okla. Vainio completed his undergraduate studies in 1990 at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, and graduated in 1994 […]
Indian Land Capital Co. helps tribes reclaim ancestral land
By Lee Egerstrom An unusual finance company based in the St. Paul suburb of Little Canada is playing a big role in helping tribes repurchase ancestral lands that should never have been sold or taken away. The Indian Land Capital Co.(ILCC) is legally a for-profit venture owned by two nonprofit organizations, the Indian Land Tenure Foundation […]
Olympic-style ski jump plans in works for PIIC
By Lee Egerstrom The Prairie Island Indian Community (PIIC) is in negotiations with the Friends of American Ski Jumping organization over plans by the latter group to build an Olympic-style ski jump on the Community’s Mount Frontenac near Red Wing. Ski jump enthusiasts and Red Wing area boosters have been raising money from private sources for […]
PASSING ON: August 2017
Brittany Renae Olson July 3, 1991 – June 30, 2017 Brittany Renae Olson, WANKATIYA OKINYAN WINYAN, meaning Soars High Above Them Woman, age 25 of Redwood Falls passed away Friday, June 30, 2017 as the result of a motor vehicle accident. Memorial services were held at St. Cornelia’s Guild Hall at the Lower Sioux. Brittany […]
The need for organ donors affects everyone
Trinidad Flores was a leader. In the American Indian community of Little Earth in Minneapolis, Trinidad was widely known and highly respected. He played football, baseball and basketball. If there was a program in the community, Trinidad was involved. He circulated a petition to save the community’s Ojibwe language class. He was a role model, a […]
Native Caucus = Strength in Numbers
By Lee Egerstrom From winning state bonding funds for redesign and improvements for the Minneapolis American Indian Center to preserving funding for Indian education programs, the newly-formed Native Caucus in the Minnesota Legislature is showing again there is strength in numbers. Voters in the last election added two more Native Americans to the Minnesota House of […]
Farm Bill important to Indian Country
By Lee Egerstrom The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (SMSC) is reminding Indian Country that it needs to work with Congress and naturally allied groups to support programs that cover the entire food chain, from producers to consumers, who are all bunched together under what is called “the farm bill.” Two researchers with the Indigenous Food and […]
Courts, Pipelines and Liabilities: Minnesota may want to take note
By Winona LaDuke “We applaud the courts for protecting our laws and regulations from undue political influence, and will ask the Court to shut down pipeline operations immediately.” – Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II For the past two weeks, Minnesotans and tribal members have packed Department of Commerce meetings on the Draft Environmental […]
Cherokee artists denounce Jimmie Durham as a fraud
BY BRIAN BOUCHER/NEW.ARTNET Hot on the heels of the opening of Jimmie Durham’s touring retrospective at the Walker Art Center, 10 Cherokee artists, curators, and other professionals have published a forceful editorial disputing the artist’s Native American heritage. Durham has long claimed to be Cherokee, was involved with the American Indian Movement in the 1970s, and has […]
Mankato hangings an uneasy topic for MN schools
By SOLVEJG WASTVEDT/MPR NEWS It’s a troubling piece of Minnesota’s past: Thirty-eight Dakota men hanged from a Mankato gallows in December 1862. Their deaths scarred generations of Native people and cemented Minnesota as home to the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Despite that infamy, if you’re a Minnesotan in your 30s or older, it’s […]
Red Lake housing project in Mpls to house elders, wellness center
By LEE EGERSTROM The city of Minneapolis has approved more than $2.7 million from its Affordable Housing Trust Fund to assist the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe in launching its Mino-bimaadiziwin housing project on the edge of the American Indian Cultural Corridor in South Minneapolis. The Red Lake Band announced in July last year it had purchased […]
First Person Productions Goes Entrepreneurial
By Lee Egerstrom A multimedia training program for Native American youth in the Twin Cities is taking a large step forward and becoming a competitive media production company serving a variety of clients in the metro area. Since the beginning of this year, First Person Productions is attempting to be a self-sustaining and competitive multimedia production […]