Community Through Conversation

Minnesota Native News

Marie: This is Minnesota Native News, I’m Marie Rock. Coming up...

MN Native News produces a weekly Special Edition called COVID 19 Community Conversations. Throughout the pandemic, many have shared how their personal and professional lives have been impacted.

Reporter Leah Lemm... and host of Community Conversations... shares two conversations from the program.

STORY #1: Connection Through Conversation

REPORTER: I have had the joy of talking with wonderful guests throughout the pandemic. COVID 19 Community Conversations is a way to explore how Indian Country in MN is responding and adapting to the current pandemic. Many times we share hope and many times concerns. And at the center of it all… is community.

First I’d like to share how one guest is looking toward the future. Rhiana Yazzie is the founder of New Native Theatre, a foundationally Native theatre company in the Twin Cities. Theatre has been hit very hard by the pandemic, but that hasn’t stopped creativity.

Rhiana Yazzie: I'm working with some really cool artists that we really love and respect, whereas super concerned about making sure the audience is safe and that's because the majority of our audiences are Native.

And last night I was just looking at some statistics for the state of Minnesota, how Native people have the highest rates of getting COVID and also have a much higher rate of being hospitalized if they get it. And so we're super, super concerned about that. And then of course I am Navajo and, you know, the, the way that COVID has affected the Navajo nation also is a huge consideration just to, you know, my, my life experience and you know, just the, the loss that that's happened.

So when we think about producing plays, we are just thinking about safety and that might mean like much, much smaller audiences and maybe more performances. So like the possibility of coming to people's bubbles and performing for them at a safe distance outside. And just doing that a lot or, you know, just sort of finding a bigger space with good amplification.

REPORTER: Next, Barry Hand teaches language and history at the Bdote Learning Learning Center.

When he was a guest on COVID 19 Community Conversations we talked about student and teacher resilience in education. We also took time to reflect on culture and language, during which Barry shared a few language phrases in Dakotiyapi. Phrases to help lift our awareness and compassion, especially during tough times.

Leah: This has been a hard times and it's, it's showed us a lot as Ojibwe people, as Dakota people, the First Nations people, this land here, this is a warning. This is a warning to remember that when the lights go out, life can get hard and we have to appreciate one another. We have to look at our traditions.

And so I would say that I would like to leave with a couple of different phrases and the first one would be, [Dakotiyapi] like a pity, one another, but not pity in the sense of a dominant society or have compassion for one another. [Dakotiyapi] - help one another help each other, because we need that. So have compassion. OCI keeps you up ball or [Dakotiyapi] and also [Dakotiyapi] keep busy, keep doing stuff, keep going. Don't give up. So [Dakotiyapi] keep busy, keep busy. That's a very powerful phrase.

As a cancer survivor, that phrase kept me going. There's a, there's an elder from the Rosebud Indian reservation, a famed author by the name of Joseph Marshall. And that phrase kept me going through hard times. And so COVID, when COVID came. I remember it. All right. We have to keep going. So those are the three phrases, I think I'd like to leave here.

Find COVID19 Community Conversations on the MN Native News website: MN NATIVE NEWS DOT ORG.

For MN Native News, I’m Leah Lemm.