During the Spring Semester of 2022, and thanks to the Mellon Foundation PhD Fellowship and the HSPH program at the University of Minnesota, I had the opportunity to work remotely with two different institutions that focus on the formation of historical memory and conscience after a period of mass-violence and/or national conflict: The Platform of European Memory and Conscience (PEMC, Czech Republic), and the Dealing with the Past Program within Swisspeace (Switzerland).

As a PhD Candidate in the history department with an interest in historical memory after a period of mass-violence, I have explored literature and taken several seminars that focus on the dynamics of the politics of historical memory in different countries and historical contexts. However, I have always been interested in learning about the non-profit and non-governmental groundwork and sociopolitical actions that create and establish historical memory laws and public policies after periods of mass-violence.

While working with the Platform for European Memory and Conscience, I aided with the translation, and oversaw the proofreading and fact checking the Spanish edition of their reader Lest We Forget: Memory of Totalitarianism in Europe. Translated into over ten European languages, this reader contains 37 life stories victims of the different totalitarian regimes in more than 20 European countries. Its purpose is to be used in different classrooms across Europe, to help educate students about Europe’s totalitarian past by allowing the students to connect with individual stories and its victims. On April 28^th, managing director of the reader and co-founder of the PEMC Neela Winklemann joined the Mass Violence and Human Rights workshop at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, and shared with the attendees the process of creation of the book, its mission, and the impact that is having among students in the Czech Republic. The teaching of communist and Nazi violence and its aftermath may be challenging in many European countries, and a survey conducted by PEMC in 2016 showed that two thirds of Czech secondary school students believe that neither the Nazi or Communist totalitarianism have been overcome sufficiently. The creation of this reader aims to provide students and teachers with the tools to engage, learn and acknowledge the memory of totalitarianism in Europe.

While my work with the Platform for European Memory and Conscience focused on the field of secondary education, my work as part of the Dealing with the Past team at Swisspeace focused on source management and policy creation. First, I helped to manage the Dealing with the Past database of publications and sources, specifically related to archives, memory, mass-violence, and human rights. Secondly, I aided in the writing of a confidential agreement between Swisspeace and a third party, which suggested a plan of action for the implementation of Transitional Justice measures and public policies in a country that recently suffered through a period of mass-violence. Being able to help during this process was a unique and incredibly helpful experience that allowed me to further understand the work process behind the creation of national public policies and historical memory laws in the aftermath of a period of mass-violence. Moreover, I was happy to be able to contribute to the report by presenting the case of my home country, Spain, which has been dealing with the challenges of creating memory laws and public policies regarding the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship, which ended with the death of the dictator F. Franco in 1975. During the period of transition to democracy, a silence that prevented the development of public and/or institutionalized memory was established, and only in the last two decades a new generation of activists and scholars have started to advocate for the recuperation of memory and acknowledgment of Spain’s past of mass-violence. By bringing in the Spanish case, together with other examples of historical memory and transitional justice journeys in different countries, we were able to propose a specific plan of action of specific memory public policies that have aided in other countries’ processes of national reconciliation.

Given the nature of my research, and especially given my interest in beyond-academia, non-profit work, the time I have spent working with Swisspeace and with the Platform for European Memory and Conscience has been an invaluable opportunity to learn from two institutions that, as many others, establish the necessary groundwork for the creation of memory laws and public policies, as well as the foundation for the academic work around historical memory. 

Tibisay Navarro-Mana is a PhD student in the Department of History and an HSPH minor.  

How does public history relate to making buckthorn berry ink paintings at a sculpture park, or to urban residents telling stories of their relationships to plants? Through intersecting community activities and internships, I found that many people in the Twin Cities discover that making things with their hands brings personal, cultural, and community history to life. And this community involves species and sites rarely featured in public history discourse but that are essential to cultural expression and preservation. Facilitating art and craft sharing events helps illuminate histories of individual and community relationships. And remembering our connection to land–to ourselves and to each other–affects how we engage with an array of urgent policy questions: in climate change response (Tribal vs. Forest Service climate adaptation menus), invasive species and disturbance control (buckthorn removal, the effort to preserve ash trees–a traditional basket-making material–in the face of emerald ash borer), natural resource extraction (pipelines and proposed mines in North-Central Minnesota), and urban runoff effects (such as Highway 55’s effects on water quality at Coldwater Spring in South Minneapolis).

The ways different cultures and communities relate to and share knowledge around plants (including food) and their landscape has an enormous impact on many everyday decisions and larger civic involvement. Working with plant material creatively, and telling stories about plants and about seasonal memories, can identify and bridge gaps as well as remind us of what we care to protect or learn more about. And the knowledge and experiences held in these stories are vital for scientists and policy makers to take into account (as Forestry and Natural Resource Management professor Mike Dockry attests in his Traditional Ecological Knowledge courses). 

“Craft” has taken on such a broad meaning in the times of Michael’s and Jo-Ann Fabric that the term does not immediately conjure up images of the resourceful uses of plant material or the similarities between, say, clothing, water receptacles, caskets, and shelter (all of which can be made out of basket-weaving materials). But craft sits at an intersection of several contemporary interests and communities in the Twin Cities: those interested in plants and re-calibrating ecosystems, herbalism and reviving traditional approaches to healing from different cultures in the face of inadequate health care systems, and creative people connecting with materials they use to communicate.

Public-history research rooted in community engagement is by necessity fluid and relational. My internship with two different plant-based research projects, Backyard Phenology and Plant People, evolved out of my work with community woodworking, art, and farm spaces. Before starting the HSPH program, I was a printmaking instructor with Fireweed Community Woodshop and a greenhouse construction coordinator and building volunteer with Tamales y Bicicletas (TyB) Jardin Urbano. Through the HSPH program and Minnesota Transform (a Mellon funded initiative supporting university-community projects) I was able to work as a community outreach coordinator for TyB, where I used my printmaking experience to host block printing and hand-craft gatherings with neighbors, including other BIPOC garden spaces like Plant Grow Share. There I met Margarita Mac, who has a wealth of knowledge about the culinary and craft potentials of plants, and who told me about the Plant People project.

Plant People

Macey Flood, a scholar of medical pluralism, settler colonialism, Indigenous history, and environment, and Emily Beck, recipe scholar and archivist at the Wangensteen Historical Library of Biology and Medicine, are friends and colleagues working on a cross-cultural storytelling/story-listening project about plant people, health, and place in the present-day Twin Cities. They are particularly invested in amplifying minoritized voices and other stories and experiences that create the incredible web of plant people in this region. Margarita and I had coordinated a basket weaving workshop for teens using corn silk from the farm at TyB, and she referred me to Macey and Emily as someone to interview.

Backyard Phenology

I had already started an internship with another group called Backyard Phenology, an initiative created by art professor Chris Baeumler and ecology professor Rebecca Montgomery in 2017 to record oral histories about citizens’ observations of seasonal change and climate change’s effects on seasonal rhythms. Phenology is a newer word for an age-old practice; humans have traditionally relied on their observations of the seasonal rhythms to survive. I met this team at Franconia Sculpture Park where they were working on a “reframing our relations” project inspired by Dakota author Diane Wilson, creatively re-engaging with invasive species through making buckthorn art materials and artwork. I helped them plan a story-sharing meal at Franconia this fall in which artists and community members shared stories of their awareness and complicated relationships to invasives.

Backyard Phenology’s more casual collaged short interviews around seasonal observation capture what is noticed and questioned by people from all walks of life, while the Plant People oral histories capture the way that individuals with more expertise or specific knowledge have developed their plant-people relationships. Thematic story-telling conversations like the one at Franconia reveal the intersections between these projects, and underscore that many people have complicated relationships with plants and the memories they hold. One woman’s Korean father brought Rose of Sharon (hibiscus) to remind them of home when they moved to the US, but realized it could spread aggressively. Another participant talked of the power of growing cotton in a pot in Minnesota to honor her enslaved ancestors. From the Plant People project, a Minneapolis herbalist describes her evolving understanding of an invasive species, buckthorn (European buckthorn and glossy buckthorn are two non-native invasives presenting major management problems in Minnesota forests and parks): 

“So I walked away with this feeling of seeing the buck thorns side of things in a way of like, it’s just living its life. It’s not hurt. It’s not trying to hurt anybody. It’s not wanting to cause problems. It’s just doing what it does. <Laugh> really well, and it’s not doing anything wrong. And…you know, not to say there aren’t problematic things happening because of it and concerns about invasive species, but it just gave me this totally different feeling around it rather than wanting to feel negatively about a certain plant because of a certain thing. It really neutralized that, that kind of a stance for me. And I really try, I, I really do try and stay there with plants. I don’t think there are any bad plants at all.” Carolyn Smith, herbalist, St. Paul Minnesota 2021.

I am working with artist and ecology PhD candidate Maria Park to review, archive, and bring the Backyard Phenology recordings to life in a podcast, while the Plant People project is working on creating a community archive and StoryMap from the interviews they are conducting. Their process has been to work relationally—ie through people they know and then out to people those people know. I am helping them source illustrations from historic “herbals,” pre-1900s texts cataloging uses of medicinal plants–as well as the artistic, culinary, and poisonous potentials of some plants– in the Wangensteen collection. I am also adding to these sources through collaborations with creative plant people in the Twin Cities and around the state, which has led me on ochre-hunting expeditions in the Iron Range and fish leather making along the Mississippi. In this way my internship has taken on the form of the research, and the relationships, we are exploring.

The work will likely stretch beyond one season, and my hope while still at the University is to help set up avenues for communities to continue to tell, archive, access and share their stories through interdisciplinary initiatives like Plant People and Backyard Phenology who are thinking outside the box of traditional university archives.

Jessie Merriam is a printmaking instructor and second year student in the Heritage Studies and Public History program at the University of Minnesota.

“I’m not a fed!” I often find myself insisting—much to the amusement of friends. While I can truthfully say that I’m not a government employee, I’ve done work for the National Park Service (NPS) in various unpaid and paid positions for over three years. Due (in part) to the laborious federal hiring process, the NPS relies on partners to host interns and fellows.¹ From distinctive résumé formatting to niche criteria for “specialized experience,” the particularities of federal hiring are enough to make anyone second-guess their interest in government service—let alone their individual capacity to make change from the inside. Although I sometimes have my doubts, my summer fellowship reminded me what is possible through and promising about the NPS, an agency with a preeminent influence over cultural heritage in the United States.²

As the national agency that stewards our shared heritage, the NPS has a responsibility to represent everyone. Through my role with the NPS Cultural Resources Office of Interpretation and Education (CROIE), I support this goal by writing NPS.gov articles about historic places associated with underrepresented communities. Although the NPS seeks to “tell all Americans’ stories,” it is less common for community members to tell their own stories on NPS.gov. The website is meant to be authoritative and non-partisan, so stories are typically told from a third-person perspective, instead of direct personal knowledge and lived experience.³ We try to make our content as engaging as possible, but our formatting options are limited, so most pages are static, one-way communication tools.

For this reason, my colleague Melissa Hurtado and I were excited by a new opportunity to collaborate with Google Arts & Culture (GAC). In preparation for Pride Month 2022, we contributed to GAC’s Pride Hub using its unique story builder platform. We created this digital ‘story,’ about gathering spaces where LGBTQIA+ Latines met, organized, and made history.⁴ This project allowed us to bring narratives (that were not only place-based, but also multi-layered and intersectional) to life on a dynamic and vibrant platform with an international audience.

Because of these new formatting possibilities, the GAC project involved another departure from our usual “sage on a stage” approach. GAC is known for its high-resolution visuals, so Melissa and I knew we’d have to look beyond Creative Commons and public domain collections. We also wanted to get in contact with the people whose stories and work we would feature. Image permission requests provided the perfect opportunity to reach out to relevant groups and let them know about the project. As a result of our correspondence, we were able to provide honoraria for artists whose work we featured. We also connected activists with preservation advocacy groups and resources to help them protect the places that matter to them.

While I am immensely proud of this project, it is certainly far from perfect and remains an exception among our typical work products. For instance, as of June 2022, the GAC story builder lacked alternative text for images.⁵ The merits of “themed” months associated with various categories of identity and heritage are also debatable—concentrating resources and attention on one hand, but often presenting sanitized versions of the past on the other.

Furthermore, while Melissa and I did connect with artists and activists to amplify their work, the decision to do so was ultimately based on the stories that we—quasi-NPS staff—identified as underrepresented and wanted to tell. Regardless of Melissa’s and my personal connection and investment in this topic, public history projects should start with the people whose lived experiences are being represented. I could make a lot of excuses about why our tiny Washington DC-based, digital interpretive program doesn’t typically do outreach, but it wouldn’t change the reality that our selection of stories did not originate from community engagement. If the NPS mission is to “preserve…for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations,” the work should be rooted in what communities want to see.⁶

As much as this project reveals where the NPS has room for improvement, it also offers insight into what can be possible within large, mainstream institutions. In addition to its national platform, the NPS has significant institutional resources that can be leveraged to support more community-engaged work within smaller organizations and municipalities. In particular, I find the potential for more community-driven projects the most promising.

I truthfully don’t know if NPS employment will be the best path forward for me. Despite the aspirational wording of their missions, I’m still left with a critical question: are government agencies structured to maintain the status quo, or can they advance justice? If I want to see real progress within an agency that is—by nature—slow to change, I also won’t be able to do creative projects forever.⁷ Full-time bureaucrats have more than enough to keep them busy. Although there are sure to be some trade-offs, I’m still hopeful about the possibilities. Everything from funding decisions to compliance procedures has the potential to make a difference.

Jade Ryerson is a second-year student in the preservation track of the Heritage Studies and Public History master’s program.

¹Partnership organizations include the American Conservation Experience and National Council on Preservation Education. For instance, my fellowship was hosted by the American Conservation Experience.

²When you say “National Park Service” most people think of nature parks, like Yellowstone or Yosemite, but the NPS is also one of the United States’ leading agencies for history and culture. In addition to protecting important historic places within parks, the agency also works beyond those boundaries through its oversight of historic preservation activities, such as documenting historic places, developing standards and guidelines, and providing financial and technical assistance.

³It’s worth noting that this raises critical questions about how the heritage fields have traditionally defined authority and expertise. Although inclusion initiatives have made it possible for me and other emerging professionals from underrepresented backgrounds to write about the stories that matter to us and relate to our identities, authorship ultimately rests with the NPS instead of communities.

⁴The term Latine is a gender-neutral term for the word Latino.

⁵Once we discovered this, Melissa and I were intentional about including alternative text in the description section of each image we included in the story builder. Because our work was on behalf of the NPS, we were also required to create a parallel—albeit static—version on the NPS.gov content management system. Everything that appears on an NPS platform is legally required to comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. While this was a slight improvement, we recognized that compliance with federal law often doesn’t do enough for full accessibility. Working within the GAC story builder’s preset formatting, we followed digital accessibility best practices where possible. To make the project even more accessible, we should have consulted with an accessibility specialist and disabled users.

⁶You can learn more about the National Park Service mission on the agency’s website.

⁷Throughout my time with the NPS, I’ve been working to advance intersectional representation through interpretive digital products. I recognize that I’ve only been able to do so by virtue of my role and status. Internships and fellowships often supplement the limited capacity of actual NPS employees. Due to targeted efforts to increase diversity among staff, many internships and fellowships align with inclusion initiatives (such as the Latino Heritage Internship and Cultural Resources Diversity Internship Programs), and produce work that advances diversity, equity, and inclusion within the agency and among the broader public.

Did You Know…

That the University of Minnesota’s current West Bank used to be a thriving community? Or that in 1957, the university began sending letters to property owners informing them they had to move out by June of that following year to make way for the construction of the West Bank? Or how about that entire blocks of homes were destroyed in order to create our business school and social sciences buildings? I sure didn’t, not until I began my internship with MN Transform where I work as a research assistant for their urban renewal project. MN Transform is a Mellon-funded higher education initiative that seeks to engage in racial justice and anti-colonial work (learn more about them here).

With MN Transform, I am learning and researching about the expansion project the university undertook during the second half of the twentieth century, and it is here where I am discovering the dark cloud that not only the University of Minnesota casted, but also universities across the country have set over their neighboring communities through campus expansion.

What is Urban Renewal and the Urban Renewal Project Anyway?

In 1949, the federal government passed the Housing act of 1949 whose purpose was to address the declining urban centers across America. Urban renewal came out of this legislation, and cities across America changed during the second half of the twentieth century. Entire swaths of neighborhoods that the federal government considered “blighted” were demolished and replaced with modern housing and infrastructure. While this may sound good, in actuality it was incredibly harmful to these communities. Neighborhoods that were considered “blighted” by the federal government often had a majority black and/or low-income residents, and it was these residents that lost their homes and communities in the name of urban renewal.

Universities were one of the biggest perpetrators when it came to urban renewal. Let’s take a look at the University of Minnesota as an example. The institution bought seven blocks of the Cedar-Riverside area to build the West Bank campus to accommodate an increasing student population. That’s seven blocks of homes, relationships, and memories that were erased. Despite this history, though, we are just beginning to scrutinize the role of universities when it comes to urban renewal. This is why the Urban Renewal project is so important. It brings to light issues that have been overlooked for so long.

So what is my internship doing? We are trying to uncover the extent of the University of Minnesota’s involvement in urban renewal and expansion. How did the U get funds to expand into Cedar Riverside? Who approved the project? How did the community react to the U’s expansion project? We are also exploring urban renewal/university expansion on the federal and national level, as the U of M was not the only university taking part in expanding its campus into adjacent neighborhoods.

Human Stories Buried

To uncover the U’s involvement in urban renewal/university expansion, I had to do a ton of in-depth research. During these past three months, I have visited the U’s archives several times. I spent several hours drowning in official university documents, Regents’ meeting minutes, and newspaper clippings. While they all provided important information in understanding the U’s expansion project, I realized that there was a vital group that was not represented: the people that lived in the Riverside community. Where were the voices of those that were kicked off their property? How could I locate these individuals? Was anyone who was dispossessed still alive? These were all questions I had no answers to, even with all the material I found. But maybe it is because I am looking in the wrong place. Would the U collect and keep the stories of those they were forcing to move? Probably not. So to answer these important questions, I will need to turn to the community for help. One thing is for sure, more digging needs to be done to find the names and life stories of those who lost their homes so they can no longer just be a statistic.

Part of a Bigger Story

As I mentioned earlier, this project is in collaboration with different institutions. More institutions have indicated they are interested, including the University of Illinois Chicago and the University of Texas. We are also interested in bringing a private institution onto the project, as these institutions played a huge role in university expansion. Schools like the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University benefited from urban renewal, but the human stories of the communities they destroyed have yet to be heard.

Hibaa Roba is a Master’s student in the Heritage Studies and Public History program. She currently works with the Urban Renewal Project at the University of Minnesota.

Alexander Ramsey and James J. Hill were two influential figures in Minnesota’s history. The former was the state’s first territorial governor before it was officially added to the union, and the latter was a railroad executive who helped expand railway lines across the Midwest. While these individuals helped the state develop during the nineteenth century, they both negatively impacted existing communities in the Midwestern territory. Ramsey, in particular, has a less than spotless record if you were to learn about his time in government. For one, he was instrumental in the development of exploitative treaties with the Ojibwe, Ho Chunk, and Dakota tribes that populated Minnesota. Because of his actions, Native communities were pushed into reservations and lost land.

But you wouldn’t learn this if you were to take a tour of the Ramsey House or the James J. Hill House, both located not too far from the state capital in St. Paul.

No, instead you would learn about the lavish lives of these two men and their families during the time they were living in their respective homes. If you were to book a tour at the James J Hill House, you’d most definitely learn about the furniture, the grand dining room where parties were held, and the servants’ quarters. But you wouldn’t learn about how Hill worked to acquire native land to build his railroad line on. And although the Ramsey house is currently closed, you’d have a similar experience if you were to take a tour. This is all to say that there is a clear disconnect between the current historical interpretation of these two men and their spaces and how they impacted Minnesota when they were alive.

While there is this existing disconnect, the team at the James J Hill (JJH) and Alexander Ramsey (ARH) houses began working with my Interpretive Frameworks team to tackle these problems. During the course of my internship with the Frameworks team at the Minnesota Historical Society, we had great discussions about how we can develop and evolve the programs at these homes.

Interpretive Development: Addressing the Legacies of James J. Hill and Alexander Ramsey

When my frameworks team first began meeting with the people from JJH and ARH, it was apparent that they wanted to change how people interacted with the two historical homes. They were incredibly vocal about how current interpretations of the homes did not do justice in highlighting the impact these individuals had on Minnesota- whether that be good or bad. For them, a holistic understanding of what the homes and the people represented was important to convey to their visitors.

To unpack how the JJH/ARH team could transform their historical interpretation, we had weekly meetings to uncover what their primary goals were. It was here where we talked about what it meant for history to be inclusive and interpretation to be complex. There were also conversations about mission and vision statements (with a lot of time dedicated to figuring out what exactly is the difference between a mission statement and a vision statement). All in all, these meetings were dedicated to figuring out how the JJH and ARH team wanted to move forward.

In addition to assisting with the interpretive side of things, I also conducted interviews with a few stakeholders of the Alexander Ramsey House. ARH has a Board of Governors which oversees the aesthetics of the home, and some projects that the ARH team wants to undertake requires insight from the board. My conversations with members highlighted some key things: both the ARH team and the Board of Governors wanted the house to be a place where people engaged with Minnesota’s history, both as an individual state as well as part of the bigger Union. Also, that audiences learned about the complex history of both homes.

Other Projects with Frameworks and MNHS

In addition to helping the JJH and ARH team with developing their sites’ goals, I was also tasked with creating a biography about Alexander Ramsey. Surprisingly, the Ramsey House does not have a comprehensive biography on Ramsey, but part of that has to do with gaps in his life, particularly during his time as a senator.

To accomplish my task of creating a biography, I scoured MNHS’ records, various library books and scholarly articles, as well as databases to find information on who Ramsey was and his impact on Minnesota. All the research showed that Ramsey left a sizable footprint on Minnesota. His time as territorial governor saw the expansion of the territory and its eventual recognition as America’s 32nd state in 1858. Even beyond Minnesota, Ramsey played a significant role on the federal level, with him even becoming the Secretary of War in President Rutherford B. Hayes’ administration.

My research into Ramsey was also where I learned of all the problematic things he did. Many of his policies and actions to expand Minnesota came at the expense of Ojibwe, Dakota, and Ho-Chunk communities. Some native tribes were forced into shady treaties in order to survive starvation while others were deceived into agreements that promised money for their land, money that they didn’t receive. Ramsey was also governor during the U.S.-Dakota war where he was vocal about his opposition to the native population, even going as far as to call for the extermination of the Dakota people.

My research on Ramsey culminated in a nine page biography that will, hopefully, be used by current and future staff members at the site. While this biography is by no means complete, it gives staff a starting point for more extensive research.

Ending on a Cliffhanger

There are a lot of things that I accomplished by the end of my internship at MNHS that I am proud of. However, when my internship came to an end, I felt like I was leaving behind unfinished work. While I made a lot of progress with the biography, Ramsey’s time as a senator is still a mystery. I also left right in the middle of the framework project, which actually takes an entire year to complete. The team was just moving into the community engagement phase, and while I was able to do some of that work with the Board of Governors, I was eager to do more with other kinds of audiences. I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t continue, but I hope the work I was able to do will be of use for the framework team and the people at the James J. Hill and Alexander Ramsey Houses.

Hibaa Roba is a Master’s student in the Heritage Studies and Public History program. She currently works with the Urban Renewal Project at the University of Minnesota.

Logistics really held the spotlight throughout the project of my fall internship with the Hennepin History Museum located in Minneapolis. Over the last four months, the staff and I were continually stumped on how to bring to life a programming idea suggested to us by one of our community partners. Zoom meetings consisted of stress-induced hair groping, head shaking, and tired sarcasm. Though all these emotions and behaviors were rooted in an authentic desire to provide our community partners and community members with space they wish to have, our target audience and the resources available created more obstacles than any of us anticipated.

Ever since its opening in May 2022, the Hennepin History Museum’s exhibit titled Separate Not Equal has been the focus of much of the museum’s latest programming, which involves former Minneapolis school teachers and alumni. While the opening celebration and other programs gave us success, there was one program idea brought to us by a community partner with large, hopeful eyes and a heart to which it is difficult to say no. And why would we say no without first trying? Before we knew it, the team and I were doing mental gymnastics on how to bring our community partners the event they were excitedly hoping for: a teacher tribute.

Project Plan: Take One

Ideally, our community partners wanted this program to be an in-person event. The opening celebration event was in-person at the museum and it went really well. For our guests, it felt like a reunion of students with their favorite teachers growing up. The environment and energy were filled with gratitude and joy, and memories of that day ushered a desire to feel it again. The conversations of bringing back that unique space for community members is where logistics first made its appearance. The reality is that a large portion of our targeted audience are elders and the time between summer and fall this year experienced another slight uptick in COVID-19 cases around the Twin Cities metro area. We knew a successful event would not include such a risk to our guests, so we decided to instead pursue this project as a virtual event.

Take Two

So now the team and I are refocusing our problem-solving skills on bringing community together virtually. Our Plan B was to utilize Zoom. We started to make preparations on the logistics and we encountered yet another problem with this plan in relation to our target audience. Many of our participating elders told us they lacked confidence  using Zoom. Some stated they have family members who may be able to provide assistance, but many others were planning to figure it out for themselves. Without resources to provide the hands-on assistance many elders needed to navigate a Zoom call, we realized that this plan, too, was a doozy. Our first plan to bring people together at the museum was vetoed by the pandemic and our second plan was vetoed by the generational gap of technology usage. We still had our eye on the mission, however, brainstorming how to provide our community partners the special space for connection that they were seeking with their elders. The more brains the better, though, so we reached out to another community partner to request assistance in making these pesky logistics work. Bless community–she introduced us to a website called Tribute. It is a very user-friendly website and the only thing we needed from the elders was an email address. From there, a link was sent to the email address that leads users to a very basic video-recording page. No editing, no multitude of buttons–just hit record to start, hit it again to stop, then hit send. Done!

Success At Last

What had originally been perceived as a month-long project ended up being a few-month project due to the nagging challenges of logistics. The museum team and I were routinely asking ourselves, “how are we going to do this?” with an underlying fear that maybe, just maybe, we would have to surrender and tell our community partners we could not do the teacher tribute event. While I witnessed the realities of logistics getting in the way of really great ideas, I also witnessed the way community shows up and provides solutions. Our team was fearing we were not going to be able to provide the space our partners were looking for, and although it was not exactly an event–something that people attended–we were able to put together a meaningful video of former grade-school students naming and giving direct thanks to their more beloved teacher(s). Those teachers received the video for them to watch freely and eventually it will live on the Hennepin History Museum website and social media platforms. Our team is still receiving positive feedback from all participants, which makes the challenges worth it!

See video here: https://www.tribute.co/hale-field-pairing-teachers/

Carissa Thomas is a public historian, dedicating her work to expanding traditional historical narratives and connecting communities with educational tools and resources. She has worked with museums and historical societies across the Twin Cities metro and has engaged in community work led by Indigenous organizations.

The summer of 2022 introduced me to a path of research I had yet to experience in my career: on-the-ground reporting for a timely publication. My fellowship with the Hennepin History Museum offered the opportunity to write an article for their quarterly magazine, Hennepin History. However, the deadline was nearing fast. I needed to gather from-the-source information and I needed to gather it quickly. The journey began with consistent social anxiety and stress over deadlines, which begged thoughts of regret. However as the story came together and the publication date came nearer, stress turned to excitement as this was to be the first in-print publication of an article written by me. Social anxiety was still there– it’s always there– but community warmth soothed the worries and I learned to enjoy my unique, behind-the-scenes experience of Minneapolis’s Eat Street on Nicollet Avenue.

The article shines a spotlight on two historic restaurants on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, which is dubbed Eat Street. The two restaurants each won a $40,000 pandemic-relief grant and to get the scoop from the source I visited the restaurant owners on the job– their preference– and sat among their regulars. With curious eyes on the new visitor, staff and patrons studied me while I launched question after question. I am no stranger to conducting interviews with community members to gather information. I am a stranger, however, to the environment in which I was to conduct interviews for the Hennepin History timely article. Previously, all my experiences conducting interviews with people as a means to gather research were done in a private space with little interference from things and people outside the conversation. The interviews I conducted for the Hennepin History timely article were done in spaces I was not accustomed to and therefore my being there felt out of place.

Barside Journalism

Despite bars and pubs having been places of social pastime for centuries, it has never been a pastime for me. Being a young, single female of color with timidity that is loud no matter how much I attempt to quiet it, perhaps one may understand the sinking feeling that came over me when I walked into the Black Forest Inn for the scheduled interview with co-owner Gina and learned that I would be sitting barside among the middle-aged and senior white men while Gina served her patrons. For me, this is a social situation from Hell. I do not enjoy any alcoholic beverages, so ordering a drink was not something I could do to camouflage my discomfort sitting at the bar with strangers. What was my horror, however, was also my help. While I am not accustomed to interjecting comments when engaging in an interview with someone, the men sitting at the bar were longtime community members and patrons to the restaurant and they provided interesting information that added to the conversation I was having with Gina. The patrons remembered details Gina was forgetting and the story became more complete with the help of those barside commentators.

Reporting with a Side of Egg Rolls

I witnessed impressive multi-tasking skills when I met with Rainbow Chinese Restaurant owner, Tammy, to conduct the scheduled interview for the Hennepin History timely article. Tammy’s restaurant is still closed to dine-in services, so luckily for me there was no bar full of strangers with whom I was expected to chat and mingle. There was a kitchen full of staff, however, who looked at me with some confusion as Tammy led me through the back-of-house work area and into the kitchen. She sat me down alongside her at a stainless steel table filled with ingredients that needed to be made into egg rolls. The side-eyes of the staff told me they were trying to piece together who the stranger is in the kitchen asking their boss so many questions. Before my path in public history, I worked many different jobs. The kitchen area of a restaurant is not unfamiliar to me. What is unfamiliar to me is being surrounded by busy-working people while I sit, probably in the way at times, not being a help. Despite the controlled chaos that is a busy kitchen and despite the daunting number of egg rolls needing to be completed, Tammy excitedly answered my questions in depth while she rolled each egg roll with perfection and tended to the needs of her kitchen staff. She did not slip away from the egg rolls, her staff’s questions, or my questions once. It was multi-taking like I’ve never seen it.

The anxiety and stress I experienced throughout this journey were tantamount to my understanding and appreciation of the on-the-ground work of professional journalists. The experience also may have some influence on my future decisions regarding agreement to do timely articles, though holding the magazine and seeing an article written by me in-print does seem to make it all worth it.

Carissa Thomas is an associate librarian working in public history, dedicating her work to expanding traditional historical narratives and connecting communities with educational tools and resources. She has worked with museums and historical societies across the Twin Cities metro and has engaged in community work led by Indigenous organizations.

For the past several months I have been working with a graduate student, Fa’aumu Kaimana, through Minnesota Transform (MNT) to research and conceptualize a decolonial/counter map of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus. MNT is a University of Minnesota initiative that seeks to engage in decolonial and racial justice projects across the Minnesota region. The intention of the map fits well with the MNT mission as it is meant to highlight sites and histories that elevate the BIPOC student experience of campus. Beyond histories and sites of interest, the map is also meant to serve as a resource for students who are both new and returning to campus to be more aware of resources at their disposal such as food pantries, mental health support, community groups, and more.

Decolonial and counter mapping may be words you have or haven’t heard before, so what do we mean by them in the context of our campus map? Decoloniality is the method by which we are approaching our work. In our context, the method aims to center the experiences of BIPOC students on campus as opposed to the traditional Eurocentric histories of the University. Counter mapping is the tool we are using to achieve this. Counter maps are exactly what they sound like. They have the potential to increase the power of a marginalized group in an already mapped area and to help control representations of themselves and claims to land and resources (Peluso 387). A great example of a counter map of the Minneapolis St. Paul region can be seen in Figure 1.

As you might be able to tell, we have put a lot of effort and thought into how we are defining and conceptualizing the map but our work has also focused on research, and especially outreach. In order to create a truly decolonial counter map of campus we think that it is absolutely essential that we include voices and input of the communities we hope to represent through the map. Without this component of community input, the map could likely replicate the same harms and injustices it is seeking to confront by marginalizing the input of such groups. We began our outreach process by contacting several student groups—specifically, BIPOC focused student groups—like the Black Student Union, the Asian American Student Union, and the American Indian Student Cultural Center, among others. Unfortunately, we did not hear back from any of the student groups we reached out to. We figured our initial inquiry with these groups was poorly timed and too broad and we subsequently learned a few lessons about community outreach such as needing to create a specific focus for conversation, rather than a broad inquiry.

While we were disappointed that our outreach efforts to student groups were not successful, we gained important insights and did eventually have some success with outreach to the Mapping Prejudice Project and MNTruth (Towards Recognition and University-Tribal Healing) which is an initiative working to confront legacies of harmful research relationships perpetuated by University researchers.  The successes we did have with outreach helped us realize that something like a workshop on campus mapping could be quite useful. The focus of this workshop would be to put University community members into conversation with one another about campus history and resources. This workshop would provide an objective that participants can focus on and could therefore help to solve the problem we ran into with engaging student groups. One issue we ran into with our work is that there are similar projects being done all over the University, especially mapping work from groups like Mapping Prejudice (which will soon be working to map University land holdings), MNTruth, and several classes where mapping University histories is an emphasis. With so much work being done around the University, a workshop which maps that work or at least puts these groups into conversation could be greatly beneficial to collaboration and stronger work.

Conducting this work over the last several months has made me aware of the need for something like the map we are building. The University of Minnesota is an enormous campus with numerous histories, resources, and initiatives being undertaken all at the same time. The fact that something like this map doesn’t already exist is surprising and telling of the University’s priorities and positionality. In the next several months we hope to continue focusing primarily on outreach with student groups being the priority. Personally, I would really like to work towards organizing a workshop like the one I discussed above, perhaps in the late Spring. Additionally, through a class being taught in the spring, American Indian Studies 3920: Indigenous Mapping, we hope to have some of our first components of the map created as Fa’aumu and I will be working closely with the class to collaborate and help with the students’ research process. 

Citation: Peluso, Nancy Lee. “Whose Woods Are These? Counter-Mapping Forest Territories in Kalimantan, Indonesia.” Antipode 27:4 (1995): 383-406.

Christopher Rico is a second-year student in the Masters of Heritage Studies and Public History Graduate Program at the University of Minnesota—Twin Cities. He is studying within the Public History track. His research interests are focused around institutional history at the University and environmental justice initiatives. He has focused his work on the legacy of wild rice research at the University and research relationships with Ojibwe communities in Minnesota.

If you asked your average University of Minnesota student what they know about the Ames Library of South Asia, or better yet if they knew we had a Library dedicated to South Asia, the answer would likely be no. Most students will recognize the Ames Library for its extended quiet hours, relaxed vibe and status as an elite on-campus study spot located in the basement of Wilson library. Very few will ever actually explore this gem and all of its immense resources, this, is where I come in. 

 Over the course of the last three months, I’ve had the unique pleasure of writing, researching, and creating guides in the auspices of this unique space on our campus. This collection of nearly 25,000 books, manuscripts and maps were donated by the eponymous Charles Lesley Ames, scion of the wealthy Ames family of Eagan, MN who had made their fortune in the world of publishing. But why? What was so special about this collection? This secret library ? This anomaly, nestled in the most remote part of Wilson, located in one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse parts of the city, the heart of the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, what drew me to this project and what have I learned? To answer that question, we must first find Mr. Ames.

Ames History

“Charles Lesley Ames was born in 1884 in St. Paul, Minnesota, to Charles Wilberforce Ames and Mary Lesley Ames. Known as Lesley, he attended the Barnard School for Boys in St. Paul, and Concord Academy in Massachusetts. Ames graduated from Harvard College in 1906 and from St. Paul College of Law in 1910. Charles Lesley Ames served in World War I: he was a member of the Minnesota Field Artillery in 1916 and 1917 and was stationed in France during 1918.”

A fascination with the “Orient” and all things Middle Eastern, African, and Asian was quiet a driving force for the collection, archiving and in many cases theft of cultural relics, texts, and material culture in the earliest days of the 20^th century. In our case, a chance encounter with a book is what led to a lifelong fascination with India and its history. In 1908, shortly after graduating from Harvard, Charles Ames was travelling abroad and took W. H. Fitchett’s The Tale of the Great Mutiny a concise history of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, a watershed moment in colonial India. In 1857 Muslim and Hindu soldiers attempted to shake the yoke the British East India Company, which had functioned as the de facto sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. 

After having read this intriguing history of indigenous rebellion Ames embarked on a lifelong quest to find, archive, and collect various tests, memorabilia, and artifacts from across the sub-continent. In 1946 the library had finally come to fruition, and it was first located on the premises of the Ames family estate, a decade later an agreement was reached that the library would pass into the hands of the University of Minnesota (over much furor from the good folks at Harvard) Mr. Ames’ Alma Mater. Finally in 1961, the library as we know it came into the fold here at the University of Minnesota, to be used by students, faculty, and the larger community. For me, the Ames Library has been a world unto itself, a place both stuck in and outside of time, a slice of the old world, right here on the praise. It has also been a site of immense learning and research for me, as I explore my own heritage and history. 

My Work

My work at the Ames has examined the process, labor, and construction of legal-theological (fiqhi -i’tiqadi) affiliations via the Madāris and institutions of Islamic learning of the India, East Africa and the Indian Ocean geographies broadly defined. I seek to understand the relationship between these affiliations to the role/positionality of the many racial, linguistic, and ethnic groups who populated this diverse crossroads. I am interested in particular with students and scholars of East-African descent, be they Habashi, Jaberti, or Zayli’i and their travels to India, Yemen and the Hijaz.

My text-critical, Arabic-language primary-sourced work explores modalities of  racialized/ethnicized/linguistic constructions of legal-theological affiliations and in a contentious period in one of the most important centers of Islamic learning, the Madāris of the Indian ocean geographies. This was a period were Arab, ‘Ajam, African, Turkic, and Sub-Continental scholars learned, debated, taught, and engaged the dialectal forge to usher in an age of immense scholarly output and growth under the auspices of cooperation,  cross-cultural exploration, and an expanding global Muslim polity, one whose sphere of influence extended from the Persianate world to both coasts of Africa. We know that these scholars organized themselves into legal and theological guilds, with social cohesion and solidarity as their essential building blocks. My work seeks to explore these networks and their cross-cultural implications. 

I have also been able to develop a preliminary reading list, guide, and syllabus for students of East African history, culture and politics, which I hope to expand on in future blogs.

Mohamud Awil Mohamed is a second year HSPH student in the Public History Track, he is currently a Research Fellow at the Ames Library of South Asia.

As a state, Minnesota incarcerates a higher percentage of people than any democratic country in the world. A 2018 study by the Prison Policy Initiative showed that Minnesota had an incarceration rate of 342 for every 100,000 people. This number included those confined in both state and local prisons, as well as immigration detention and juvenile justice facilities. Resources for personal development in correctional facilities everywhere are limited; for the last three years, however, this has been especially true in Minnesota Correctional Facility- Stillwater. 

The limitation of resources began in 2018 when Correctional Officer Joseph Gomm was murdered by an inmate in the metals workshop at the Stillwater facility. This tragic loss resulted in a complete lockdown of the prison and an indefinite hold status for many of the enrichment programs intended to benefit the incarcerated. Antonio Espinosa was also a correctional officer working in the Stillwater correctional facility at the time, and he described a feeling of hopelessness amongst the entire prison after the loss of his friend and colleague. Espinosa says that it was this feeling that led him to found the organization Art from the Inside. 

When I joined the Minnesota Museum of American Art (the M) as a curatorial fellow in June 2021, the museum was in the beginning stages of developing a partnership with Art from the Inside (AFTI) . The M is bold, and we welcome opportunities to share complex truths and build authentic relationships with community partners. AFTI approached our team in search of an additional venue for Transformation and we made a conscious effort to make the most out of the M’s unique gallery spaces. The M’s inside space was closed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and remains closed for an expansive remodeling effort. While the indoor spaces have been unavailable, the museum made the unique decision to utilize the large, street-facing windows as public gallery spaces. 

Art From the Inside (AFTI) is a prison arts initiative that encourages the participating artists to imagine, plan, and create better futures for themselves. Using visual art as a mode for expression, AFTI affirms the personal development of artists by publicly activating submitted works outside of the prison at local events and exhibitions. Audiences often include artists’ loved ones and family members, who express pride, gratitude, and support for AFTI’s efforts. Espinosa and his team, including his lovely wife Jessica, propose an annual theme and encourage artists to create works drawing meaning from the concepts. Initially, AFTI exclusively worked with artists incarcerated in the Stillwater facility, but have expanded their efforts to the Shakopee facility as well. For the 2020-21 exhibition cycle, the artists were given the theme of “transformation.” The resulting exhibitions, aptly titled Transformation: Art from the Inside, were hosted at CreatorsSpace and the Minnesota Museum of American Art in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Curating Transformation

As with any unconventional approach to exhibition design, there were considerations made that were specific to our materials and their location. Because of concerns with UV exposure in the window galleries and division of materials between concurrent exhibitions, AFTI requested that we use replicas for the M’s iteration of the Transformation exhibition. While I had planned for the M to host about half of the original materials, the AFTI team’s request inspired a new vision for the exhibition. Many of the original materials are quite small—artists often asserted that they used what was available to them, and, when incarcerated, traditional art materials like canvases were hard to come by—and the use of replicas meant I was able to reconsider the scale of the exhibition. I decided to use fewer pieces that were larger in size because I felt it gave the audience and the pieces more room to breathe. 

All of the selected pieces reflected on personal identity, circumstance, and environment. I wanted viewers to consider the artists as creatives, loved ones, and valued community members who happen to be incarcerated. I collaborated closely with the AFTI team to develop the script and layout of the show. Antonio Espinosa has since retired, but while working in Stillwater, he developed personal relationships with most of the artists who submitted work and his interactions informed much of the text included in the exhibition. 

Advocacy is at the core of my curatorial practice, but I felt this was especially important for artists who were literally barred by the state from participating in the exhibition development process. The M was able to compensate every artist whose work we displayed and we provided a partnership honorarium and provided art kits to family members as well as the artists themselves. Our next step in the exhibition is planning a panel with Antonio and other advocates for prison arts programs. We hope the program will encourage others to advocate for the incarcerated as well.

Kylie Linh Hoang is a curator and public historian based in the Twin Cities. Kylie is invested in collaborative curation and restorative social justice in museum work. Currently, she is a Curatorial Fellow at the Minnesota Museum of American Art and a Coordinating Curator on the Lake Street Project, courtesy of Minnesota Transform.