A special subcommittee of the Native American Awareness Working Group has been on a journey of truth and healing with community partners. The journey has included learning more about our CSJ history with this land along with creating spaces for community dialogue. You can see a recording of one of these CSJ educational sessions called “A CSJ Journey for Truth and Healing: learning our history with the land.” In addition, the subcommittee has been working on a text of a possible joint CSJ and St. Kates community Land Acknowledgement along with accompany actions. This has been a journey of listening, learning, building relationships, advocating for and with our American Indian sisters and brothers, and working through the CSJ processes for formal community approval.
Taking Action in Solidarity with Native Peoples
The Native American Awareness Working Group recently partnered with the CSJ Legislative Advocacy Partners Working Group to advocate for the establishment and funding of a Minnesota State Office for Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women. Go to our Take Action Page to learn more.
Also the Working Group partnered with with St. Catherine University students and staff to host an online screen of the film “Gather” along with a second event to discuss the film with a panel. We are grateful for the leadership of Carmelita Sharpback, St. Kate’s Master of Arts in Holistic Health, in helping to inspire these events. We are grateful to Sharon M. Day, Alexandera Houchin, and friends from Dream of Wild Health, Alanna Norris and Jessika Greendeer, for their enthusiastic participation and shared insights as a part of the panel. For more information about these events, review this article from St. Catherine University.
Not Forgotten!Members of the Native American Awareness Working Group continue to seek ways to stay informed and support the critical work of the Minnesota State Task Force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. We have partnered with Representative (and incoming 2021 MN Senator) Mary Kunesh-Podein along with St. Kate’s masters and doctoral students and faculty to support legislation creating this task force two years ago.
Minnesota ranks 9th in the country for the highest number of murdered indigenous women. Native Women are more than 10 times more likely than the general U.S. population to be murdered according to a U.S. Department of Justice study. This MN State Task Force collected data and just released their 2020 report to better understand the impacts of violence on Native Women in Minnesota. Check out the Task Force report.
Native American Awareness Working Group is very excited that Hope Flanagan was highlighted in local media for the great work of Dream of Wild Health. Dream of Wild Health (DOWH) is a local, intertribal non-profit that owns a 10-acre farm in Hugo, MN, providing educational programs that reconnect the urban Native American community with traditional Native plants and their culinary, medicinal and spiritual use. The CSJ St. Paul Province has a longstanding relationship with the founders and leaders of DOWH, as friends, advocates, volunteers and donors.
The Native American Awareness (NAA) Working Group aims at raising consciousness and increasing knowledge about Native American culture, especially in Minnesota. We study the history and special challenges experienced by Indians who remain marginalized in contemporary society. We share what we learn with each other, with other Sisters, Consociates, and interested others and take action when appropriate.
To carry out this mission, the Native American Awareness (NAA) Working Group hopes to:
For more information contact Marty Roers at mroers@csjstpaul.org.
Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Anne McKeig joined nearly 200 community members for a rich evening of conversation, ritual, music, justice, and indigenous food on February 8th hosted by the Native American Awareness working group of the CSJ Justice Commission, the church of Gichitwaa Kateri, and Wisdom Ways. The room was filled with Larry and Claire Martin’s gifted flute music and singing along with the smell of sage carried by Native youth for smudging to purify and cleanse the space. As Shawn Phillips from Gichitwaa Kateri said, “Let the sage wash over us and cleanse us.” Larry and Claire Martin, La Courte Oreilles Nation gifted us with flute music and singing of “The Pipe-filling Song” and “The Song of Four Directions” in the Ojibwe language. Maureen Headbird, a member of Leech Lake Nation, pipe carrier and Kateri trustee, blessed the group and opened our evening with a Pipe Ceremony.