Rewriting Settler Space through Indigenous Community Outreach in Minneapolis

• In Event: Staking Claims: Race, Space, and (Re)Settlement in Minneapolis and Detroit

Abstract

This paper explores the ways Indigenous peoples in Minneapolis, Minnesota have utilized physical alteration of the urban landscape to re-indigenize the city, thereby encouraging an acknowledgment of Indigenous claims to and presence in the area. In 2010, the city of Minneapolis officially designated a stretch of the central Franklin Avenue as the “American Indian Cultural Corridor” (AICC), thereby marking East Philips neighborhood as a contemporary and historic space for Indigenous community. Banners hang from light posts emblazoned with the floral and geometric designs for which Ojibwe and Dakota people are known and public artwork can be spotted up and down the street on walls, sidewalks, and electric boxes. The neighborhood, which has a strong history of urban Indian community organizing, has been aesthetically re-indigenized. Complementing the AICC’s visual proclaimers are flourishing Indigenous businesses, urban tribal offices, art galleries, and the forty-two-year-old Minneapolis American Indian Center. While Indigenous peoples call East Philips and the AICC home, there is also a determined effort on the part of community leaders to educate non-Indigenous community about the city’s Indigenous history. I argue that, through the visibility of Indigenous peoples in East Philips, cemented by the creation of the AICC, Indigenous community has not only reclaimed space but has also opened a conversation about settler colonialism, Indigenous resilience, and the importance of inclusion of Indigenous peoples into any discourse about the city. This can be seen clearly in community efforts of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples alike to rename local Lake Calhoun, returning the lake’s name to its original Dakota moniker, which resulted in the 2015 addition of “Bde Maka Ska” to the lake’s signage. By utilizing oral interviews with Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members, ethnographic fieldwork, and community and city records, I will analyze the methods used by Indigenous peoples to rewrite settler space through the physical re-indigenizing of Minneapolis and subsequent cultural outreach.

Author

• Sasha Maria Suarez, University of Minnesota Twin Cities