CULTURAL HUMILITY SERIES:
The Anishinaabe Community
It is difficult to avoid framing the Anishinaabe community’s history as a stark dichotomy: how this community lived before contact with European colonial powers in contrast to how they lived after. Indeed, the prevailing narrative only begins after European settlers colonized what is now the United States.
But the history, legacy and future of the Anishinaabe — the largest Native American community in Minnesota — is a continuous narrative, not reliant on any single event or turning point.
In the face of more than a century of trauma and oppression, the Anishinaabe community has nurtured inspiring leaders, thinkers, artists and community members who work to positively impact the world.
Community Demographics and History
This is home. This is the land my ancestors are buried in. It’s the land where my roots are. I still love to travel, but this will always be home.”
Sharon Day (Bois Fort Band of Ojibwe)
COMMUNITY CULTURAL HEALTH
Each Native American community has its own cultural traditions around health. And yet, all Native American communities are united by the enduring impact of centuries of colonial oppression. The mental and physical strain of generational trauma and chronic health conditions stems from shared histories of forced relocation, mistreatment and genocide. However, through a return to ancestral customs and practices, Native communities are restoring community cultural health.
The prevalence of diabetes in the American Indian community illustrates how systemic racism impacts Native communities’ health. American Indians and Alaska Natives have the highest rates of diabetes of any ethnic group in the United States. Members of those communities are two to three times more likely than white individuals to die from diabetes. This prevalence is linked to, and exacerbated by, the lack of access to healthy foods on tribal lands, where Native communities were historically forced to rely on nutritionally inadequate, government-provided rations.
KEY CHALLENGES
24% of the population 45–64 has one or more disabilities, compared to 12% of the total state population.
9.3% of the Native American community in Minnesota lacks health care coverage.
Concerns about cost make people with a disability twice as likely to skip seeing the doctor.
CULTURALLY-BASED SOLUTIONS TO HEALTH CHALLENGES
Recognizing and validating the significant impact of historical trauma on Native people is an essential first step toward community healing. Dr. Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart (Hunkpapa/Oglala Lakota), an associate professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of New Mexico, is a leader in researching and implementing interventions to heal historical trauma in Native communities.
The Native community also advances healing through food. Seeds of Native Health, a grassroots organization funded by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, seeks to restore healthful diets to Native communities. In partnership with the University of Minnesota, Seeds of Native Health hosts the Annual Conference on Native American Nutrition.
SNAPSHOTS OF
Anishinaabe Culture & Customs
As Minnesota’s 40th-largest employer, the Mille Lacs Band lives the Anishinaabe value of being a good neighbor. According to its website, the Band employs more than 4,100 people — 90% of whom live in the East-Central Minnesota communities that surround the tribe’s lands.
The name Ojibwe may be drawn from either the puckered seam of the Ojibwe moccasin or the Ojibwe custom of writing on birch bark.
Many beloved Minnesotan items were first cultivated or invented by the Anishinaabe: maple syrup, snowshoes and moccasins to name a few.
LEADERS IN MINNESOTA
Peggy Flanagan
Peggy Flanagan (White Earth Band of Ojibwe) is Minnesota’s 50th Lieutenant Governor. She has advocated for people of color and Indigenous communities throughout her political career.
Louise Erdrich
Award-winning author Louise Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Band) has achieved national acclaim for her fiction writing about Anishinaabe communities in Minnesota.
American Indian Movement
Dennis Banks (Leech Lake Band) and brothers Clyde Bellecourt and Vernon Bellecourt (White Earth Band) led the American Indian Movement (AIM) and to this day are remembered for their extraordinary leadership. Founded in 1968, AIM was a grassroots movement of Native Americans in Minnesota to combat police harassment and mistreatment of Native people. The organization became a key voice calling for the reclamation of Native heritage and identity, and demanding state and federal governments honor treaties.
I think as a Native person . . . there's a lot of mistrust when it comes to institutions and health care. Especially there's a lot of fear . . . and I think with good reason because there has been a lot of mistrust in the relationships.”
Margueritte Secola (Northern Ute/Anishinaabe)
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