Minnesota Chapter

Future Events

Ethnic Studies Conference co-organized by EdLibMN & Ethnic Studies Coalition – October 2024

Minnesota Ethnic Studies Coalition and the Education for Liberation Minnesota are excited to organize Nurturing Ethnic Studies: Honoring & Teaching Truth in Minnesota, Friday October 18, 2024 at Academia Cesar Chavez, St. Paul, MN from 8:30 am to 3 pm. We want to use this one day gathering to develop connections and resources to teach critical Ethnic Studies in Minnesota through a keynote talk, workshops, assemblies, and youth artist showcases that focus on Ethnic Studies content, pedagogies, and activism. We envision this one-day conference as part of the ongoing efforts in the state to honor and build from the radical roots of Ethnic Studies education as rooted in youth and community.

Past Events

Political Education Back to School Panel (Sept 2024)

Panel with local organizers and activists about popular education efforts in the Twin Cities. We are so grateful to Stephanie Autumn, Louis Alemayehu, and Dr. Rose Brewer for sharing their time, wisdom, knowledge, and stories with the EdLibMN crew. It was a beautiful way to start a new school year and be reminded that while the struggle is long, we are not alone. We have our elders, each other, our youth, and our ancestors.

Organizer retreats (January 2024 and July 2024)

We held two organizer retreats this year to clarify our expectations for each other, to take stock of all that we have done so far, and where we want to head in the next few years.

Kinship Events: Bdote Walk, Pottery, Zine-making

We continued to build connections with each other through kinship activities throughout the year, including a Bdote walk where we shared our gratitude to Dakota educator Ramona Kitto-Stately; a pottery session at Mudluk Pottery, and a zine making event where we tried to distill some of our important learnings from political education this year.

Political Education Study Group (September 2023 – May 2024)

In fall 2023, our political education study focused more internally–we wanted to do a deeper dive into our origins as well as reading about organizing in general. In September, we listened to interviews with some of the founding members of the national Education Liberation Network and their vision for Free Minds, Free People and the network. October’s session focused on learning more about LeftRoots and their process of cohering towards a political ideology. In November, we had a great time digging into Let this radicalize you by Mariame Kaba and Kelly Haynes. In the spring, we focused on studying examples of communities self-organizing schools/educational opportunities for/by themselves: The Highlander Center; the Zapatistas; and the Young Lords. We explored definitions of political and popular education and to consider the possibilities and constraints of doing political/popular education in state-controlled schools and institutions.

Let’s Get Free Saturdays! (July 2023)

The Let’s Get Free Saturdays consisted of five Saturdays in July of intergenerational liberatory educational programs in July 2023. The goal was to create spaces to teach, learn, exchange ideas and strategies, and develop networks. 

CHECK OUT A PLAYLIST OF RECAP VIDEOS FROM LET’S GET FREE SATURDAYS!

July 1: Healing

It was amazing to be a part of a community sharing their gifts and talents. We engaged in deeper dialogue around liberatory education as we moved our bodies, participated in artistic endeavors such as singing, and broke bread together. We thank Black Youth Healing Arts Center for hosting us!

July 8 2023: Advocacy & Agitation

We learned about the practices of community, sharing, and intergenerational learning through a workshop on Capoeira Angola and engaged with ideas about how to parent against white supremacy. Thank you to Sabathani Community Center for giving us a space!

July 15, 2023: Cultural Traditions & Resistance

We looked to our past cultural traditions to learn about how we have and continue to resist! We’d like to thank Academia Caesar Chavez for collaborating with us for a successful day.

July 22, 2023: Justice & Solidarity

We reflected on the themes of justice and solidarity through movement, writing, and play! We thank the Minnesota Humanities Center for hosting us.

July 29, 2023: Land & Kinship

We learned about the Philadelphia Community Farm’s philosophy that distinguishes between land conservation, land access, and land back. We learned about indigenous agricultural practices. For many of us, being out in nature helped us reframe our notions of safety and community. We learned about the possibilities and challenges of flat leadership models. We learned about the farm’s practices to sustain life, land, and interdependence. We would like to thank the farm for their ongoing collaborations with EdLibMN.

Minnesota YPAR Summit (May 2023)

On Friday, May 19, and Saturday, May 20, 2023, approximately 160 youth and 40 adults came to the Science Museum of Minnesota to learn about and share experiences with YPAR. The summit was co-planned by adults and youth from multiple schools and organizations, including EdLibMN, YoUthROC, St. Louis Park Public Schools, Rochester Public Schools, and St. Anthony Public Schools. Workshops about YPAR research methods and were offered by the Brooklyn Center YPAR Baddies, UNIDOS MN, and YoUthROC.

Political Education Study Group (February-May 2023)

The political education study group met four times in the spring of 2023, reading texts about Pan-Africanism, Intersectionality (Combahee River Collective statement), Indigenous environmental activism and approach, and the intersections of labor activism and racial justice movements. We’d like to thank Onyx Coffeeshop at George Floyd Square for hosting us!

Facing the Unknown Kinship Event (January 2023)

The kinship committee started 2023 on great note with an event at UROC that featured stories, shadow puppets, and sustenance. We were excited to have artist Liping Vong, who facilitated a workshop at the 2021 Ethnic Studies Summer Camp, to lead us in exercises and activities that led to a lot of laughter and creative re-imaginings of the Itsy Bitsy Spider saga!

Abolition. Feminism. Now. Book Group (November 2022)

We were excited to be able to connect with two of the authors of Abolition. Feminism. Now., Gina Dent and Erica Meiners, who were in town as keynote speakers at the National Womens Studies Association conference. We talked about the complexities of abolitionist politics and its links to educational justice work in Minnesota. The book’s framing has allowed us to clarify that our “now” necessitates working with the current state-run schooling system while working to create liberatory spaces for and by us.

The School-Prison Trust Book Talk (November 2022)

The internal political education committee hosted a hybrid book talk by the three co-authors of The School-Prison Trust, a book that explores the relationship of school-prison relations for young Native people, touching on important issues of Indigenous sovereignty, refusal, creativity, and survivance. The authors’ distinction between resistance (which still entails recognition from the settler-colonial nation-state) and refusal (which is about refusing the terms of the debate and asserting sovereignty) gave us a framework for analyzing the kind of work that we do as EdLibMN and which category our work might fit into. 

Link to book talk video

Mutual Comradeship lecture and discussion (October 2022)

As the kickoff event for the internal political education committee, EdLibMN organizers and members attended a talk by Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly titled “The ‘Late’ W.E.B. Du Bois and the Practice of Mutual Comradeship” at the University of St. Thomas. In a discussion following the talk, we discussed how the concept of mutual comradeship informed the work of EdLibMN as a space with a shared political analysis, shared expectations, and shared political goals for education.

EdLibMN Summer Retreat (July 2022)

The EdLibMN organizing crew spent a weekend at Philadelphia Community Farm reflecting on their work for the past two years and planning for the next year. We decided that we wanted to pursue a few different projects for the year and have created three committees to do so: (1) community healing/kinship building, (2) internal political education, and (3) political education with/for the broader community.

BIPOC Ethnic Studies Network Wrap Up Celebration (May 2022)

In May 2022, we celebrated the end of the second cohort of the BIPOC Ethnic Studies Cohort with a gathering at Minnehaha Park. In our second year of the cohort, we learned from outside speakers and artists such as Thomasina Topbear, Ricardo Levins Morales, Keith Mayes, Sydney Latimer and Leigh Patel. We also learned from our youth cohort members, Amina Smaller and Shaunassey Johnson, about Youth Participatory Action Research, and about critical art from Nic Salazar. The cohort members worked in small groups to focus on the intersections of Ethnic Studies and (1) curriculum, (2) pedagogy, (3) self/community care, (4) creative resistance, (5) policy, and (6) grassroots organizing.

BIPOC Ethnic Studies Learning Cohort 2021-22 Kick-off (Oct 2021)

On Saturday, October 16, 2021, the new cohort of the BIPOC Ethnic Studies learning/mentoring cohort kicked off their year of work together by attending the Learning from Place: Bdote trip through the Minnesota Humanities Center. The group learned about Dakota history, philosophy, and contemporary life from Dakota educators, Ramona Kitto Statelyand Ethan Neerdaels. It was a beautiful day to be in community with those educators and with each other.

BIPOC Ethnic Studies Mentoring Network Kickback (Sept 2021)

On September 24, 2021, EdLibMN organized a gathering to hear from members of our first mentoring network cohort and to recruit participants for our second cohort! It was the first time many of the network participants were meeting each other in person and it was great to meet some of the participants’ families and colleagues.

Inaugural Ethnic Studies Summer Camp (Aug 2021)

In early August 2021, over forty educators, many with their families, spent two days at the St. Croix Norway Point camp for a joyful learning experience that included workshops that explored the intersections of Ethnic Studies and arts, Youth Participatory Action Research, community cultural wealth, and controversies within Ethnic Studies. We learned from elders such as Ricardo Levins Morales and from the young people who brought their incredible energy, insights, and enthusiasm.

Social Justice & Teachers’ Unions (April 2021)

On Friday, April 30th, EdLib MN hosted a public event that focused on centering social justice in labor education movements. We heard from Jesse Hagopian, co-editor of Social Justice and Teachers’ Unions, and Robin Wonsley Worlobah, who is in the running to be Minneapolis’ first Black Socialist City Council member.
More from the Speakers

Ethnic Studies: From Policy to the Classroom (Nov 2020)

On Monday, November 23rd, 2020, Education for Liberation Minnesota hosted a panel of teacher/activists from states across the country that have passed or are currently considering some form of Ethnic Studies legislation. Panelists include Pang Yang (MN), Andrew Gonzales (Austin, TX), Ismael Jimenez (Philadelphia, PA), and Dr. Emily Bautista (Los Angeles, CA). The session was moderated by Curtis Acosta from the Education for Liberation Network.

Sponsored by the Education for Liberation Network and the Macalester College Educational Studies Department.

About the Panelists

Pang Yang is a dedicated multilingual veteran teacher and the mother of seven children. Pang is also a founder of Project Tshav Ntuj, a movement to destigmatize mental health in the Hmong community, and a new non-profit, MN Zej Zog, which empowers the Hmong community by nurturing the Hmong language, healing through the arts and wellness, and becoming more powerful through education across the generations.


Andrew Gonzales currently teaches middle school STEM, Ethnic Studies, and the History of Pop Music at Lively Middle School in Austin, TX. For the previous 5 years, he taught Ethnic Studies at the high school level, was a member of the curriculum design team, and a teacher of the Ethnic Studies course in Austin since its inaugural year.


Ismael Jimenez is a dedicated educator who, for the last fifteen years, has worked with students in Philadelphia from preschool age to high school. Currently, Ismael is a core member of the Racial Justice Organizing Committee, Black Lives Matter Philly, founding member of the Melanated Educators Collective, and co-founder of the Philadelphia Black History Collaborative.


Dr. Emily Bautista's commitment to advancing Ethnic Studies began as a youth organizer at UCLA and continued in her work as a Los Angeles high school teacher, school leader, and founding member of the People's Education Movement in Los Angeles. As a scholar-activist, Emily's research explores Transformative Youth Organizing as a decolonizing social movement framework.


Moderator: Dr. Curtis Acosta was a high school teacher for nearly 20 years in Tucson, Arizona, where he developed and taught Chican@/Latin@ Literature classes for the renowned Mexican American Studies program in the Tucson Unified School District. He is an award-winning educator was featured in the documentaries Precious Knowledge and Dolores.

Bipoc Ethnic Studies Learning Cohort 2020-2021 Virtual Kick-off (Aug 2020)

On August 6th, 2020, Education for Liberation Minnesota hosted a virtual kickoff event via Zoom to introduce the Ethnic Studies learning cohort to prospective mentees and mentors.

To watch the video with the chat messages (which include various links and resources), click here. Password: vp1gcQ&y

Info about and resources from presenters

Mankwe Ndosi

 

Dr. Rose Brewer

 

Youth Ethnic Studies Coalition video

Link for youth in Minnesota to share their perspectives on Ethnic Studies via short videos

 

Dr. Meredith McCoy

Presentation slides

Article about the lesson plan Dr. McCoy shared: “Beyond Pocahontas: Learning from Indigenous Women Changemakers,” co-authored with Sarah B. Shear, Leilani Sabzalian, and Lakota Pochedly as the Turtle Island Social Studies Collective. Social Studies and the Young Learner 31, no. 3 (2019): 7–13.

 

Dr. McCoy requests that you support the work of local movements and organizations that support Native youth (such as MIGIZI) as a way to honor her work.

 

Dr. Jimmy Patino

Chicano movement in Westside St. Paul

 

Dr. Yuichiro Onishi

 

Pang Yang, Park Center High School, Osseo Public Schools

Presentation slides

 

Rahel Tekam

BYP100

Participatory Budgeting Project