Indigenous

As loyal Minnesota Women’s Press readers are aware, we have been actively covering the stories of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR). We included our first Transforming Justice alert in June encouraging readers to engage with the issue of legislative budget for an MMIR office to be established.

The value of comprehensive data collection

Lead for Minnesota is a program that recruits, trains, and places recent college graduates around the state into two-year paid fellowships in or near their home community. There are currently 24 fellows in the 2020 class placed around Minnesota. Here are two of them.

“Being able to ride the bus and see graffiti I knew was done by my friends that acknowledged our existence — this reminder to everyone that these buildings we are writing on are built on our land due to decades of genocide and forced attempts at assimilation — that was healing and empowering.”

“We are all related, and that is how we will rebuild.”

I did not feel vindicated that my testimony was proven correct but a deep sadness that what was foretold has come to be.

I felt I had no choice but to address the violence that has for too long destroyed so many families in Minnesota and across Turtle Island.

“If we do not move past the dysfunction in our communities, there will continue to be victimization.”

I do not want to keep having marches to remember these beautiful women and relatives because something awful happened to them. We have to be proactive.

“To fix over 500 years of trauma and its impact, we need everyone.”

Policies are good, but educating about the perception of Native women in society needs to happen.

There were between 27 and 54 actively missing American Indian women and girls in Minnesota
in any given month from 2012 to 2020.