MINNESOTA WOMEN’S PRESS

Origin Stories

Nimo Omar Sun Yung Shin Sheila O’Connor Marcia Malzahn

Specialty Guides • Camp • Education • New Years

Origins issue | womenspress.com | January 2020 | Issue 36-1 Tell us What you recommend

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Our What Women Want survey is now Readers Recommend. Same great survey with a new name. Kathy Magnuson & Norma Smith Olson (2003-2017) Olson Smith Norma & Magnuson Kathy Mollie Hoben &Glenda Martin (1985-2002) Past Publishers: ISSN rights #1085-2603 reserved. All ©2020 by Minnesota Women’s Press LLC subscription: a with [email protected] storytelling our fund Help comandclick“copy”on 651-646-3968.acall for nd locations.To copyfnda near you, visit womenspress. Te Minnesota Women’s Press is distributed free at 500 of women shi who f narratives to change. e fect stronger future will be built from the collective energy vision: Our women.everyday powerful, of leadership the steps, action and stories mission: Our Events listings: Advertise: Subscribe: [email protected] aletterSend to theeditor/suggest idea: story 651-646-3968 Us Contact PHOTO SARAH WHITING WOMEN’S PRESS MINNESOTA Sun Yung Shin, Page Shin, Yung Sun 28 Minnesota Women’s Press LLC [email protected] [email protected] We all are parts of a greater whole. Our Our greaterwhole. a ofWe parts are all Minneapolis, MN55411 Amplify and inspire, with personal personal with inspire, and Amplify [email protected] 800 West Broadway

Photo by Sarah Whiting bySarah Photo Cover Photo: Accounting Taylor Roberson Sales: Advertising Proofreader: Factchecker: Editor: Copy Assistant Editor: Development Director: Photography/Design: Development:Digital Lydia Moran, Ryan Stevens, Kassidy Tarala Engagement:Community Wandering Tarala,YungKassidyTeresaSun EveShin, Tomas, Sheila O’Connnor, Moran, Nimo Omar, Rivera, Price,AlisonErica Lydia Malzahn, Marcia Fontaine, Contributors Director: Strategy Business Managing Editor: Publisher/Editor: team MWP : Fariba Sanikhatam

Selena Moon Selena Nimo Omar. See her story on page 20. : Ava Bleifuss, Gaea Dill-D’Ascoli, Evelyn Quinn Dreasler Quinn Kelly Gryting POWERFUL.EVERYDAY. WOMEN Ryan Stevens, Angela McLaughlin, Lydia Moran Sarah Whiting Mikki MorrissetteMikki Sarah Whiting Mikki MorrissetteMikki Karen Olson Johnson Siena IwasakiMilbauer,Siena Shelle Eddy Shelle . Edi What’s ap 33-35 ed f Classi Ads 36-37 22-23 Into Wilderness the Camp 10-11 How Are Minnesota Students Faring? Education Teresa Tomas: How to Have Fun 38 Year New Specialty guides 31-32 Dill-D’Ascoli: Gaea 21Grams Sexuality Midwives, Pharmacists Sued, Police Funding News the In LGBTQ+: Perspective: BookShelf: Policy &Politics: Action =Change: Money &Business: Identity: ofArt Living: OriginStories 14-30 aety 6-7 8-9 andPhoto Highlights Gallery Gala Changemaker Commentaries about starting points and roots Tapestry Where We Begin oeD 12-13 Native Minnesota, LandscapeArboretum GoSeeDo nothing for itbutto getto it.” know “The pastisaninheritance,“The agift, tor Le tor and a burden. It can’tand aburden. It beshirked. You iteverywhere. carry There’s Indigenous Roots

tter tter Nancy Lyons inside? Sheila O’Connor Sun Yung Shin Alison Price Failing Mothers &Children Nimo Omar Marcia Malzahn — JillLepore 4-5

Where We Begin by Mikki Morrissette

he frst interview I ever did for Minnesota Women’s Press was with author Sheila O’Connor 15 years ago. I loved connecting with her in conversation, as I have with others I have met through this magazine — the longest running feminist print Tpublication in the country. Sentimentally, it is a pleasure for me to include Sheila in this Origins issue, where she uses her creativity to explore the story of her grandmother as a 15-year-old and its wider implications. As we dig into the archives of Minnesota Women’s Press for a retrospective book about our rich history amplifying women’s voices, we fnd 35 years of coverage about gender- based violence, inequities, and the politics of women. It is eye-opening to see how long it Minnesota Women’s takes society to make change around women’s issues. It is also fascinating to see the frst Press is launching “The conversations in these pages with women like Ann Bancrof, Winona LaDuke, and Lizzo, Year of 20/20 Vision.” The who have broken barriers. purpose of this year’s The intent of this Origins theme: to look at where we come from and themes are to see long- what we do, individually and collectively, to get where we want to be. entrenched issues in new I took the helm of this magazine two years ago to share the beauty of Minnesota ways together, and ofer Women’s Press, which is its unique focus on frst-person storytelling. Te women in these more action steps and pages tell their own stories in their own words. education for change. We tend to think of our lives as linear, partly because that is how storytelling lays it out. We are born, we get an education, fnd a job, build a family, pursue passions, and eventually prepare to leave it all behind. Yet in reality, we are all parts of a greater whole. We need unique storytelling to refect that — to remind us of the value in widening our February Topic: Taste view of the circle, and of the inevitability of our contributions to the future beyond our Our Tapestry section lifespan, just as we reap from those who came before. Te stories in Minnesota Women’s asks readers to respond to Press this year will spotlight how we evolve, not in isolation, but through intersection. this month’s question: How Stories shif. Our narratives as a country today are not what they were in the 1920s, does food or fashion play a and we will not be the same tomorrow. Tis magazine (and our upcoming book) enables role in your life? us to ofer perspective. How are our stories changing, or not, over time? How are women Send up to 300 helping us see things in a new light? Who is taking us in new directions? words by January 10 to [email protected] March Topic: Money Starting this year, we will create digital tools to spotlight organizations and resources involved with a few specifc issues. Tis initiative starts with How are you seeking our Origins theme. We want to develop a guide to organizations that help economic empowerment? people get new starts: those who help with transitions out of homelessness or incarceration, who ofer meaningful job training programs, and who Find all 2020 themes provide healing and restoration afer trauma. Te guides will include action at “Submit Story” at steps readers can take to ofer support. womenpress.com How you can make this happen: Join our community as a Supporting Subscriber, starting at a $100 level, or with a monthly membership that can start as low as $5/month. Tis contribution goes toward our Storyteller Fund. To learn more: womenspress.com/subscribe-donate

4 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 Minnesota Women’s Press Recommended Reading Night at the Opera Tanks to an afliate partnership with Magers & Quinn March 26, 2020, 7:30pm booksellers, Minnesota Women’s Press readers who want to dive deeper into our monthly themes are able to place online 30% of discount for Minnesota Women’s Press readers orders that contribute a percentage of sales to our Storytelling mnopera.org/welcome-minnesota-womens-press Fund. Visit “Self: Books” at womenspress.com for articles that display the Magers & Quinn link. Tis month’s recommended resources come from a panel conversation at Hamline University, led by Confict Studies professor Colleen Bell. Two panelists discussed the generational trauma that is perpetuated by separating incarcerated and detained mothers from their children. Tese six books were among those suggested.

Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 5 tapestry Origins commentary of everyday women about starting points and roots

Esther Ouray: On the Origins of the Universe I am a performing and teaching artist. Over time I have taken on the role of actress, dancer, puppeteer, director, and more. A life engaged in the performing arts has aforded me the awesome

privilege to explore and play within the realms of SARAHPHOTO WHITING creative inspiration. Although I am required to keep one foot in the challenging everyday world, the other foot exists in a realm where unexpected connections are celebrated. For these feeting moments of celebration, the many become one. I prefer to work in concert with other people, in community. Tat way, the odds are increased that illumination will sneak through the cracks — or at least, with more of us, we might be able to locate a crack or two. My work has been driven forward by a yearning for connection, a desire for the manifestation of a world saturated in justice and sweetness. Really, I just tell made-up stories. I say words Te yearning will sufce. Honestly, these days there is so little and ofer images about the origins of earth and universe and time to contemplate the origins of the universe. humans, in the hope that the craf I have been taught will set Much of my work now is with Zamya Teater project, the stage for something to occur that coaxes hearts to awaken. which creates work with those in our community who have I have been prompted by this month’s magazine topic to or are experiencing homelessness. Simpler questions must be ponder questions about the origins of life, universe, and tended to, like ‘how are we going to house everybody?’ Can humans. However, I am content to never know the answers. we crack that one open together?

Kao Kalia Yang: Losing Children (and girls who go missing) during the Te book I co-edited, “What God Secret War in Laos. In the case of African is Honored Here?,” deals directly American women, it is the history of slavery and honestly with Native women in this country. Tere are women who are losing their children at our borders right

PHOTO SARAHPHOTO WHITING and women of colors' feelings for our children — the immense love now. Tese losses go on and on. and the immense loss. Although For so many of us, our children were the book ofers personal stories taken by forces seemingly beyond our about miscarriage and infant loss, it control at diferent points in our histories. delicately speaks to me about the vast Te history books, if we exist in them at history of children being taken away. all, ignore our feelings. Tis book forces For Native women, it has been an acknowledgment — that women of the forced removal of children to color and Native women love our children schools that separate them from intensely, love them always, and have never their families and traditions. In the been blinded to the wretched history that case of Hmong women, it is the forces so many of us to live without them. enlistment of Hmong boy soldiers We live in these histories now.

6 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 Mary Tjosvold: A Love Story As a newlywed fve years ago with my

COURTESY PHOTO husband, we passed the familiar, and empty, Shorewood restaurant space on Central Avenue just north of downtown SARAHPHOTO WHITING Minneapolis. We wandered in, took a tour, and made an ofer to buy it. Larry Dunsmore was a dapper British man entertaining guests at a piano bar Stephanie Jensen: on a cruise ship when we met in 2009. Marilyn Morrissette: Education Girl from Oklahoma He was a veteran entertainer who had performed in Te Carlyle Hotel in New Like many people who were born I don’t remember a lot of details about York, to clubs in Singapore and Dubai, in the 1930s, my life began on a farm. the Oklahoma City bombing. I can’t and at the star-studded engagement To a child, that was a bucolic setting say I recall exact timelines of the few party of Prince Charles and Princess of wide open spaces, felds of crops, tornadoes I witnessed, and the countless Diana. He asked me to recline on the wild asparagus, an orchard, and farm ones that caused me to take cover. I do piano so he could serenade me. Tis was animals: cows, horses, chickens, sheep, remember red dirt — I thought it was not something I would normally do, but pigs. My father was a farmer for a beautiful, even when it few through I succumbed to his charm. wealthy, absentee owner. My mother the air like tiny needles, whether from Our relationship blossomed quickly, was a homemaker who taught her two a natural disaster or a bomb. although we were ofen apart. I did children nursery rhymes. It was the I grew up understanding things philanthropic work with women Great Depression. We were lucky to be were going to explode somehow. Tey and children as chairwoman of the on a farm. My father prized education might be destroyed, and we could lose American Refugee Committee. Larry but had no money to pursue it. everything. But when it happened, continued to play around the world. We Tat life changed drastically when folks would show up, roll up their married in 2013. While in Cameroon my father died. I was nine; my brother sweaty sleeves, and help. Cases of water a few months later, I was sitting in a six. My mother was forced to become were donated. Families, frefghters, noisy disco when I called Larry, who a breadwinner and a single parent. and farmers worked together to solve was working in Australia, and said, “We Her resourcefulness and grit were whatever the problem of the day was. should do a music club in Minnesota so monumental. She managed to go to No one had to tell me this was how to we can be together.” beauty school. When she returned afer be a human. I forgot to hear them when Tat is what we did, afer a thorough a year, we lived together in a one room they said I didn’t have to constantly be remodeling of the empty restaurant converted paint shack with no indoor afraid of the next event. on Moore Lake. We opened Crooner’s plumbing. She started Jean’s Beauty We were always surrounded by Supper Club on November 20, 2014. Salon. Afer she eked out a living, we the military, because I lived near an Sadly, Larry passed away from cancer moved into a one-bedroom apartment. Air Force Base; the sound of planes less than a year afer the opening. Since With no savings, I was of to nursing overhead offered reassurance. When then, I have been working to make training with a state scholarship. Afer it was quiet, I worried more. It meant Crooners, a world-class supper club. returning to school three more times, our helpers left to help someone else, Tat is the story of how this unique, some of it with other scholarship and we needed to be ready to take classic American night club — a money, I had a master’s degree as a nurse over. It was unreasonable, but fear throwback to the 1950s — came to be. practitioner. Having a state nursing usually is. scholarship made all the diference. These are little kid imaginings. My husband had a similar background. As I look from nearly a thousand Minimal fnancial means and a mother’s miles away, I can feel my proud roots death at age eleven. His opportunity was frozen in a warmer climate, even as military service, which gave him the GI childhood anxieties thaw here in the COURTESY PHOTO bill and a college education. black dirt north. Te moral of this story: pursue scholarships aggressively. Te public library can be a great resource to help you fnd them. Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 7 early 150 women gathered on December 5, 2019, in celebration of fve special honorees who were recognized by Minnesota Women’s Press for theirN ongoing commitment to issues that strongly impact people, community, and the environment.

Rising Star Award Anika Bowie, NAACP

Community Storyteller Award Tea Rozman Clark, Green Card Voices

Dynamic Duo Award Asma Mohammed Nizami and Sarah Super, lobbyists

Lifetime Achievement Award Winona LaDuke, Honor the Earth

Te evening included entertainment by Tiyumba Drum and Dance Group, and singer Sara Tomsen, accompanied by Sharon Day. Welcoming remarks were ofered by St. Catherine University president ReBecca Rolof.

Pictured from top: • 2019 Changemaker Sarah Park Dahlen and fellow St. Catherine University faculty May Thao-Schuck • Minnesota Women’s Press writer Alma Silver • St. Catherine University president ReBecca Roloff and student Zaynab Abdi • Long-time Minnesota Women’s Press supporter Margaret Shryer

Pictured right: • Lifetime Achievement Award winner Winona LaDuke • Minnesota Women’s Press adviser Nausheena Hussein and 2019 Gala honoree Sarah Super

All photos by Sarah Whiting

8 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 See talks by the honorees at womenspress.com

Winona LaDuke said she is rematriating society in order to help us recover our origins. To do that we need to remind ourselves of rules that we tell our children and grandchildren: Do not steal property or people. Clean up your old mess before making a new one. Treat each other with respect through restorative justice and reconciliation healing. Stop putting toxic chemicals in our food, water, earth, and bodies. LaDuke urged us to stand against more oil pipelines, but to use resources to bring clean water to all, especially in places like Flint, Michigan.

Event Sponsors & Ticket Donors St. Catherine University Minnesota National Organization for Women Sisters of St. Joseph Ministries Foundation Alexis Bailly Vineyard Kowalski’s Markets Maplewood Toyota

Table, Raffle, and Swag Bag Supporters Minnesota Lynx Trader Joe’s Smartpress Wisdom Ways Center for Spirituality Celeste’s Dream Young Adult Spirituality Outback Steakhouse Bachman’s Minnesota Opera

Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 9 NEW YEARS How To Have Fun This Year Guide submitted by Teresa Thomas Support our advertisers — and tell them you saw their ad in the Minnesota Women’s Press!

here were many moments in the past year when I experienced the empowerment that comes from joy. I used fun as a tool for resiliency and to regain hope. TFocusing on joy gives me clarity about what I want and what I believe in. It has increased my ability to stand up for myself. As someone who ofen stifes my own voice, rather than speaking my mind, I have noticed that when I nurture my joy, I have an easier time expressing myself.

How Do We Focus on Joy? As a networking coach and facilitator, two years ago I created “50 Fun Tings®” — a series of workshops and tools to foster joy, fulfllment, and connection for individuals and teams. I originally created the tool in order to cope with my own midlife crisis and gratify my desire to feel more connected to others in my later years. I never expected it to have such a powerful ripple efect. I notice that people who create a 50 Fun Tings® chart are not just focused on the big things, or the fun things, or the bucket list. It is also about appreciating things we might have started to take for granted, looking for sparks of daily joy, experiencing gratitude, and self-care.

Many people report experiencing a paradigm shift after they start looking at life with this fresh perspective.

10 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 New Years Guide

I have since heard from resiliency started focusing on what brought her joy. experts, self-mastery teachers, therapists, As a result, she became a more energized and regular folks that joy is imperative to mom and role model. our health. Having things to look forward We can regain a sense of fow, and fnd to gives us hope, motivation, and eases our a spark, by noticing clues in simple things. After a long-awaited anxieties. Raising our level of gratitude and Deep connections can be formed when trip started off on the appreciation for simple joys allows us to people talk about what lights them up. wrong foot, I felt sorry for myself. To stop focusing better cope with depression. Have you noticed how you listen and retain on the few negative more of what is said by someone who is things, I made a list of Is It Hard to Experience Fun? excited about what she is talking about? 50 positive experiences: It is often easier to know what feels fun Te idea behind 50 Fun Tings® I wrote a sweet note, for loved ones. We tend to forget what is to incorporate self-refection, indulged in chocolate fun is for ourselves. Do you put work and communication with others, setting and before breakfast, tried life obligations above everything else? Do expressing intentions, and taking at least a new food, wore a special piece of jewelry. you feel disconnected? one step toward creating a more fulflling If something is feeling Some people who have worked on personal or professional life. Tis is a catalyst for transformation. like it isn’t going right, their list report that the word “fun” where could you use an feels intimidating. If this describes you, Poet Toi Derricotte proclaimed: “Joy is an act of resistance.” I am still wrapping my attitude adjustment? consider using a related word, such as joy Take a 20 minute break head around this concept. To me, it means or fulfllment. and see if you can list One woman told me she viewed fun as to take care of ourselves is to embrace joy, out 50 positive things to something to have only when everything rather than giving way to despair. observe or try. else in life was achieved. Teresa Thomas (she/her) is living out more than the Another lost her sense of self afer her 50 fun things she originally set out to experience. baby was born, but regained it when she Details: 50funthings.com

While we tend to know what feels fun for loved PHOTO SARAHPHOTO WHITING ones, we tend to forget what fun is for ourselves.

Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 11 GoSeeDo

Our Home: Native Minnesota Through 1/31 — The Art of Danielle Pebbles and Angel Hawari Two local surrealist painters exhibit work in a whimsical atmosphere. Danielle Pebbles is fascinated COURTESY PHOTO COURTESY PHOTO with fairy tales. Angel Hawari is enchanted by unusual creatures and their unique

PHOTO MINNESOTA CENTERHISTORY adaptations, and art that makes connections between things that don’t normally go together. Free. Cryptid Christian missionaries began teaching what they viewed as “civilized” arts in Dakota and Ojibwe women’s sewing circles in the 1830s. Women at Hair Parlour, Mpls. Details: the White Earth, Red Lake, and Leech Lake reservations eventually were Pinke Goat with Argan Fruit, tinyurl.com/TeCryptid shipping Native-made lace to customers in New York City, Boston, and acrylic on panel, 8" x 10", Philadelphia. Pictured: Ojibwe women at Leech Lake, 1906 Angel Hawari © 2019 Multimedia pieces, rare artifacts, and historic and 1/1 — Auld Lang Syne contemporary photographs tell frst-person stories of the history of Native people in Minnesota. Tis is the frst permanent gallery devoted to Native history at the Minnesota History Center. $12. Minnesota History Center, St. Paul. Details: mnhs.org PHOTO KAUPO KIKKAS KAUPO PHOTO

Te Minnesota Orchestra is joined by international alto saxophonist Jess Gillam for a performance set to emulate BBC Promenade Concerts with military marches, bagpipers, and flm scores. $29-$155. 2pm. Orchestra Hall, Mpls. Details: minnesotaorchestra.org

12 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 1/6 - 1/31 — Free Days at the 1/21 - 3/28 — The Beginning of Look for the Women’s Minnesota Landscape Arboretum Everything: An Exhibition of Drawings Press magazine here: • Women’s Empowerment Lake House Retreat – I AM!, Jan. 24-26 ARBORETUM • Minnesota Women of Today Winter State Convention & 70th Anniversary Celebration, Jan. 24-26 PHOTO MINNESOTA LANDSCAPE MINNESOTA PHOTO ARTIST AND BOCKLEY GALLERY • SE MN Winter Women Veterans Retreat, Jan. 31 –

PRIVATE COLLECTION, COURTESY OF PRIVATE THE Feb. 2 See art shows, do yoga, have lunch, • U of MN Women’s or take a walk at the Arboretum for free Dyani White Hawk, Untitled, 2014, Charcoal on paper Center events in January. Te winter light show will • NAWBO-MN events Tis group exhibit features works from run through 1/5. 8am–5pm. Minnesota a variety of geographies, time periods, • League of Women Voters – Landscape Arboretum, Chaska. Details: and aesthetic perspectives to showcase South Tonka arboretum.umn.edu how drawing serves as a primary means of • Women Entrepreneurs of expression. Free. Regis Center for Art, Mpls. Minnesota events 1/19 — Martin Luther King Jr. Tribute Details: cla.umn.edu/art/galleries • Business Development Concert: I Am Because We Are Mastermind Group events by 1/24 — “Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, Rich Chicks and a Mother’s Will to Survive” • Women’s Environmental Institute events Stephanie Land discusses the origins of her new book and how working in • PACER Center workshops and events the service industry infuenced her view

PHOTO CAROLINEPHOTO YANG of society and drive to become a writer. • Second Saturday Divorce Free. 7pm. Magers & Quinn, Mpls. Workshop for Women Details: magersandquinn.com/event • Minnesota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute Film Series 1/24 – 2/16 — The Bridges of • Women Leading in VocalEssence Singers of This Age performed at last Madison County Technology events year's annual University of Minnesota Martin Luther • Art of Counseling workshops King, Jr. Tribute Concert. • Irene Greene, MSED In its 39th year, this multidisciplinary workshops & events celebration combines the words of • TeamWomenMN events

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. COX DEVON PHOTO • Marriage Geek Workshops with musical performance curated by G. • Women on Wednesdays – Phillip Schoultz, III of VocalEssence and Women’s Center St. Cloud featuring the University of Minnesota State University Gospel Choir, Freddie Bell, and Chantel Jennifer Baldwin Peden and Eric Morris • Yoga One events – Sings of KMOJ radio. Free. 3pm- Alexandria 4:30pm. Ted Mann Concert Hall, Mpls. Based of the classic 1992 novel, this Details: tinyurl.com/MLKTributeConcert performance stars Jennifer Baldwin Peden Find out more about as Francesca. $17-46. Schneider Teater, these and other events at Bloomington. Details: artistrymn.org womenspress.com

Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 13

Art of LIVING

Witnessing COURTESY PHOTO COURTESY PHOTO Waves

submitted by Alison Price

“Stump at 35th Street” started Alison Price’s “Witnessing Waves” series of paintings.

y frst memory of creating art was as a three-year- Water DNA old. I took my mother’s food coloring collection — Te Mississippi River Gorge and her wealth of heritage the type with the pointy hats — and, armed with trees has always intrigued, inspired, and comforted me. aM roll of toilet paper, made swirls of colors in the rain gutter, My “Witnessing Waves” series pays respect to these gentle, watching the colors merge and coil. Patiently wetting the magnifcent, and steadfast witnesses of migration and toilet paper, I made pancakes on the sidewalk, drizzling the settlement along our mighty river. Te trees acknowledge the food coloring on the paper, watching the colors burst. contribution of all of our backgrounds and ancestries. I am a child of immigrants. Both of my parents emigrated from Europe — my father from London, my mother from Our families have all traveled to this Guernsey, a tiny island of the coast of France. Growing up, place. It is our collective heritage that my childhood was replete with stories of World War II and the ramifcations it had on our history. My father survived makes our community a culturally rich the London bombings, with acute memories of hiding in the and diverse place to call home. The trees Underground with his mother and grandmother. welcome all, without discrimination. It is my My mother had an even more traumatic beginning. hope that we all become like the trees. Guernsey was occupied during the war. Most of the women and children were evacuated prior to the arrival of invading Te series started with a stump in the Mississippi River, forces in June 1940. Te island had its own language, in a gorge near 35th Street and West River Parkway. During Guernésiais, and a distinct culture, yet that language lef my Augsburg undergraduate days, I would sketch “Stump” with those children, as many never returned from the between classes. Sometimes I would roll up sketches and sanctuary countries. Tose that remained were subject to notes, wade into the river, and pop the paper into his crevices, harsh treatment. My grandmother was pregnant with twins hoping that one day I would fnd a note back. — my mother and aunt. Te community members were not Spring 2007 was slow in arriving. Te steps down to the allowed to go to the hospital. Afer the twins were delivered, gorge were treacherous, but I braved the ice in order to see my grandmother died. Stump again. Yet he was no longer on the sand fat. An ice foe Lef with premature twin girls, my grandfather relied on the had pushed him onto the beach, his failing roots surrounding kindness and support of those already facing starvation. Te him like a halo. He looked like a discombobulated sunburst. community shared their meager rations. Both twins survived I tried to push him back into the river, but to no avail. He and grew to share the importance of compassion for all of seemed lost on the beach. I sat and cried. humanity with their own children. It was my long friendship with Stump that started my It was this sharing of histories, this intimate connection thoughts about trees, and how the Mississippi has been the with world events, that permeates all of my work. Migration, highway used to migrate to our region. Te trees, quiet and empathy, hope, and human connections are all abundantly majestic, have been silent witnesses to waves of migration. felt and portrayed in my art.

14 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 Tey have seen hundreds of years of human travel up and down the river, welcoming everyone equally. “Nurture” (30” x 48”) was painted afer I found an old, broken tree while scrambling down steep hills lining the Mississippi River Gorge. She was stripped of most COURTESY PHOTO of her branches, except for a few poking through the canopy. Nestled in her exposed roots was a new tree. Te sight brought tears from many emotions rolled into one. I thought of new immigrants bringing new ideas and families to this space, sacrifcing the old known for a new unknown, nurturing their young in hopes of a brighter future. Te series is imbued with symbolism. DNA strands weave along the riverbanks and through the roots and ground, reminding us of our interconnectedness with all, reinforcing the idea that we are fundamentally tied to each other and the planet. Te trees seem to talk to one another, sharing hopes and aspirations. Te branches at times reach, and at other times reject one another. Te roots remain planted, with the tacit understanding that frm foundations, and communication, are essential to survival. Te individual squares — thousands of squares — are our opportunities. We can choose to interact or ignore the opportunities, remembering that there are always more adventures ahead. Tere are myriad options to explore. “Witnessing Waves” honors our collective histories, past, present, and future.

Alison Price (she/her) has a BA in Studio Arts from Augsburg College, and an MA from the University of Wisconsin. Her award- winning work is internationally and nationally collected, including a collection purchased by the FBI for their new headquarters. Details: AlisonPriceStudios.com, tpt.org/mn-original/profile/alison-price

“Nurture”, painted in 2018, is a 30" x 48" piece held in a private collection.

Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 15 identity Indigenous

PHOTO SARAHPHOTO WHITING Roots

written by Lydia Moran (l-r) MaryAnne Quiroz is an artist organizer, community activator, and youth worker. Daniela Montoya-Barthelemy is a queer, Latinx doula from Northern New Mexico. Aiyana Sol Machado is a multi-cultural organizer, artist, and birthworker dedicated to the liberation and healing of communities. Reyna Day is an Indigenous youth organizer from Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe and Mexica-Nahua. Not pictured: Alejandra C. (Tobar Alatriz) is a queer, immigrant storyteller, bodyworker, and arts organizer. hen MaryAnne Quiroz discovered she had the MWP: How do you organize and distribute roles? opportunity to open an arts and cultural center MaryAnne Quiroz (MAQ): It is difcult for me to work in in St. Paul’s Dayton’s Bluf neighborhood, she a linear system. My husband and I are teachers in our dance andW her husband Sergio decided to cultivate the space in and drum circle [Kalpulli Yaocenoxtli], but we ask for a lot collaboration with their fellow activists and agitators. Of the of input from our members with the guidance of elders. Te roughly 20 activists, artists, and healers who responded to the teachings from elders [are] the foundation of what we do. Quirozs’ initial 2017 call to action, eight remain as part of the Tose teachings have structure, but not necessarily a linear Indigenous Roots leadership collective today. “All of us want hierarchical one. to create access with and for folks, so how do we co-create Aiyana Sol Machado (ASM): All of us on some level have together?” explained Aiyana Sol Machado. had to deal with mainstream dominant culture — working in Te community labored for weeks to transform the space that space in our education, or in our professional careers, or from what was once a dusty industrial print shop. Today, it both. [It is] not that we don’t know how [to work in hierarchy]. is home to a light-flled gallery for dance and visual art (in We have all had to resist it. addition to rooms for wellness and co-working) on one foor, MAQ: I have seen [hierarchy] in our school systems. If and a meeting space downstairs. Gatherings at Indigenous we are going to create a space or a center around learning, Roots are conduits for connection — to relationships it is not about who has the most knowledge or the most that grow community, and to knowledge passed down in experience. We all have [experience], and it would be great if Indigenous cultures all over the world. On any given day, we intersected and built on each other’s strengths and assets. the space is host to events that range from storytelling Daniela Montoya-Bathelemy (DMB): It [adds] toxic workshops to free organic grocery pick-ups to discussions stress in your life when you are working in a structure [based around radical parenting. around authority]. I worked in policy for the state, and Minnesota Women’s Press sat down with the fve women before that, I did foster care work in New Mexico. In either of the Indigenous Roots collective to talk about how they situation, you have all these people trying to do all this good organize the space through an evolving ecosystem of support. and help [others], but the internal structures are so stifing

16 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 that people’s passion for their work dies out. What they are whether you are a mother or not, or whether you gave birth to striving for ends up being retirement as soon as possible your children or not, it is this unspoken thread of connection. and staying there for the health care, which is legit, but your DMB: Womb energy. creativity, your passion, your ability to learn from and coexist MAQ: We are our grandmothers, because we are still with your coworkers changes so much in a structure [based unlearning the trauma, pain, and hurt they passed down to around authority]. us while also embracing the resiliency of ancestral teachings. Alejandra Tobar Alatriz (ATA): I think [we organize with] We romanticize ancestral teachings [but] it was not perfect. how elusive certainty is in real life [in mind]. [Working in a We are humans and we are supposed to evolve. collective], we have to keep checking in with each other. It is ASM: And we are doing it in a modern context. Is it the an antidote to a dominant way of being. exact way that our ancestors did it? No! We are reclaiming. ASM: It is not about any one of us. It is about co-creating in ATA: Tere is a sensitivity to when [terminology] starts this space. Tere were a lot of questions when we frst came to sound too nice and packaged, when we start to look for together, and there are still a lot of questions. formulaic ways to check things of and be done with them. ATA: Tat is what life is! [At Indigenous Roots] we honor language with a grain of salt. ASM: Right, and I love that you said that. I think we are all We use terms to spark patterns of behavior. comfortable with ‘We are going to fgure this out together.’ No MAQ: So [decolonization] is a buzzword now, we probably one is going to let the other down. [It is about] knowing that used it before it became a buzzword. we are in each other’s corners. DMB: Like [how] self-care turns into a capitalistic thing. MAQ: We could go for two months not seeing each other ASM: My mom is going through her own stuf as a 68-year- and still feel supported. I think half the battle of the work we old woman who has been a yogi since the age of 19. She are doing is [when] people ask: How do you do what you do? studied all over with Indian masters and she is now feeling Instead of calling it [vertical or horizontal] hierarchy, it is like, fuck yoga, because of what it has become. [She thinks] circle leadership. ‘I don’t want to be associated with it.’ Tat is painful. In my 37 years of watching my mother, she has been a yogi. She MWP: How does the work you are doing in this space meditates daily, she sits on her head daily. We have pictures of focus on decolonizing learning? all of us [in her] third trimester doing a headstand with her big ol’ belly. But [yoga] has been so colonized and co-opted. ATA: My work with the body [is] around supporting How do we also resist all those labels? fullness living, for both groups and individuals. Any time we can sense our internal interconnectedness. Any time we can sense our full intelligence — not just our brains, but our guts MWP: How do you honor individual identity within a and hearts and tails. collective without being individualistic? MAQ: I would say it is more unlearning than decolonizing, ASM: Individualistic ideology is a very colonized way of because we live in a dominant colonized society. I was raised thinking. I don’t believe any one of us wants to do this alone. in a third world country [that was] also very much colonized. Tat is why all of us hold on tightly to each other and why We did not have a lot, so coming to the United States felt we are working as a collective. Tis idea of individualistic like we had an abundance of things and opportunities — ideology has never shown up in this space. but we also did not, because we grew up marginalized and MAQ: Or it weeds itself out. We are an ecosystem. discriminated against. We came here and were forced to [Everyone] has their purpose, their potential. assimilate in order to survive. We learned history that was ASM: We do not believe that men have a certain role and not accurate or representative of the original people who are women have a certain role. Yet we need this duality. [In] stewards and caretakers of this land. Indigenous communities, there is this space for those that live Reyna Day (RD): I am still in school. Learning in school is in both worlds of masculine and feminine. [Te men in the very linear and one-sided, but I am very blessed and grateful Indigenous Roots collective] navigate our masculine energy to have the collective. like we navigate their feminine energy. We expect men in this DMB: I focus on reproductive and sexual health. When I space to check [those] who are not respecting the women in talk about holistic sexual health, I am talking about you as a this space. person and your life force — your anima that fuels everything DMB: I do not think any of us would fow the same way that you are. It is your power. Your sexual health has nothing without the support of one another. to do with anybody else. MAQ: Being part of a collective pushes you to learn how MAQ: Our men [also] need to value sisterhood because it to communicate and not assume. We are learning from each is what sustains and nurtures our society. It is this fabric of us, other constantly.

Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 17 Money & Business

My Unintended Journey

submitted by Marcia Malzahn adapted from “Green Card Entrepreneur Voices”

y life as a child in Nicaragua was happy and traded more suitcases and I was on the plane too. We took of peaceful. I am the second of six children. My dad without saying goodbye. is an attorney and a composer, and my mom was a As I saw my dad grow smaller in the distance, I did not homemakerM who later became an entrepreneur. know if I would ever see him again. But a miracle happened. When I was 13, the war started in Nicaragua. It was a Tere was one passenger plane enroute to Costa Rica that revolution against the 66-year dictatorship of the Somoza needed to refuel in Nicaragua, and it had one seat open. My family. Our parents learned that the opposing communist dad got on the plane and two days later, we reunited in El Sandinistas were sending children to the war as young as Salvador. Tat week we few to the Dominican Republic as 14 years old. Economically speaking, the country was in refugees of war. chaos. Te grocery stores had no food, and the electricity and water were ofen cut of. We are a Christian family, and the Identity and Loss communist regime was atheist. My parents knew then it was When we lef Nicaragua, we lef our life behind. Sometimes time to fee. Te Dominican Republic was the only place we I think my parents lef part of their identity behind as could fee to, as my dad’s sister lived there and she opened her well. Even in the Dominican Republic, which is a Spanish- home for our family. speaking Latin American country, it is a diferent culture, It was two weeks before the communists took control in with a diferent history. All my parents’ friends and relatives 1979. Tere were no more commercial airlines coming were gone, dispersed throughout other countries. into Nicaragua. My dad heard there was a Red Cross cargo When I lef all my friends in Nicaragua, there was no email, plane arriving to evacuate people from El Salvador. We lef no cell phones, or other ways to stay connected. I never saw our home, even the dog, with household helpers. When we most of those friends again. arrived at the airport, the pilot said there was no room. We lived in the Dominican Republic for almost seven years. But while the pilot was busy, my dad loaded our luggage While there, my parents met people from the Twin Cities on the plane. Te pilot then asked, “Whose luggage is this? who fell in love with my family and helped us relocate to I already told you there is no room for your family.” My dad Minnesota, one by one. I lef my Dominican friends from my responded, “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll exchange suitcases for teenage years and came to the U.S. in January 1986. In June, my wife and kids, and I’ll stay behind.” my family reunited and rented a house in Edina. Te pilot agreed, and my mom and siblings boarded the plane. Ten my younger sister said, “Our dad should not stay That is why I feel so attached to people in behind alone. I will stay with him.” I saw a tear coming out of Minnesota. To me, friendships are treasures. her eye. I said, “No, that is not right. I am older than you. I will stay with our dad.” So she got on the plane. I remember This is my land now. This is my home, and I standing next to my dad and thinking, “Tis was a bad idea!” don’t want to leave Minnesota or my friends, I felt the worst sense of abandonment. Suddenly, my dad despite the cold weather, ever again.

18 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 Planting Minnesota Roots Life in Minnesota was diferent in every way. Te people were welcoming and loving, but in a diferent way. I am personally very expressive and love hugging people but, especially in the business world, people here are much less expressive. Additionally, I thought I spoke English, but slang confuses me. I also did not know business English, so I had to learn that quickly. I came here when I was 19, and my work experience was limited. I had only been a secretary at my university and bookkeeper to my mom’s small jewelry business. I could not fnish the college degree that I started in the Dominican Republic until 27 years later. I became a teller at a bank because I enjoy working with people, money, and computers. Trough the years I rose to executive ranks, working with white, older males. Te challenge, for the most part, has not been being Latina, but being the only female executive in the senior leadership team and in the boardroom. I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. My parents were both entrepreneurs, and I observed their fuctuating incomes. However, I did inherit the entrepreneurial spirit. Afer 23 years in banking and fve years in nonprofts, I had accumulated valuable business experience. I decided to pursue the three things that I love the most: bank consulting, speaking, and writing. I wanted to help community banks become stronger, and I wanted to inspire people. In October 2014, I founded Malzahn Strategic, a fnancial institution consultancy practice. Making the jump from a full- time bank executive to being on my own, with no employees and no paycheck, was a challenge. My speaking business is to three audiences: banking industry professionals, women business leaders, and faith-based audiences. On Saturdays, I write my books, blogs, and articles. In 2018, I went to Nicaragua to do a mission trip with my parents, who founded a nonproft to help the poor, and to the Dominican Republic on a mission with Hope International. I want to repay the generosity and kindness bestowed on me when we were refugees. My intention is to leave a positive legacy by helping small fnancial institutions build a strong foundation. As a woman entrepreneur, I hope to inspire other women, including immigrants, to pursue and achieve their dreams. My childhood experiences included shifs in my sense of rootedness, but today I have deep roots in Minnesota. I am an American by choice. For that I am grateful.

Marcia Malzahn (she/her) is president and founder of Malzahn Strategic, a community financial institution consultancy. She is author of four book, including “Bring YOUR Shoes: A Fresh Perspective for Leaders with Big Shoes to Fill.”

Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 19 Action = CHange

My Journey to PHOTO SARAHPHOTO WHITING Labor Rights

submitted by Nimo Omar

y parents fed the Somali Civil War in the 1990s, education. I took part in the occupation of the Fourth Precinct eventually ending up in Atlanta, where I was born. in Minneapolis afer the unjust shooting of Jamar Clark. I My mother was a teenager when they split up. She stood at Standing Rock Indian Reservation in protest of the didM not know English, but put my older brother and I into pipeline through Dakota territory. a car and drove us 16 hours north to Minnesota, where she I began to see how connection with people of color is had relatives. I grew up in Rochester and spent most of my needed to make true changes in public policy. Activism led time there. My father had been spending time in East Africa, me into organizing. where he remarried. My brother and I joined him in Ethiopia In 2017, I co-founded the Awood Center, a non-proft for a short time in 2006. organization that works on behalf of economic and political When I was 15, traveling back to the U.S., I was separated power in the Minnesota’s East African community. Awood is from my brother and unjustly detained for three days by the Somali word for power. We hold monthly trainings on Ethiopian immigration ofcers, who demanded $3,000. topics ranging from American labor movements to the roots Although I was afraid — I did not understand how long I would of capitalism and systems of power and oppression. be away from my family or be forced to sleep on the concrete I believe that it is only in understanding our rights as foors of the jail — I was with six other women who had been human beings and U.S. citizens that we can move past the stopped at the Ethiopian-Sudan border, trying to get to Libya to fear of reprisals and stand up for what is just. Without that, enter Europe. Te women had slept in the desert without food, oppression thrives. It is people of color who will create a better been attacked by dogs, and been abused by immigration ofcers, balance in society. Until everyone is treated well — with safe who deprived them of water for days. working conditions and living wages that enable all families As a teenager from the U.S., I was a light of hope for them to thrive — the potential of our state and our country will — a vision of a better life that existed somewhere. We bonded remain limited. over our culture, language, and especially our Muslim faith, Our biggest breakthroughs have come when people which grounded me and helped me to stay strong. organized from the ground up, not the top down, to make I was reminded that there is something bigger than my change. It is not easy, but leadership comes from everyday individual life. If I had been alone in that room, I cannot people. Until we rebalance the power between workers imagine what it would have been like. and corporations, and between voters and politicians, our Tose three days were traumatizing, but I learned the communities are stuck in a dynamic that does not live up to privilege of being an American. Te experience also changed its potential. me. Looking back, I see now that it was my stepping stone to I believe it is my role to help educate workers about how a new reality — it gave me a diferent worldview. and why to use their voices. Tat is always the way labor rights I felt a sense of responsibility to use my voice for others. have worked — you don’t get what you need until you share Eventually I became a member of the Minnesota State College stories, ask in solidarity, and demand if required. Tat means Students Association, advocating for afordable public higher knowing about laws that protect and talking about fears that limit. Attempting to squelch that conversation indicates

20 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 “One of the most important people at the rally was neither a politician nor an Amazon employee. Running operations behind the scenes alongside workers was a 23-year-old college student named Nimo Omar. At the Awood Center, people afectionately call her the lioness.” — Wired something unjust is going on. two years of advocating for better rights, • Educate yourself If you do not work with worker centers to continue to see people sufering from about the ways and labor rights, it is easy to be unaware back issues and painful injuries. Tat workers who of how common it is to deal with wages is why I will continue to organize, to deliver your that are unsustainable, dangerous reduce the gap in how we treat working Amazon boxes are working conditions, on-the-job injuries, class Minnesotans. being treated. Check and sexual and racial harassment. We tend to think that workers in this map to find injury rates One of the places Awood has been China and third-world countries are for the fulfillment center near especially focused on is the Amazon the ones who face exploitative working you. revealnews.org/article/ warehouse in Shakopee. conditions. But during the past 60 years, amazon-fulfillment-center-map In Minneapolis and St. Paul, there corporate lobbyists in this country have has been progress toward a $15/hour derailed labor laws. Tere are horrible • Support awoodcenter.org minimum wage, including at Amazon. practices that are dangerous to workers. • Become an ally to the low- But Amazon founder Jef Bezos makes wage worker movement around $9 million per hour, so that is Details in Minnesota: ctul.net hardly a balanced system. • revivingsisterhood.org/nimo-omar • Attend labor rallies. • wired.com/story/meet-the-immigrants- Te people in the Amazon warehouse • If you have a story to share who rush to get boxes packed and who-took-on-amazon about unfair practices, offer it. delivered in record speeds should not • tinyurl.com/MWPNimoOmar If you know of someone who also be struggling to aford food and • revealnews.org/article/behind-the-smiles housing. It is gut wrenching to me, afer has been exploited, listen.

National Attention governments, and laborers. It ofers jobs with competitive adapted from “Meet the Immigrants Who Took on Amazon,” wages and benefts for full-time workers, requiring speed Wired magazine, November 2019 and efciency that leads to terminations for workers who do not meet those goals. Globally, there have been reports of In 25 years, Amazon has grown to run more than 110 warehouse workers peeing into bottles in order to meet quotas, fulfllment centers around the U.S., including one in Shakopee and road accidents caused by speedy delivery drivers. that employs more than 1,000 workers to work 850,000 square Te U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration feet of warehouse. Workers stoop, squat, and climb ladders (OSHA) requires companies to log work-related injuries or to grab items and rush them into bins for the packaging illnesses that involve loss of consciousness, and treatment department, sometimes with a quota of 300 items every hour. that exceeds basic frst aid. In 2017, the Shakopee warehouse Others box orders, sometimes 230 per hour. An inventory reported an average of eight such events a week, with peaks on tracking system monitors whether workers hit their numbers. Prime Day and the November and December holiday season. A large percentage of the employees at the Shakopee When an estimated 50 Amazon workers lef their jobs at location are East African, many of them Somali Muslim 4pm on December 14, 2018, joined by roughly 200 community refugees. Community connection has enabled them to members, to protest unsafe conditions, they faced police from negotiate with management and receive accommodations for Shakopee, Bloomington, Burnsville, Eden Prairie, Jordan, religious practices. Savage, and the Scott County Sherif’s Ofce. Police armed As the second-largest private employer in the United with pepper spray formed a human barricade. Te two-hour States, Amazon is able to dictate terms to suppliers, local strike was the frst at an Amazon warehouse in North America.

Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 21 EDUCATION GUIDE Support our advertisers — and tell them you saw their ad in the Minnesota Women’s Press!

How Are Minnesota Students Faring? reported by Kassidy Tarala

very three years, the Minnesota of Education, the MSS is the primary students in our lives about how they are Departments of Education, source of comprehensive data on youth doing emotionally and ofer support.” Health, Human Services, and at the state, county, and local levels in “Girls deserve to grow up seeing the PublicE Safety collaborate with all types Minnesota. It is the only consistent boundless possibilities that lie before of school districts to survey students source of statewide data on the health them. Tat so many are instead buried in 5th, 8th, 9th, and 11th grades. Te and well-being of youth from smaller in stress and anxiety is unacceptable,” voluntary and anonymous survey population groups. “Two of the more says Minnesota Human Services includes questions about school social concerning pieces of data that came out Commissioner Jodi Harpstead. “Tis climate and bullying, extracurricular of the [2019] MSS were around youth survey shows that we need to continue activities, eating habits, emotional vaping and mental health. Based on the to support eforts to bring mental health health, substance use, and family life. questions we asked, it is clear that students services to students at school.” State agencies use these fndings to do not know that vaping is harmful “You can make a diference by identify trends and determine how to them,” says Minnesota Education taking the time to cultivate meaningful to best improve the well-being of Commissioner Mary Cathryn Ricker. relationships with students,” adds Minnesota youth. “Te data shows that more Minnesota Commissioner Ricker. “We must work In 2019, 81 percent of Minnesota’s students than ever reported having to end the stigma that still exists around school districts participated in the long-term mental health, behavioral, or mental health. Mental health is as Minnesota Student Survey (MSS). emotional problems. We can all do more important as physical health.” According to the Minnesota Department to promote mental health and talk to the

22 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 Education Guide

According to the Minnesota Student Survey, 24 percent of 11th grade females reported missing a full or partial day of school in the previous 30 days because they felt sad, hopeless, anxious, stressed, or angry.

Mental Health Bullying • Tere was a fve percent overall increase in problems • Of the 2019 respondents, 19 percent reported being relating to long-term mental health, behavior, or emotional bullied or harassed weekly in the 30 days prior to stress between 2016 (18 percent) and 2019 (23 percent). completing the survey. • Nearly one in ten students in 11th grade reported • Economically disadvantaged students and LGBTQ+ attempting suicide. students reported higher rates of bullying. • Ninth graders who reported having long-term mental health challenges are nearly fve times as likely as students Substance Use in other grades to consider suicide. • Although fewer students reported using tobacco, alcohol, • Of those who reported feeling that their teachers or other and cannabis, 11th graders reported a 54 percent spike in adults at school care about them, 35 percent have considered vaping between 2016 and 2019. suicide; of those students who reported feeling that their teachers do not care about them, 72 percent have considered suicide. Home Life • Female students were nearly twice as likely as male • Black and Hispanic students are nearly three times as likely students in all grades to report mental health, emotional, to miss school because they did not have a way to get to or behavioral problems. Since 2013, the number of 9th and school. 11th grade female students to report long-term mental • Overall, 87 percent of students reported feeling safe at health, behavior, or emotional stress has more than doubled. home, at school, in their neighborhoods, and on the journey • Native students were more likely than their peers to miss to and from school, which is a 3 percent decrease from 2016. school because they felt sad, hopeless, anxious, stressed, or angry. Details • LGBTQ+ students are about three times as likely as cis • education.mn.gov/MDE/dse/health/mss or heterosexual students to seriously consider suicide • namimn.org and four times as likely to attempt suicide. • National Suicide Prevention Lifeline — 800-273-8255

Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 23 Policy & Politics

Failing Mothers and Children reported by Mikki Morrissette

n the early 1900s, national improvements in hygiene, In contrast, countries like Cuba have dramatically reduced nutrition, living conditions, and health care were its mortality rates with a growth in community health care beginning to reduce infant mortality. Te number of workers. In 1958, for example, Cuba’s infant mortality rate Ibabies of all races who died in the frst year of life dropped by was 60 out of 1000; today it is 4.3, which is lower than the more than 90 percent from 1915 through the 1990s. U.S. (5.8). Today, on the other hand, the country’s record on infant Partly in response to disparities, the numbers of U.S. doulas and maternal mortality is getting worse. Of the 35 wealthiest and midwives have been growing. Te American College of nations, the U.S. ranks 32nd for its infant death rate, generally Obstetricians and Gynecologists suggested a few years ago caused by low birth weight. According to a New York Times that “continuous one-to-one emotional support provided Magazine article written by Linda Villarosa, who spoke recently by personnel, such as a doula, is associated with improved at the St. Cloud Women’s Center, Black infants are more than outcomes for women in labor.” twice as likely to die as white infants. A Black woman with an In 2013, Minnesota became the second state, afer Oregon, advanced degree is more likely to lose her baby than a white that require Medicaid to cover doula services for low-income woman with less than an eighth-grade education. mothers. In 2019, legislators (Rep. Alice Mann, DFL-Lakeville Te U.S. also is one of only 13 countries in the world where and Sen. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka) introduced bills designed to the death of a woman related to pregnancy or childbirth is improve payments for doula services provided to women on worse than it was 25 years ago. Black pregnant women are Medical Assistance. Currently the limit is $488 per birth. Te three to four times as likely to die as white women. legislation did not pass. Incarcerated Mothers In 1915, lawmakers in a Minnesota House committee were urged by women lobbyists to create what would become the Shakopee Correctional Facility for Women. Te frst 23 women admitted to the prison were mostly guilty of “crimes against chastity” and were given rules about keeping sleeves down, socks up, and make-up of. Author Sheila O’Connor (see page 26) wrote a commentary in Te New York Times that shared the story of her grandmother who was imprisoned in Minnesota for “immorality” in 1935 as a 15-year-old pregnant teenager. Ten and today, many inmates are victims of sexual abuse who are running away from and reacting to Infant mortality in Minnesota by mother’s race/ethnicity. Data are for 2012-2016. their environment. Source: Minnesota Center for Health Statistics

24 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 “For Black women in America, an inescapable atmosphere of societal and systemic racism can create a kind of toxic physiological stress resulting in conditions, including hypertension and pre-eclampsia, that lead directly to higher rates of infant and maternal death.” — Linda Villarosa Feminist therapy Sometimes a with a national feminist woman reputation for “Consistent with my grandmother’s time,” referred to racial disparities during a visit to needs to talk to O’Connor wrote, “juvenile detention facilities the 610-inmate Shakopee women’s prison, Valuing connection to a feminist man still lack adequate professionals able to care saying, “our job is to stop that generational self and others for the special needs of the large population of re-traumatization.” Supporting a woman’s Greg Seivert, MS, LP girls who have been victimized. Teir reports journey to fi nd her Psychologist for 30 years at of abuse by boys and men may have been Details own voice Grove Psychotherapy recorded, but in the end it was the girls who • tinyurl.com/nytimes-maternal-mortality Providing a safe Specializes in relationships, were considered ‘in need of reform.’” • “The Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline,” envi ron ment shame, confl ict resolution Today, treatment of incarcerated pregnant published by Human Rights for Girls, the for women’s growth & intimacy... and he knows women is not much more evolved. A Star how to talk to men, too! Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and In di vid u al, Couple & Family Tribune article in October by Liz Sawyer Inequality, and the Ms. Foundation for Women MindBody Skills Group shared the story of a woman who was allowed • mom-congress.com — a coalition working 612-379-2640 612-379-2640 GrovePsychotherapy.com to bond for only 36 hours with her newborn in toward improving maternity care, maternal GrovePsychotherapy.com the hospital before being returned to prison. mental health, and paid family leave Te 31-year-old woman is serving four years • everyday-miracles.org — focused on for a drug conviction. reducing health disparities in Greater A bill proposed in 2019 by Rep. Jamie Minnesota Becker-Finn (DFL-Roseville) to establish • mnprisondoulaproject.org — pregnancy and a bus program to enable access for child parenting support for imprisoned parents bonding with incarcerated mothers did not pass. Lieutenant-Governor Peggy Flanagan

35-8 35-8

Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 25 BookShelf

An Unknown COURTESY PHOTO Origin Story

written by Sheila O’Connor

n a January day in 2001, my mother and I sat her mother actually committed? Why had she breastfed together in the Gale Family Library at the Minnesota my mother for three months? How many other Minnesota History Center examining the records of her birth. girls were sentenced in that time? And for what crimes? OWe had come in search of my mother’s absent history: the Why were so many girls listed as immoral, or considered circumstances of her conception and her adoption, her “sex delinquents,” in state reports? Were they convicted of father’s identity, and the missing story of her infancy. “immorality?” And, perhaps most importantly, how had this In a state with laws that have sealed thousands of adoptees’ silenced history infuenced the trajectory of my mother’s life, records for 100 years, we had only been allowed to view my her mother’s life, and the lives of their descendants? What mother’s archived records with permission from the court. trauma was transmitted through the family while these secret Tere we were, on what felt like a sacred mother-daughter records remained sealed? What strength did mission, tracking the truth of an origin story she we inherit from all that was endured? had spent her life without. Together My quest to answer those questions, and we encountered the hard facts of her so many more, led to more than a decade’s beginning. Her mother, a talented worth of research, and the choice to make 15-year-old singer, was performing in this little-known history public in my most a nightclub in downtown Minneapolis recent book “Evidence of V: A Novel in during the Depression. Her father, a Fragments, Facts, and Fictions.” Moving 35-year-old nightclub manager. between fragments of archival evidence, Her mother was a pregnant teenager and the imagined story of that 15-year- when she was committed for six years to old girl, I attempted to reconstruct the a state detention facility, the Minnesota missing history of not just one girl, but Home School for Girls, in Sauk Centre. My also of our family — as well as of tens mother was born there, and later relocated of thousands of unnamed girls held in to a family home in Minneapolis, where detention facilities across America for eventually she was adopted by an aunt. “immorality” and “incorrigibility.” By the time our day had ended, we did not Tese inmates had disrupted and have all the answers that we had hoped for, but defed the narrow social norms for we had questions. Who was this man 20 years her girls and women of that time. mother’s senior? What was their relationship? Why the six-year sentence? What crime had Sheila O’Connor (she/her) is the author of six award-winning novels for adults and young people. Details: sheilaoconnor.com

26 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 “Evidence of V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, “You’ll still have your fur,” he says, draping the fox stole and Fictions” by Sheila O’Connor on her shoulders, brushing his hand between her legs. “Just dance,” he says. “A dance is all they want.” Where to start V’s story? V at ffeen in 1935? V sentenced until twenty-one, for what? V the family secret Mr. C: Nightclub manager. Jewish. Age 35. I discovered at sixteen. My mother’s missing mother never Beyond those three facts of Mr. C there is nothing I can mentioned to me once. know about this man. Te seven spellings of his name Shhh. Te sound of V is silence. inside V’s fle, all oddly missing from the Minneapolis City Girl of sealed history like all those other girls. Sealed; Directory and the census. therefore buried. State documents I now excavate for Mr. C: Northside Jew or Southside? Romanian or answers. An ofcial fle of facts that read like fction. V a German? Immigrant or not? Mr. C, the “handsome Jew.” fction built of fragments, as girls so ofen are. V named as “special friend.” And what of all those strangers who asked June if she How It Starts: Minneapolis, 1935 was Jewish? Norwegian-Lutheran June with her lutefsk and lefse. Or later, asked us if we were. V foats like a feather far from school. Late November Us, a pack of Irish-Catholic kids? loose. A pain in her back tooth that can’t be fxed. Hunger acid in her belly. Her best friend Em beside her, a tether to this world. Always V and Em end up downtown. V Minnesota History Center notes, January 10, 2001 performing on the streets, singing for the men who still In this hushed library of history, pale wooden tables and have money for young girls. chairs, a cardboard box of fragile documents delivered “A dime a dance,” Em calls. “A nickel for a song.” Em, by the clerk, I sit beside my gray-haired mother poring the stubborn banker, holds the sailor cap for coins. Money over papers for the story of her birth. A state-held mother- they will save for a picture show and popcorn, or a quick daughter puzzle made from yellowed scraps. stop at the Lolly Jar on Sixth. Baby — 1936. June’s adoption record sealed by law for V cancans and she shimmies, sings, “Ain’t We Got Fun,” 100 silent years, but steely June has pried it open with then lands hard for a laugh. One week into ffeen, V’s a a letter to the court. A plea to know her truth before a red-haired Ruby Keeler, a Ziegfeld Follies hopeful sure century has passed. Te court can do the math; in 2036 she’ll be discovered. V has what it takes to be a star. June will be dead. “You’ve got talent,” one man says, his face as clean as a June stares down at her slim archive, studies buried fresh page, his hands as smooth as snow, his thumb under facts and data trying to fnd the story. Familiar names and her chin like a good father. (V’s good father has been dead addresses. Faint typewritten notes we struggle to decipher. for fve hard years.) “You shouldn’t waste it on the street. I Words gone with time and now are lost. could put you on the stage.” “She was dancing at ffeen?” June says with concern. Te stage? V says, her heart falling to his hands. “Singing? At the Cascade Club on Nicollet? And he was “How much?” Em asks. Em is the accountant; Em always thirty-fve?” June, the dispassionate accountant, distressed knows exactly what V’s worth. by addition and subtraction, by the numbers in her fle “More than this,” he says, pulling a quarter from his that lead to a father. pocket and slipping it into V’s. “More than you earn now.” “And this!” June says, her shocked whisper pulling me from my own pages, causing quiet patrons to turn toward Debut at the Cascade Club June’s alarm. June’s palm pressed to her chest as if an accident has occurred. “Until twenty-one,” she says with She enters the tunnel a little fox. Little Fox is what he disbelief. “V was sentenced until twenty-one, for what?” calls her, and she wears that clever nickname like a mask. June passes me the judgment, points to that terrible Little Fox led to the light. Little Fox half-glued together wording that commits her 9th grade mother as an inmate with rouge, and paint, and powder. Red lips pressed to for six years. “For me,” June says, answering her own paper like a kiss. question with an unfamiliar mix of guilt and sadness. “Six “Little Fox,” he whispers, “soon you’ll be my star.” years for being pregnant? Can you imagine at ffeen?” In the next room, men stripe along the bar, crowd “No,” I lie, because I’m already imagining a ffeen-year- the steamy darkness, wait for the girl to sashay into the old dancer, imagining the Sauk Centre institution where spotlight, the girl to ofer them a song. Her skin. baby June was born.

Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 27 Perspective Orphans of Skynet A Korean Adoptee Meditates on the Science Fiction Poetics of Creation and Sacrifice written by Sun Yung Shin

ccording to my paper birthdate, May 12, in the Western zodiac system I am a Taurus. I don’t Aknow my real birthday. My embodied, fesh birthday. What I have is paper.

PHOTO SARAHPHOTO WHITING Something “legal.” In the United States we live in a vast bureaucracy of paper, words, laws, ofcial stamps, and government surveillance — increasingly digitized. Kafa’s dark visions and critiques of bourgeois relations and the structures we build to sanctify, torture, and imprison each other remain as relevant as ever. I fnd signing paper documents quaint. I am pleased that one’s signature — written using one’s own bones and muscle and fesh to hold a pen and move it in a pattern depositing ink onto a piece of mashed and fattened wood pulp — is still legally binding. Yes, I sign things digitally as well, and am grateful for the convenience, but anything handmade, including a signature, retains its magic for me; as it does for many of us who want friction in our lives. Tose who want to know we are real and the things we interact with have realness, have bodies. But I am, we are, fesh, not paper (and even paper is tree fesh), and I do not know when I was born, or where, or to whom. I don’t know the woman whose body I was created by and grown in, and whose body I emerged from into the air-breathing world. I have two of my own children, born from my body, and that unknown woman’s body, but they will almost certainly never meet in this world. Tis absence, this ambiguous loss, has

28 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 One of the pieces of language that is standard in what I will call Adoptionland is the term “biological,” as in, “This woman has two adopted children and one biological child.” Of course, they mean biologically related, or genetically related. Biological has become shorthand for “not adopted.” But I am biological, too. I am alive.

become part of my children’s inheritance and their By the end of “Terminator 4,” salvation is indeed origin stories, or lack thereof. found for several parties in the narrative, including In Minnesota, there are more than 10,000 Korean Marcus Wright, protector and builder. Wright donates adoptees. I am just one more, but I did not come here his heart to the leader of the resistance, who has been from Korea. I arrived at O’Hare airport in Illinois in injured in a climactic battle. Without the sacrifce of June 1975 and grew up in a Chicago suburb. I came Wright, he will die. to Minnesota as an adult, through chance. Little did I In the Adoptionland of my youth in the 1970s and 80s, know of the Korean adoption en masse to this mostly terms such as “sacrifce” were common parlance in regard Lutheran place. Now I am one of many. to our birth mothers. Our Korean mothers “sacrifced,” and these Western women became [our] mothers. Origins in sacrifce dovetailed nicely with my Roman Spoiler ahead. In “Terminator 4: Salvation” (2009), Catholic upbringing. God sacrifced his only son. Jesus Marcus Wright, a death-row convict is resurrected as sacrifced his life for us sinners. Te priest sacrifced a cyborg (part-organic, part-biomechatronic being). his desire to have a family for his fock. Congregants In an earlier “Terminator” movie, the cyborg Skynet sacrifce their donations to the church for the less was recreated as a hybrid of computer system and self- fortunate. Mothers sacrifce their dreams for their aware being. children. Fathers sacrifce their days for their families. Te protagonist of Terminator 4 has a name with And onward. Latin origins. Marcus means dedicated to Mars — the god of war. An appropriate deity for the American proclivity towards endless war. I’m not a cyborg, because they don’t really exist yet, Marcus’s last name, Wright, means maker or builder. but I feel like one. Not fully human, not fully machine, Marcus Wright is a protector who has been rebuilt. but not able to function without both systems. I’m When he comes to discover, afer being captured and biological, but constructed. Transformed. A permanent chained like a criminal and a slave, that he has been transformation, with much of my coding erased and rebuilt as a human-machine hybrid, he is horrifed lost. Unpredictable, like a computer system that has and traumatized. become self-aware. Te future is uncertain, and the past — my origins — One of the pieces of language that is standard in is in shadow. what I will call Adoptionland is the term “biological,” Sun Yung Shin (she/her) is the editor of “A Good as in, “Tis woman has two adopted children and one Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota,” three books of poetry biological child.” including the Minnesota Book Award-winning “Unbearable Of course, they mean biologically related, or Splendor,” and one bilingual children’s book. She lives in genetically related. Biological has become shorthand Minneapolis where she is a freelance writer, equity consultant, for “not adopted.” But I am biological, too. I am alive. and healing practitioner. When I was growing up, the lingo was, “their own.” As in, “Tey have one adopted child, and one of their own.”

Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 29 LGBTQ+

The Struggle to Build a Family reported by Erica Rivera PHOTO CHRISTINA PHOTOGRAPHY YOUNG

baby had disappeared Lyons and her partner out because they from the system. were not considered family. During Several months later, the 10-day stay, while their ofcial another referral from placement paperwork processed, Lyons or couples who are marginalized in Kazakhstan came felt afraid of losing another opportunity society, starting a family through through, and the same thing happened. to build a family. the adoption system can be difcult. Te couple then submitted their Mothers placing children for FWhen Nancy Lyons and her spouse Laura materials to Adoption Link in Chicago, adoption typically have a period of time decided to fulfll their dream of raising which specialized in transracial afer consenting to an adoption where a child, the process of building a family adoption at the time. Te couple was on they may change their mind and decide ended up taking nine years, involving a waitlist for another 18 months. Teir to parent. Te rights of both parents both heartbreak and frustration. resolve was wearing thin. “We felt like must be terminated before the potential “I don’t think we will ever know how we were in limbo,” Lyons says. adoptive parents may proceed with much of our struggle or process was legally adopting the child. delayed because we are gay,” says Lyons, At one point they Eventually, however, they were allowed CEO of digital designer Clockwork. contemplated giving up on to take their son home to Minnesota. Te couple decided to pursue their dream. They thought they Te experience made Lyons decide adoption with a prominent local agency she needed to take action to change “probably weren’t meant to be that was said to be friendly to the how the world responds to LGBTQ+ LGBTQ+ community. Te couple met parents,” and could instead find family building. She was appointed to with an adoption coordinator there, other ways to fill their lives. the board of Rainbow Families. Afer it however, who stonily stated, “I am not merged with the national organization going to collude with you to help you In April 2006, an adoption Family Equality Council, she served on fnd a baby.” coordinator called out of the blue with the board for nine years. Te couple found a local agency that news of a Texas woman expecting a Lyons shares her adoption story in specialized in international adoption. baby in August. Te mother-to-be was the hope that it will inspire others to Tey faced additional barriers. Korea interested in same-gender potential persevere. “We went through hell to get deemed Lyons “too fat” to adopt. Other adoptive parents because her sister’s to our son, but knowing him, there’s no countries considered them “too old.” best friends were two gay men who had doubt in my mind that he’s the person we Lyons and her partner persevered and difculty adopting. were supposed to be with,” she says. “All completed a home study around 2000, An interview with the mother went of it was worth it, ‘cause he’s our boy.” intending to adopt internationally. For well, despite Lyons making “a dumb almost two years they were on a waiting joke” during the conversation. Only ten Details: Family Equality Council provides list, until they received a referral for a minutes later, they got the call. Tey had resources and helps people understand baby boy in Kazakhstan. Tey accepted been chosen because the mother sensed the adoption process, find inclusive the referral, received photos and there would be “a lot of laughter” in advocates and adoption agencies, and navigate the system when they information, had a baby shower, and their home. experience discrimination. It hosts the waited eight months for an invitation Te mother went into labor early. Tey largest LGBTQ family gathering in the to travel overseas to proceed with the arrived in Texas that July, 24 hours afer world in Provincetown, Massachusetts. adoption — only to fnd out that the the baby was born. Te hospital kicked

30 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020

In the News Increase in Midwife Care Could Result in Savings Childbirth is the most common and most costly reason for hospitalization in the U.S. A new study reveals how midwife-led care could generate both cost savings and health improvements. Te study, published in “Birth Issues in Perinatal Care” journal, found that while low‐risk pregnant women cared for by midwives have similar birth outcomes to women cared for by physicians, they experience fewer medical procedures. Researchers gathered data nationally to assess the costs and resource use of midwife‐led care as compared to obstetrician‐led care for low‐risk pregnancies. Ultimately, an increase in the percentage of pregnancies with midwife- led care from the current level of 8.9% to 20% over the next 10 years may result in $4 billion in cost savings, 30,000 fewer preterm births, and 120,000 fewer episiotomies. Source: University of Minnesota School of Public Health Want this on your table without going out in the cold?

MINNESOTA

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Studies show that lesbian, trans, paid to these disparities, and few about the research, and the lived and bisexual women experience strategies to respond to them. Please experience of women in LGBTQ+ notable health disparities compared join the publisher of Minnesota communities. What would a call to to heterosexual and cisgender peers. Women’s Press, and the team at JustUs action about LGBTQ+ women’s health Yet there is often less public attention Health, for a moderated conversation in Minnesota look like? MINNESOTA WOMEN’S PRESS

Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 31

In the News

Community Input Shufes Minneapolis Police Budget Gender Justice Sues Two Minnesota Pharmacies In early December, more than 50 Minneapolis residents In December, Gender Justice fled a lawsuit on behalf of attended a meeting of the city council and demanded that Andrea Anderson (right), who the mayor’s proposed city budget be adjusted with major was denied service by two rural amendments. Rather than adding millions to the Minneapolis Minnesota pharmacies when Police Department (MPD) budget, testifers urged the city she sought to fll a prescription to reallocate those funds towards afordable housing, youth for emergency contraception. homelessness services, solutions to the opioid crisis, a 911 Gender Justice maintains that response team trained for issues around mental health, violence Anderson experienced illegal GENDERPHOTO JUSTICE prevention, and protections for workers. discrimination based on “If adding more police ofcers worked, we would not need gender, and that denying her to keep increasing funding for them,” said Seneca Krueger, a service based on pregnancy- trauma therapist with Southside Harm Reduction. “Let’s start related health care needs funding organizations that are working from the ground up. violates the Minnesota Human Te communities we serve have been criminalized enough, as Rights Act. a result of being unhoused and having issues with addictions.” “Like anywhere, there are Testifers also pointed to MPD’s failure to process 1,700 untested challenges to living in a rural area,” Anderson said. “But rape kits, build trust within neighborhoods, and disproportionally I never expected that they would include the personal target Black people with low-level marijuana charges. beliefs of our local pharmacists, or that they would hold — On December 11, the council approved a compromise, and wield — such enormous decision-making power over expanding the city’s number of cadets in training from 76 to my life.” 114 (instead of hiring the new ofcers) while increasing the Anderson is a mother of fve. Afer discovering a broken city’s investment in alternative public safety methods by more condom, she procured a prescription for the emergency than $540,000. contraceptive from her doctor before calling her nearest City council member Lisa Bender said at the fnal vote: “We pharmacy. A pharmacist refused to fll the prescription on are investing too much money in incarceration-based policing religious grounds. and not enough money in community-based safety. I think the A nearby CVS pharmacist said they do not carry the police department needs a complete overhaul of its budget.” medication, and that Walgreens was also out of stock Source: MinnPost; Reclaim the Block — which was not true. Anderson drove 100 miles to the nearest Walgreens, in blizzard conditions. “Pharmacists have a duty to provide patients with their prescription medications,” Gender Justice stated in a press release. “Whether it’s a hospital, a clinic, or a pharmacy, no Minnesotan seeking medical care should be lef out in the cold due to the personal beliefs of their health care providers.” Source: Gender Justice PHOTO RECLAIMPHOTO THE BLOCK The Death of Feminist Writing? Te 2000s were fertile years for online feminist publications. Sites like Te Hairpin, Te Toast, and Jezebel published articles with headlines ranging from “Abortion access improves children’s lives” to “Should I eat more meat? Peanut butter isn’t going to cut it.” For several reasons, many of these blogs are now gone, the latest being Feministing, which started in 2004. “Feminist media has been especially hard hit by the Members of Reclaim the Block and Black Visions Collective stand in front of fnancial turbulence in the news industry,” writes New York Mayor Jacob Frey during a budget press conference. They carried balloons representing lip service and chanted, “You care about the cops more than Times writer Emma Goldberg. At its peak, Feministing the many, you gave them gold and gave us pennies.” had 1.2 million unique monthly visitors. Source: The New York Times

— compiled by Lydia Moran

32 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 CAMP GUIDE

Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 33 Camp Guide

PHOTO SARAHPHOTO WHITING Into the Wilderness

submitted by Eve Wandering, Evelyn Fontaine, and Ava Bleifuss

Girl Scout guide Bailey shows Evelyn, Ava, and Eve the crayfish at their campsite.

ast summer, our Girl Scout troop Tere are three places to sit in a canoe. rust-colored one and a blue one. Te went on a three-day trip to the You can sit at the bow. If you paddle at red crayfsh were an invasive species. Boundary Waters Canoe Area the bow that means you are the motor of Bailey suggested we collect those to eat Wilderness.L None of us had ever been the canoe. If you sit at the stern, you are with dinner. Any blue crayfsh that we there before, but all of us had been steering. If you sit in the middle, you get caught were set free. We named one camping. We assumed it would be like to relax. You are the princess. of them Alexander McBobbikins, who past experiences. We were worried Te water was bigger than what we held a special place in Evelyn’s heart. We about the long canoe ride and the bugs, had experienced before. Tere were no were all sad to watch him go. but excited to hang out with friends for motorboats. It was peaceful and calm. As for the rust-colored crayfsh, three days. We saw snapping turtles, and an otter, we fried them up in a pan with some We slept the frst night at the Girl and lots of trees. olive oil. One member of our troop, Scout base camp, where we met We paddled for what seemed like Ming, and the adults ate the crayfsh. our guide, Bailey. She was the best. forever, but it was really only fve Ming said they were delicious. Te Bailey was a nurse-in-training, had hours before getting to our campsite. three of us did not have any, because lifeguard experience, and was great at Although it was rocky and on the side we kept thinking about Alexander cooking over a fre. She taught us the of a hill, the site had a pretty view of McBobbikins. Still, it was interesting rules of the Boundary Waters, good the lake and lots of shade. We set up to see something we caught get cooked camping strategies, and staying safe in our tents and went swimming. and eaten, and we were glad to help the wilderness. Bailey told us we had to swim in life diminish the invasive population. We had to prepare well for the trip. jackets and boots so our feet did not get Tere were a lot of other foods that Everything we brought had to be carried cut on any sharp objects in the water. we enjoyed in the Boundary Waters. We on our backs and ft in the canoes. We did We thought she was crazy at frst, but had the fufest pancakes, burritos made not want to bring anything unnecessary, it ended up being really fun. We highly with huge tortillas, pizza with a ton of but also did not want to have too little. recommend it. When you swim in a cheese, pan-made brownies, and s’mores Any garbage we created needed to be life jacket, it pulls your body up. Te with chocolate frosting. Everything tastes brought back in the packs, so that we boots also foat, so it is like being in a better when you make it yourself in the could preserve the wilderness. Afer lounge chair. We played a lot of games, woods over a fre. checking our gear to make sure it all ft in many that Bailey told us about. Ten we Bailey was smart. She knew how to packs, and learning how to carry them, started to notice the crayfsh. fip the canoe over and use it as a table we started on our adventure. Tere were two types of crayfsh: a for prepping food. She tied a tool belt 34 | Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 around a tree, which held the utensils One night we were wakened an open fre, and new ways to swim. for our meals. to look at the stars. They were Spending time with one another, and At night we played games like very pretty. We had never sharing these unique memories, makes Werewolf, Murder in the Dark, and seen that many stars before. us feel closer as troop members. Afer Mafa. Since we were camping, those we got home, we were grateful for our games were kind of creepy, which also beds, our toilets, and our houses. At the For us, it generally seems like life skills made them more fun. When it rained, same time, we felt very accomplished. are about how to use a computer. Afer it was nice to listen to the water hit the Te Boundary Waters has tough our trip into the Boundary Waters, we tarp above us. challenges, but we will always be grateful have new abilities. We paddled about At night in the tents, we laughed too for the skills that we learned. 13 hours over the course of the trip. We much to be scared, and slept peacefully. know about protecting food from bears, We did have to deal with some very sharp Eve (she/her), Evelyn (she/her), and Ava (she/ proper canoe techniques, putting up a her) are 7th graders at Yinghua Academy in rocks, though. Evelyn’s mattress popped. tarp before it rains, safely cooking over Northeast Minneapolis.

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Minnesota Women’s Press | womenspress.com | January 2020 | 37 Sexuality

PHOTO SARAHPHOTO WHITING 21 Grams

written by Gaea Dill-D’Ascoli Gaea Dill-D’Ascoli checks out a variety of dildos at Smitten Kitten in Minneapolis. Though they do not carry the dildos mentioned in the article, Smitten Kitten does offer classes about sexuality and grieving. Led by Joan Price, the author of “Sex After Grief — Navigating Your Sexuality After Losing Your Beloved,” these classes take place in the fall and spring.

he weight of the soul is supposedly 21 grams. Tat is sex. Before that, it was like my body had simply forgotten why a designer chose to put 21 grams of human ashes that I once had a high-sex-drive partnership. Not even into the specialty dildo he created. It comes in a lovely masturbation was interesting. Without Jason, there was no Twooden case that has a place to put your wedding rings, spark. Tere was no reason to want anything sexual without speakers for your iPod, and a scent difuser. Everything you the person I loved. need for a hot date with your dead lover. In my third year of widowhood, I am fnally coming back Tese are the kinds of things I have found out about in the around to the part of me that liked being physically intimate. I two and a half years since the death of my partner. I did not can imagine, in a purely hypothetical way, that I will make out go out seeking a dildo full of ashes. I learned about it from an with someone new in my lifetime. I can see a world in which I article someone gave me. It made me laugh. It still does. might lay on the couch and read books with wandering hands. I started dating my partner when we were both 20. We spent I am not in that world yet, but at least I think it might exist. a couple of years dating long distance while I was in college. I still cannot envision sex without my lifetime love involved, Tere were a few months in the Peace Corps when we were but at least I can picture sex again. At 34, I don’t intend to stay separated. But between the ages of 20 and 31, I pretty much celibate for the rest of my life. had sex on tap. I tried not to take it for granted, but afer 12 If it was just orgasms that I missed, then a dildo full of ashes years, it just felt like the way of the world. My relationship was might sufce. But I miss lazy Sunday mornings taking our stable and loving and physical. Tis is how it would always be. time waking up next to each other. I miss the bedtime routine Since his unexpected death in 2017, I haven’t had that of sheet arranging and cuddles and talking through our days. luxury. Nor have I really wanted it. I miss hurried showers dodging around each other for the Te human sex drive is a complex thing. I did not think hot water. I miss the intimacy of sitting together not talking. I there was an on/of switch for it until Jason died. I still cannot miss the physical presence of my love and my lover. speak to a simple “on” switch, but there is certainly an “of.” 21 grams in a dildo cannot capture what it is to physically My of switch got fipped, and for more than a year it stayed not have a partner. But I am fnally starting to understand that way. why the artist created it. Sometime late in my second year of widowhood, I remembered I had a body. I did not want to touch anyone or Gaea Dill-D’Ascoli (she/her) is a Minnesota native with a love of writing, for anyone to touch me. I just remembered that there was a reading, and travel. She freelances in technical theater, carpentry, time when I enjoyed being touched, being physical, having stiltwalking, photography, and writing. More of her writing on her process of grief, as well as her photography, can be found at gaeadd.com

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