October 19, 2010

By Sheila Regan

Deep in the underbelly of the Science Museum of Minnesota are thousands of Native American artifacts. Down in its basement, the museum has 10,000 Native American objects, including nearly 1,500 objects from Dakota and Anishinabe tribes, according to Science Museum curator Tilly Laskey, who calls the collection one of the “best kept secrets in the Midwest.”

Laskey, who specializes in North American Native American material culture and contemporary art, currently is in charge of organizing, cataloguing and researching the ethnology collections, curating exhibitions and working with research associates and interested community members. She said that the Science Museum’s collection of objects is different from that of an art museum’s because “we don’t just collect the most beautiful objects,” she said. The museum also collects objects for other reasons besides aesthetic ones. “We tell people’s stories,” Laskey said.

October 19, 2010

By Sheila Regan

Funders from around the country took a peek at the American Indian Cultural Corridor on Thursday, September 30, during the Neighborhood Funders Group Annual Conference. Led by NACDI Executive Director Justin Huenemann with added insight by Michael A. Goze of the American Indian Community Development Corporation, Suzanne Koepplinger, Executive Director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, Bill Ziegler, President/CEO of Little Earth, and other leaders from the Native American Community, the tour revealed to the visitors the history of Franklin Avenue as a Native American hotspot and highlighted the resurgence of the American Indian Cultural Corridor.

October 19, 2010

By Sheila Regan

Where can you get the best frybread in Minneapolis? The answer is easy — ask anybody, and they’ll tell you — Mike Forcia, owner and chef at Wolves Den Coffee Shop in the Minneapolis American Indian Center makes the moistest, yummiest frybread in the area.

His secret? Forcia said that back when the Wolves Den was located across the street from where it is now, he didn’t serve frybread until an elder Indian woman came into the shop. She suggested that he serve frybread, and he told her he had tried out different recipes and hadn’t found one that would work quite right.

August 27, 2010

By Sheila Regan

10 years ago, Navajo playwright Rhiana Yazzie received a postcard from a friend that depicted a group of surrealist artists having a picnic in a park. The Lee Miller photograph included two women with bare breasts, one of whom was smiling exhuberantly at the camera. Yazzie read the back of the postcard, where her friend wrote “that well ventilated woman looks like you.”

“At first I was like ‘what?’ Yazzie recalled in an interview, but as she looked at the postcard, Yazzie did see herself in the woman, Adrienne Fidelin (or Ady, for short). Yazzie couldn’t understand why this woman, who was from the island of Guadalupe, could look so much like herself, a Navajo woman.

August 27, 2010

by Rhiana Yazzie

Saint Catherine University recently saw an evening of monologues written and performed by their students aptly named the Catherine Monologues. The stories all dealt with issues women face throughout life, from coming-of-age stories to memories by an elder to the retelling of a Hmong origin story with a feminist edge.

One very notable performance came from soon-to-be-senior Rebecca Roepke. Hailing from Oklahoma, Roepke is of Kanienkehaka, Cayuga and Cree descent.

August 27, 2010

By Sheila Regan

The American Indian Community Development Corporation along with Common Bond Communities have been awarded $6.78 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for an affordable housing project geared toward serving American Indian Elders. Work is expected to begin on Bii Di Gain Dash Anwebi (Come in, Rest) in the spring.

The money comes from HUD’s Section 202 Housing for the Elderly Program, according to Michael Goze, President and CEO of AICDC.

August 27, 2010

By Sheila Regan

Students at Nawayee Center School (2421 Bloomington Avenue South) have been hard at work on a mural that is a gift to both themselves and the surrounding community. Begun in the fall of 2008, the mural has slowly taken shape under the guidance of partners Francis Yellow and Marilyn Lindstrom along with guest Ojibwe elder and artist Robert DesJarlait.

Yellow and Lindstrom are both noteworthy artists in their own rights, and have collaborated on various projects for over a decade. Their first project together was a mural entitled "Project of Hope," which was sponsored by Fresco Community Outreach and Megizi Communications in 1999. Lindstrom was the lead designer and Yellow served as a guest artist, along with several other guest artists and community members who helped to create the mural. They have worked with Anishinabe artist Robert Desjarlait on several occasions as well.

August 27, 2010

By Rhiana Yazzie

Elyse Dempsey is surrounded by her sister, mother and aunt as they help her get into traditional Navajo dress for her graduation from Macalester College. Her nearly knee length hair is wrapped up Navajo style, layered in white yarn. She leaves Macalester stronger in her identity as a Native person armed with the experience of living among Minnesota’s original people and a college education. Dempsey moved to the Twin Cities four years ago from Fort Defiance, Ariz., on the Navajo reservation.

August 27, 2010

By Rhiana Yazzie

With the approach of the harvest season, farmers markets are in full swing. In addition to large weekend markets, smaller weekday markets can be found across Twin Cities neighborhoods.

Phillips is no exception. A pair of farmers markets serves people in the neighborhood: Tuesdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Midtown Farmers Market, located at Lake Street and 22nd Avenue, and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Unci Maka Native Market located at the Minneapolis American Indian Center, 1530 East Franklin Avenue (the market also operates at the same time at 926 Payne Avenue on the East Side of St. Paul, three blocks from the American Indian Family Center).