NSS Weekly: A Living History in Minnesota’s Cultural Corridors

Transcript

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INTRO: You are listening to North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live, a newscast about what it means to live in Minnesota, produced by AMPERS, with support from the McKnight Foundation and the State of Minnesota.

HOST: This is North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live.

VICTOR PALOMINO: I'm Victor Palomino.

BRITT AAMODT: And I'm Britt Aamodt. Minnesota's cultural diversity is a blend of experiences from around the world. This week, we're dedicating the program to these cultures by exploring some of the corridors that reflect the Twin Cities' rich multiculturalism.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Then we head to central Minnesota to look at a landmark that has held Ojibwe history for decades.

BRITT AAMODT: But first, North Star Stories reporter Xan Holston with some of the stories that made headlines this week.

XAN HOLSTON: The Fond du Lac Band is expanding healthcare services in Duluth. The more than 33,000 square foot space will give the center more room for clinic care and public health work for Native patients in Duluth and the region. The expansion is expected to open in 2028.

Construction is also moving ahead on a new housing development in Thief River Falls. A city housing study found rental availability is less than 1% and the area has jobs to offer, but few housing options for workers. Thief River Falls says the 65-unit apartment development uses public and private money and is expected to open next summer.

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A free speech fight over science and politics is now headed to federal court. Two former biologists at the Environmental Protection Agency's Great Lakes Research Lab in Duluth are among seven ex-EPA scientists suing the agency. They say they were fired for signing a public dissent letter last year criticizing politicization, research cuts, and a culture of fear at the agency.

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Money from one of Minnesota's biggest pollution settlements is now going into parks, streams, fishing areas, and habitat in the East Metro. The state is now able to spend an additional $20 million from its 2018 settlement with 3M for its PFAs contamination. PFAs are so called forever chemicals, because they never break down and contaminate water, soil, and fish. Minnesota sued Maplewood-based 3M in 2010 saying the company's disposal of those chemicals damaged drinking water and natural resources in the East Metro. 3M agreed to pay $850 million in 2018 without admitting liability.

For farmers along Minnesota's Iowa border, some of the steadiest income now comes from the wind. The Freeborn Wind Project is a wind farm spread across farm fields in Freeborn County, near Albert Lea, with part of the project just across the state line in northern Iowa. Federal energy data shows wind now generates about a quarter of Minnesota's electricity. For farmers, the project means income. Xcel Energy is paying tens of millions of dollars to farmers and landowners to build the wind turbines over the life of the Freeborn project. Farmer Bill Gillen says some neighbors were worried when the turbines were first proposed, but nearly all the land can still be used for farming.

BILL GILLEN: When we built this project here, there's a lot of people thought the world was going to come to an end. It was not the monster that a lot of people like to make it out to be.

XAN HOLSTON: Gillen says the turbines give farmers a steady paycheck that doesn't depend on rain or crop prices. Thanks to our news gathering partners at Public News Service.

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In Rochester, nearly 100 workers are wondering about their jobs as city leaders make changes to its public transportation system. City leaders made official changes to who runs the day-to-day operations of Rochester Public Transit, as the city builds a long-term growth plan to include rapid bus transit. The current operator notified the state that 84 Rochester workers could be affected when its local operations end in late August. When Rochester started the planning process last fall, transit and parking director Rachel Fautsch said the focus was to put people first as the city expands its public transportation options.

RACHEL FAUTSCH: Transit is more than numbers on a piece of paper. These are individuals that rely on our transit services to get to work, to get to their doctors' appointments, to see their parents, to see their friends, and so it's really important that we have a very people-first approach.

XAN HOLSTON: The city says the transition is designed to keep service running for riders and protect employees through the handoff. The company says it expects the incoming operator to keep most of the workers to continue current services, but there's no certainty.

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A tornado tore through parts of west central Minnesota, injuring at least three people in Becker County. The storm hit the Floyd Lake area north of Detroit lakes, downing trees, flipping boats, and damaging homes. Becker County Sheriff Todd Glander says once the storms passed, community members were able to take in the full scope.

SHERIFF TODD GLANDER: Roofs off of houses and buildings tipped over, honestly, people just standing there and not knowing really what, what had just happened. Yeah, it's very emotional.

XAN HOLSTON: Sheriff Glander says it could take days or weeks to clean up and asks people to stay away from the Floyd Lake area while officials assess storm damage. An emergency shelter is open at M State in Detroit Lakes.

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Minnesota charter school leaders and Governor Walz are standing up for kindergartners, saying children should be off limits from political attacks. President Trump shared a social media video of a kindergarten graduation at a St. Paul charter school last month. The clip shows children in caps and gowns, including many girls wearing hijabs, and identifies the school and location. He shared it a second time, reposting derogatory comments about the hijabs. Governor Walz criticized Trump for attacking kindergartners' school clothes, while charter school leaders said sharing the image and naming the school puts children at greater risk. The president's social media attacks come as faith leaders in Minnesota and across the country are calling on state leaders to protect voting access and push back against election interference. Interfaith clergy held events at the state capitol in St. Paul, the Olmsted County Elections Office in Rochester, and across the US. At the Minnesota State Capitol, Imam Makram El-Amin said faith communities need to speak up now, framing voting rights as a moral responsibility.

IMAM MAKRAM EL-AMIN: Justice is not passive, it requires action, it requires witness, it requires participation.

XAN HOLSTON: The events were part of a national day of action organized by Faith in Us, a clergy network formed in Minnesota.

And finally, July is prime time for baby loons to start swimming around. While cute, they're often difficult to see from a boat while out on the water, and the chicks are too little to dive down or fly away in order to escape boats. The best way to help is to slow down and look out. The DNR says give loon families plenty of room because boat traffic can force loons off nests and put chicks in danger. For North Star Stories, I'm Xan Holston.

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VICTOR PALOMINO: People from around the globe have called Minnesota home, making the state a hub of cultural diversity.

BRITT AAMODT: Today, we can trace those roots to sacred spaces and cultural corridors across cities and towns alike.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Reporter Faaya Adem takes us to a program from the Humanities Center helping Minnesotans experience those places firsthand.

FAAYA ADEM: Minnesota is home to dozens of cultural corridors, neighborhoods, and sacred spaces that tell the story of the people who built them. Now, an initiative from the Minnesota Humanities Center hopes to bring those stories directly to residents through guided tours across the state. The annual series, called Learning from Place: Twin Cities, Cultural Corridors and Sacred Spaces, invites participants to experience communities firsthand through history, food, and storytelling.

LEAH INGRAM: The Bdote experience was just, was really, really powerful and impactful the whole time. As we were going through this experience in the Twin Cities, I just kept thinking, like, this isn't new. Racism and injustice are not, you know, solely a 2026 issue. It didn't start in January.

FAAYA ADEM: Leah Ingram is the program director for social impact and communications at the Center for the Common Good at the University of St Thomas. Earlier this year, she participated in a Learning from Place experience with students that included visits to the Buddhist Temple Watt Munisotaram in Farmington and Bdote, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers in the metro.

LEAH INGRAM: It was a cold morning. It was the end of March, and, like, really being in the physical space and thinking about, like, what are we doing as a community and what have we been doing, I think was really powerful.

FAAYA ADEM: She says the experience at Bdote, a sacred cultural site for Dakota people, was emotional in a way that reading a textbook or attending a lecture could never replicate.

LEAH INGRAM: To like really be in a place where things happened or continue to happen, to see that, like, you know, there's real people behind the stories, and there's not just necessarily the people who have experienced things themselves, but people whose ancestors have endured things.

FAAYA ADEM: Ingram says the tours left her feeling both challenged and hopeful.

LEAH INGRAM: There's so much value and so much beauty in the resilience that makes up our community.

FAAYA ADEM: For MayKao Fredericks, director of cultural initiatives and immersive programs at the Minnesota Humanities Center, place creates an opportunity for multiple stories to exist at once.

MAYKAO FREDERICKS: We actually went to a place where my family had gone to for many years, one of our favorite places to picnic and to hike.

FAAYA ADEM: Fredericks says she experienced that firsthand during a Learning from Place visit to Bdote with her daughter.

MAYKAO FREDERICKS: And I actually had the opportunity to do that with my 10-year-old daughter, and it was transformative for her. She ended up falling in love with history, and she saw a connection with her Hmong heritage to our Indigenous community.

FAAYA ADEM: Fredericks says the goal is not just to teach people about a community, but to immerse them in it.

MAYKAO FREDERICKS: You can learn about community through different nonprofits, their mission, their programs. But as a metaphor, I see that as learning about community as a house plant is somewhat contained. And so to bring people into the community, into these cultural corridors, you get to see and learn community in its organic environment and see how they flourish.

KEVIN LINDSEY: It's important for people to understand their history.

FAAYA ADEM: Kevin Lindsey is a CEO of the Minnesota Humanities Center.

KEVIN LINDSEY: To understand and better navigate through their present reality, and also to plan their future. So, unless we understand our history, we're at a disadvantage in our present-day situation and looking forward into the future.

FAAYA ADEM: The tours include visits to Little Mekong in St. Paul, Bdote and Somali cultural corridors.

KEVIN LINDSEY: There are some folks that really do appreciate getting their hands into the work, being able to experience the learning in a very physical way that also helps people understand and appreciate and learn more about a different culture than they might otherwise just simply read within a book.

FAAYA ADEM: Another featured cultural corridor is Little Africa Plaza in St. Paul. Dr. Gene Gelgelu is the founder and CEO of African Economic Development Solutions in the Little Africa Cultural and Business District.

DR GENE GELGELU: You know, culture is essential because a place is accumulated. It's about people. They remind us who lived in that area and what they built, how their stories shaped a fabric, Minnesota history.

FAAYA ADEM: Gelgelu says cultural districts represent more than just business or development.

DR GENE GELGELU: Learning from place instead of seeing places and communities as a deficit, seeing them as assets is crucial, is empowering.

FAAYA ADEM: That sense of belonging became especially important this year as immigrant communities face uncertainty and fear in the face of federal immigration enforcement actions. MayKao Fredericks says those concerns shaped conversations about how the tours would move forward.

MAYKAO FREDERICKS: Metro Surge had a tremendous impact on our cultural quarters and our communities of color as we were looking to bring, were out, how do we move forward together. We knew that we needed to do more than just support these small businesses through commerce. The beauty of Learning from Place is that it is a platform to slow down to hear their story.

FAAYA ADEM: Rather than scaling back, Fredericks says the Humanities Center expanded the program.

MAYKAO FREDERICKS: I think when we are able to slow down to see each other and hear each other's story, the healing starts.

FAAYA ADEM: For organizers, that's ultimately what Learning from Place is about, creating opportunities for people to meet their neighbors, challenge assumptions, and better understand the communities that make up Minnesota. For North Star Stories, I'm Faaya Adem.

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VICTOR PALOMINO: After the break, how the West African and Mexican American communities have shaped parts of the Twin Cities.

BRITT AAMODT: And a look at the Mille Lacs Indian Museum and Trading Post.

VICTOR PALOMINO: This is North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live, produced by AMPERS with support from the State of Minnesota.

BRITT AAMODT: We'll be right back.

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BRITT AAMODT: You are listening to North Star Stories. I'm Britt Aamodt.

VICTOR PALOMINO: And I'm Victor Palomino.

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BRITT AAMODT: The next event in the Learning from Place series from the Minnesota Humanities Center will be on July 16 in South Minneapolis, in a vibrant corridor of Somali and West African–owned businesses, cultural institutions, and public art.

VICTOR PALOMINO: To learn more about this event and the community, we're joined now by Yusra Mahamoud, curator of this experience with the Humanities Center. Yusra is a business consultant, storyteller, and longtime connector within South Minneapolis's East African community. She also hosts the podcast Eat and Talk MN. Thank you for joining us.

YUSRA MAHAMOUD: Thank you.

VICTOR PALOMINO: I want to know more about the learning from places. What can you tell us about the East African community in Minneapolis?

YUSRA MAHAMOUD: So, the East African Community has been in Minneapolis for over 30 years. My family arrived in the early '90s, and when we arrived, there was already like a couple thousand of Somali people living there at the time. Our communities kind of followed each other, especially after the civil war. Lutheran churches played an important role in helping Somalis and East Africans that were displaced find a place and find jobs and find support here in Minneapolis. And so East Africans and Somalis were already came from an entrepreneurial background. So it wasn't hard for them to start their own small businesses here, and so that's how we kind of built an entire cultural corridor from Lake Street to Cedar Riverside.

VICTOR PALOMINO: I had a conversation with the director of the Somali Museum. He was talking about how that's one of the places that have a collection of the history of Somalia that is unique not only in the state but also in the probably in the world.

YUSRA MAHAMOUD: Having the Somali Museum be our first stop on July 16 is really important and special, because that place does hold a lot of historical artifacts that not just shows, but really visualize the cultural aspect of what the Somali community is, and where we came from. We also have cultural dance, and we also showcase, like, what homes look like back in Somalia, what kind of storytelling we do. So we're very big on music and poetry, and the Somali Museum is a great place that brings all of those together to showcase like what Somali and who Somali people really are.

VICTOR PALOMINO: And people that want to attend on July 16, tell us a little bit how the day is going to be.

YUSRA MAHAMOUD: So, we're going to start at the Midtown Global Market, and we are going to start with the Somali Museum, a stop there where we'll get a full guided tour, and then we will make our way to the Hoyo Sambusa, which is an amazing new sambusa factory. Sambusa is a staple appetizer, staple food in the Somali community, and so it was really important for us to start with, you know, what and why and where sambusa comes from, and how it's made.

VICTOR PALOMINO: For listeners that are not familiar with sambusa, how did you describe it?

YUSRA MAHAMOUD: Sambusas are a type of egg roll. It's a triangular appetizer that has different fillings, typically ground beef, lots of amazing seasonings, like cumin, and then we also have like fish versions, veggie versions, and so on, so forth. So we can also compare it if you're familiar with the empanada, like it's our, it's our version of that as well.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Think we can solve a lot of problems in the world through food, and especially just finding like the version of sambusa/empanada in every culture, and then just make like a United Nations of food.

YUSRA MAHAMOUD: Yes, I agree, like a dumplings tour.

VICTOR PALOMINO: What else is going to happen that day?

YUSRA MAHAMOUD: After we do the Midtown Global Market, we are then going to walk, and we're going to have a guided mural tour by a local Somali artist named Osman, who has a number of murals across South Minneapolis that we get to walk to, and he's going to tell us about the meaning and the stories behind his art. We are then going to visit a 10-plus-year small business called ZIZI Boutique, and that's a modest retail store by a Somali woman named Balqiis [Hersi]. It's a staple in Minneapolis, but it also showcases the clothing wear of Somali traditional woman, as well as modest and modern clothing. And then from there we go ahead and we walk to the largest Somali mall in America, which is Karmel Mall. It is just a plethora of businesses, from jewelry shops to food to clothes, and it has a praying, praying centers. Attendees will have the option to explore on their own at the Somali mall and try out some amazing food and drinks, and hopefully get a cup of Somali tea.

VICTOR PALOMINO: The Somali community has been in the news the last couple of years, sometimes not for the portraying the best part of the community. What do you wish the community at large know about the Somali community, and what do you wish it will take after taking a tour like this?

YUSRA MAHAMOUD: Yeah, I really hope that people understand the sense of belonging that Somalis have in Minneapolis and in Minnesota after this tour. And I really hope that they're able to understand that this is why we call it home, and that this has - this does feel like home, and it's not a place that we are just getting accustomed or assimilated to. So I really hope that they do feel like we are truly their neighbors, and that we are truly one in community with them, and that we care about building the city with them, because we have our families and we have our children here, and we are not planning to go anywhere.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Thank you so much for taking the time talking to us.

YUSRA MAHAMOUD: Thank you so much as well. I appreciate it.

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BRITT AAMODT: St. Paul's West Side is considered by many as the heart of Minnesota's Latino community. And on July 24, the Learning from Place event will focus on The Flats and the Latino Cultural District, a neighborhood shaped by generations of Mexican Americans, and now home to the future Minnesota Latino Museum.

VICTOR PALOMINO: We are joined now by Larry Lucio Sr., a long-time resident of St. Paul's West Side and descendant of the West Side Flats. Larry is the guide for the visit. Thank you for joining us.

LARRY LUCIO: Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Tell us a little bit about the Learning in Place experience that's going to happen on July 24 at St Paul West Side.

LARRY LUCIO: Well, the Minnesota Humanities Council approached myself and my son, Larry Lucio, Jr. and requested the opportunity to a visit on the West Side to talk about the historical perspective of the West Side Flats, specifically. Quite frankly, that story has been told many times, but is often the case very few, if any, were residents of the Flats. I was born and raised literally on the lower flats, the west side, family of 12. So, the history of the Flats is still fairly strong and in my mind.

VICTOR PALOMINO: How is the visit going to be?

LARRY LUCIO: Well, what we want to do is talk about the, as I said, the Flats, but also in the West Side Flats, in relation to what another part of that community refers to themselves as the Lower West Side, and then that connectedness to the Lily Dale community. Those three communities, it's all within a two-mile radius. We're going to talk about that. We're going to do a bus tour and try to give people the opportunity to imagine where the various aspects of what the West Side involvement was, Neighborhood House, Our Lady Guadalupe Church, as silly as it sounds, the city dump was right down there. There were just still a lot of different aspects that, as a resident of the Flats, we lived around, so to speak.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Can you describe for our listeners that part of town?

LARRY LUCIO: Okay, well, the Flats was for many, many, many years, and I would hazard a guess that it still is or is one of the most diverse communities in the Twin Cities area. But for the longest time it was a very diverse community, predominantly Mexican American. It started as a Jewish community many years ago, as the communities of color moved into the community, the Jewish community began to move out. So, the Mexican community, and from my perspective, has always been the backbone of the West Side Flats, and now the West Side community, but it was a very diverse community, African American, Native American. There were some Lebanese, Syrian, a few Jewish families remained, but it was mainly Mexican.

VICTOR PALOMINO: And you said that now there is an industrial park there, right?

LARRY LUCIO: Again, government, they informed our families that we had to leave the Flats area because of the flooding. Now we would get flooded out every couple of years, and that was their excuse to require us to leave our community. We were one of the last families to move out in 1961 and by the summer of '62 they had razed all of the West Side homes and began to build business, and of course they found money eventually to build a flood wall to help protect the businesses. But we were forced to leave our homes and move up what we referred to when we were living on the Flats, wait to move up the hill, which predominantly right now is the Cesar Chavez community, right around the community that Cesar Chavez runs through, and Robert Street.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Larry, is there anything else you want to add to the conversation?

LARRY LUCIO: Yeah, first and foremost, we welcome anybody who would be interested in learning more about the history of the West Side community to go to the Minnesota Humanities Council and register. The stores, the restaurants, and just the overall vibe of our community. I would encourage anybody and everybody to come and visit and experience.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Just want to thank you again for coming here and talking to us today.

LARRY LUCIO: Thanks, I appreciate the opportunity, Victor.

BRITT AAMODT: You can find information and registration for all the Learning from Place series at the Minnesota Humanities Center website, at mnhum.org.

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VICTOR PALOMINO: Minnesota's cultural richness is not only found in the Twin Cities metro area. The state is home to cultural sites and museums that tell the stories of the many communities living here.

BRITT AAMODT: In Onamia in Central Minnesota, the Mille Lacs Indian Museum and Trading Post exhibits the history of the Ojibwe people alongside a restored 1930s trading post. Last month, the museum celebrated its 30th anniversary at that location. To learn more, we're joined now by Lily Laur, Program Supervisor at the Mille Lacs Indian Museum and Trading Post. She's also a descendent of Lac Courte Oreilles in Wisconsin. Well, thank you so much for joining us.

LILY LAUR: Thank you for having me.

BRITT AAMODT: Tell us a little bit about the museum exhibits and collections.

LILY LAUR: Yeah, so we are the Mille Lacs Indian Museum and Trading Post. We are on the land of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, and we tell their stories specifically here at our museum, as well as portions about veterans in our community and treaties and sovereignty, as well as our Four Seasons room, which is a guided tour at our museum. And our other part of our site, we also have our trading post, which is a 1930s replica of what was standing here on site. It has been in a trading post for 101 years this year, and it is still an active trading post today.

BRITT AAMODT: You have this big anniversary this year. How are you celebrating the 30th anniversary?

LILY LAUR: So we are doing lots of things this year to kind of celebrate all year. We did have a little intimate dinner and collections tours on the actual birthday. So that was May 18. And then we had a large event on June 13. That was the first day for our walking tours that we are piloting this year. For the rest of the year, we do have different things going on. We have kids craft Saturdays. We are doing those walking tours, and then we will have artist of the month, and then we're also doing Native art and artist programs. It's more of a lecture series, so people can get tickets for that, and that's one day out of the month.

BRITT AAMODT: You lease the land from the band. How is the band involved otherwise in the administration of the site?

LILY LAUR: We have events here that the band and our site kind of collaborate on. So we have our Memorial Day powwow, we have the Native Art Festival, we have the chief come over and do talks and things like that, and we have artists that come over and rent the space sometimes if they want. It's also free of charge for Mille Lacs Band members and any other tribal member. Whether you're enrolled anywhere in the country, you're free here.

BRITT AAMODT: Where can our listeners find out more about your museum?

LILY LAUR: Yeah, we are pretty active on social media, I would say, for our site. So, whether you are a Facebook or Instagram user, we are active on that, which you can find by searching Mille Lacs Indian Museum and Trading Post. You can also go to the Minnesota Historical Society website and find our site.

BRITT AAMODT: Well, that's it. Thank you so much Lily Laur for spending time with us today.

LILY LAUR: Yes, thank you for having me.

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VICTOR PALOMINO: This is it for today's program. If you missed any part of today's newscast, you can find this and past episodes at AMPERS.org or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BRITT AAMODT: You can also get North Star Stories Daily on our website or check your favorite station's schedule.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Thanks for listening, and we'll be back next week with more stories and voices from the North Star State.

OUTRO: North Star Stories is produced by AMPERS, diverse radio for Minnesota's communities, with support from the State of Minnesota. Online at AMPERS.org.