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.

102 years and one day.
Prohibition came and went. 
There was a Great Depression. 
A Great Recession.
COVID-19. Y2K.  9/11. 
All of the events in “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel.
When compared to 102 years and one day, my 26 years and 19 days seemed rather inconsequential. 
And yet, here I sat, 
on June 23rd, 2021, 
102 years and one day later. 
The sound of the whirring A/C unit shaking the room as it battled the 90 degree heat. 
The lights dimmed to keep the temperature down. 
The oscillating fan in the corner rustling the ephemera 
I had unceremoniously stacked in a pile to inventory.

Atop this pile was a delicate envelope containing three postcards,
from June 22, 1919;
“Ladies Potatoe Race// Eugene Field Picnic”,
“Boys 3 Legged Race// Eugene Field Picnic”,
“‘Going Some’ Childrens Free For All Race// Eugene Field Picnic.”
Blurred figures and frozen smiles 
Caught between the historical moments of history books.

It was only my third week as a fellow at the Hennepin History Museum.
Working on a project about pairing of Field and Hale schools in South Minneapolis,
I had been tasked with inventorying the materials inside a green bin. 
Materials that had been collected over the years by community members, but had never been properly inventoried or archived.
Scrapbooks of newspaper clippings,
Old school assignments,
School newsletters,
Photographs colored by age,
Flyers,
Letters,
Meeting minutes,
And three postcards.
I spent 20 hours a week
Filling a spreadsheet with their
NameDateSizeDescriptionConditionEtc.
Counting the faces of children in a class picture,
Flipping through the details on library volunteers and measles vaccines,
Scanning digital archives for matching headlines.

Most often those 20 hours allowed me to get lost in the mundane and inconsequential.
A letter from Lisa Smith detailing the most dangerous things she’s done —
Sitting in the street and throwing rocks in the air.
The marriage of Miss Jane Olmsted, now Mrs. Papageorgiou.
A Pairing timeline for Hale and Field detailing the over 30 coffee parties held in Hale and Field communities to bring proponents and opponents of the pairing together. 
These coffee parties didn’t make the history books.
Nor did the Eugene Field Picnic from 1919. 
However, as the summer moved on, I was granted more and more insight on the importance of these coffee parties. 
Listening back to the interviews with elders who worked to pair Hale and Field, there seems to be no doubt in their minds that these coffee parties played an integral part in the pairing. 

It is these between moments that make history happen. 
The moments that seem mundane and inconsequential, like
Going to a picnic,
Hosting a coffee party,
Or flipping through ephemera on a hot summer day.
These are the moments that connect us to the past,
That make us stop and reflect on the choices that brought us here.
Like how a postcard from 102 years and one day ago can interrupt the rhythm of
NameDateSizeDescriptionConditionEtc.
And cause me to stop
And think.
It was only a Google search, an essay, and an application fee that brought me here.
But it was so much more.

On September 2nd, 1971, Hale and Field had their first day as a paired school. 
A move meant to facilitate school integration in Minneapolis. 
50 years later I was logging off a Zoom meeting, 
Waving through my screen to a former student of the Hale and Field pairing,
After discussing plans about the future exhibit on this history.

Hannah L. Coble is a storyteller and public historian. She received her Bachelor’s of Arts in both English and Anthropology from the College of Wooster, and is expected to graduate with her Masters of Heritage Studies and Public History from the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities) in spring of 2022. In her writing, Hannah aims to incorporate different strategic and creative forms, such as poetry. She believes that by doing this she is decentering the institutional voice, while conveying and validating the emotional truths behind the stories she tells. It is her hope to help legitimize poetic forms of storytelling — and other traditionally non-academic forms of storytelling — in order to uplift and center voices that have not been traditionally privileged in telling histories. This is specifically relevant to Hannah’s research on place, narrative, and identity. Hannah believes that place is a powerful repository of stories and identities, and it is important to recognize the vast array of stories and voices located in place.

At the beginning of my museum career, I wanted to remain as neutral as possible regarding race. Not because I believed that race is a neutral topic, but because doing Indigenous work was really mentally taxing. Doing racially relevant work can be exhausting for any POC, but especially those who have to tackle the inequalities that exist in a colonial cis white world. On top of it all, I didn’t feel valued or seen with the museum I was working for at the time, so why would I give them something so valuable to me? However, I recognized that to remain neutral, I would have to ignore all of my core values. They weren’t something I was willing to compromise. I couldn’t run from my Indigeneity within the institution, so I would need to use it to my advantage, so my community could be seen. My indigeneity is an asset to these organizations. My connection to this community, land, language, and learning impact how I do my job. These are just some of the core values that I reflect in the work that I do. 

Community Relationships

Relationship building is an integral part of any community-based job. These relationships can take months and sometimes years to build, grow, and gain trust. Without specific knowledge of the community and who does what, community outreach work can be a shot in the dark. Many of these relationships don’t stem from work done at the institution but stem from our work outside it. This comes from being a part of the community, family,  volunteering, organizing, and supporting. When members of a community know who is working within the institution, they are more likely to reach out or respond. To see themselves, their peers, and other Indigenous people doing this work gains community trust.

Land

Understanding where your institution stands when it comes to Indigenous land rights, whose land you sit on, and whose land you have stolen are all questions that need to be asked before starting your work with these communities. If your institution cannot address these issues on its own, it’s not ready to be working with Indigenous communities. White people can draw conclusions about how Indigenous people may feel or react to the institution’s legacy; without Indigenous voices inside the museum, reconciliation work is nearly impossible. But we cannot do all of the work. To begin mending past harms, we first need to acknowledge that most of these institutions have a long past in taking from the people of this land, physical lands, and their ancestors who were buried there. Our ancestors grew up on these lands, and our ancestors are buried here, our ancestors lost these lands and our buried were dug up. And a lot of trauma can stem back to museums and educational institutions. However, we are moving forward. Indigenous peoples have a deep-seated respect for how we treat mother earth, how we talk about her, and utilize her. To recognize Indigenous communities means recognizing their vested interest in the future of the lands you reside on, for Indigenous communities to finally have a voice and a say with what happens to their ancestral homelands. 

Language

Language goes hand in hand with community relationships.  It connects Indigenous people together, is a source of resilience, and a way to claim what was once stolen. To have knowledge of the regional language is a huge part of making those connections. Beyond Indigenous languages, we also need to talk about representation and interpretation. Historically, museums and educational institutions have not represented these communities accurately or respectfully. Acknowledging Indigenous people correctly within the institution for the work they do makes a significant difference in the direction your community outreach will go. When Indigenous peoples feel as if they are accurately represented within the institutions, they will feel like they have space to work with the institution rather than for the institution. 

Multigenerational approach to learning and collaboration

Indigenous people learn and absorb information in different ways. We often rely on traditional oral stories, connection to land, language, and humor to teach across all ages. This way of learning does not always align with museums’ organizational and data driven work. But by understanding how Indigenous people best learn we can also better understand how to best serve as resources for these communities and how we can best collect the correct histories. If museums start to create programs for Indigenous communities, by Indigenous community members, we begin to create space for them that they can benefit from. The changes we make as Indigenous peoples are not only for this generation but future generations,  and the relationships created with historical and educational institutions will lead the future relationships within these institutions. These relationships between community and institution are not short term projects but rather the long term goal.  

Angel Swann is a citizen of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. Born and raised in the Minneapolis Indigenous Urban Community, Angel focuses her work on bringing the Indigenous Community into museums. 

Introduction

In 2014, I co-founded Soomaal House of Art (Soomaal), an artists-run organization based in Minneapolis, and the only Somali-run studio and gallery in the state and nation. Through this initiative, I support the development, creation and presentation of the arts by our local artists Using art, we explore the pressing and vexing contemporary issues of our community, including heritage, memory and identity, as we continue to forge a new life in our new home. Furthermore, art allows us to examine and critique the historical and provincial stories of our communities as well as documenting our lived experiences.

My journey and experiences over the years have led me to think about the breadth and vibrant stories, histories and visuals that come through our art programs, and how to preserve them for present and future Minnesotans.

Community-based Archiving

The Somali American community in Minnesota is one of the largest communities outside of Somalia. Its members encompass the range so familiar to immigrant communities, from elders who have spent most of their lives in the home country and refugee camps to youth born and raised in the United States.

According to recent research, Minnesota’s people of color residents have grown in the last decade and continue to rise with the highest numbers in newborns, where Somali Americans rank second. Therefore, the course of the arts, archives, research and education in Minnesota must change to reflect this demographic trend. As the recent immigration and cultural diversity of our state increases, we have to acknowledge the various needs of each community’s rich expressions and cultural innovations by starting to lay the groundwork to help them grow intellectually and artistically.

As it stands, Minnesota’s mainstream archival institutions lack the diverse records of our citizens, and it remains to advocate a dominant heritage narrative that does not represent the many communities of our state. Lack of access and the absence of representation in the state’s archives continues the systemic inequities that immigrants and people of color are already dealing with in Minnesota.

Archives are records of a certain community’s lived experiences through documents, photographs, postcards, and other primary sources. For the past years, I have been rigorously researching and working towards community-based archiving that is outside of mainstream archival institutions featuring our locality and community.

Community-based archiving allows local community members and researchers, from all fields, to grow professionally and conduct research into the arts and storytelling, history and heritage, create new narratives, and augment the historical interpretations of our diverse communities in Minnesota. Furthermore, it is both the archives and access to these collections that allow our communities to build capacity, promote a strong sense of belonging and identity, and be culturally responsive.

Archival repositories are thought of as something the state and higher educational institutions do and not local communities. Yet, these repositories hold the memories of the communities they serve. This power differential is what creates an imbalance in memory making and historicity; whose memory is remembered, whose history is celebrated, and who is considered the voice and custodian of our lived experiences? This classical form of dealing with the archives creates silences.

Michel-Rolph Trouillot reminds us of this in his seminal book, Silencing the Past: Power & The Production of History, that “[s]ilences enter the process of historical production at four crucial moments: the moment of fact creation (the making of sources); the moment of fact assembly (the making of archives); the moment of fact retrieval (the making of narratives); and the moment of retrospective significance (the making of history in the final instance).”

For communities to think about their archives in posterity, the groundwork has to start with what they have in their possessions and they must actively preserve their archives along the way.

Collections & Conclusions

In my personal collection and Soomaal’s repositories, I have thousands of my community’s archival materials documenting the memories and histories of Somali Minnesotans. In addition, for the past seven years and presently, I have documented the works of art, stories and behind the scenes of all the artists and programs that ensued at Soomaal. These immense and valuable archives tell us the history and presence of contemporary Somali American arts in the state and nation.

These archives have educational, economical and historical values for present and future generations of our state. To improve Minnesota’s collective heritage and memory, local communities have to consider community-based archiving, an effort to keep the archival records of our state diverse, equitable and inclusive.

Kaamil A. Haider is an interdisciplinary visual artist whose work examines the relationship between objects, meanings, and heritage in contemporary Somali art, with an emphasis on memory, both private and public. He draws from diverse cultural, archival, and oral tradition references. Kaamil is a cofounder of Soomaal House of Art, an artists collective based in Minneapolis. He is a second year student in the Masters of Heritage Studies & Public History program at the University of Minnesota.