This story is part of a partnership between Bethel University’s journalism program and ICT.

Rachel Blood and Lydia Gessner
Special to ICT

Cyndy Mountain’s laughter fills the room, bouncing off walls with canvas paintings of eight-pointed stars and whiteboards half-erased with the remains of handwritten words — friendly, humanity, inclusion. She’s come for the weekly women’s group at Little Earth of United Tribes, an intertribal residents’ association in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She’s lived here for more than 10 years.

Mountain, Red Lake Ojibwe, spends her days working as an advocate at Hope Avenue Shelter. She has a “Star Wars” ringtone, a Love Your Melon beanie and a long, hard history.

She embodies one apartment door, one tribe and one story within a unified community of 212 housing units and 39 tribes.

Little Earth celebrated its 50th anniversary last year with a two-day powwow, where Mountain danced alongside members of various tribes.

“You have to respect that it’s intertribal,” Housing Navigator Michelle White, Omaha Tribe of Nebraska, said. “We live amongst each other. It’s about being a good relative, a good person.”

When she first moved here, Mountain had to go through yellow tape just to get to school. She once caught seven mice in a single trap in her first-floor apartment. Her son was once jumped on the street and the alleys were scattered with “gangs” and “crackheads.”

Now, she feels safe. The mice have been taken care of, and she lives on the second floor. Her friend Renea landed her a job at the shelter and drives her to and from work. She makes amazing turkey gravy. She has her master’s degree in tribal administration and governance from University of Minnesota-Duluth, a neighbor boy who leaves homemade Valentines in her door and a group of women who laugh, cry and dance together.

“If I didn’t have [Little Earth], I would be homeless right now,” Mountain says, assembling a burger from trays of food in the center of the long table.

Credit: This group artwork is an ongoing testament to the cyclical nature of grief. The group pulls it out and adds to it as needed. Its circular nature promotes the idea that nobody’s grief is given more or less weight than anyone else’s regardless of the manner of the loss. (Lydia Gessner, Bethel University’s journalism program)

Next to her, Deana Parra slides a hamburger with cheese onto a bun. She, like Mountain, is Red Lake Ojibwe, but prefers the city life to living on the reservation.

At the other end of the table is Youth Empowerment Director Latisha Franks. She too is Red Lake Ojibwe and has been a Little Earth resident since 2011. She moved out of her initial Little Earth residence at 17, returned to the area at 24 and has worked in the community since 2006, moving from Brooklyn Center teaching to dispatch work to programming.

Across the table is White, who lives and works for Little Earth’s Housing Advocacy Program, which works to help Native homeowners and home-seekers with everything from financing to rent advocacy. She’s proud of her roots, as an avid fan of both the Huskers and the Hawkeyes.

She grins. “I love it here,” she says.

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Little Earth’s women’s group has been running since Franks was a kid, and she remembers attending with her mother. They talk about everything from menopause to relationships to the Puerto Rican food Amanda promised to make soon. It is a space for women to learn and grow and love.

Franks and her colleagues saw the beauty of this community — both men and women — fully illustrated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Youth Empowerment
After School Support
Youth Workforce Development
S.T.E.A.M. Programming

Adult and Family Empowerment
Advocacy Coaching & Services
Personal & Professional Development Opportunities
Women’s Empowerment Circle
Ceremonies
Transportation Services
Peacemaking Program

Little Earth Urban Farm
Youth Workforce Development
Veggie RX

Native Youth Arts Collective

Franks remembers how donations poured in when nearby stores boarded up following George Floyd’s murder in 2020. They filled common spaces at Little Earth with items for people to walk through and pick up. The overflow was so great that they invited the rest of the neighborhood to walk through too.

“The community came together,” Mountain said. “It was pretty badass.”

While Little Earth’s goal is to build and help its community, Franks says its benevolence extends to anyone who calls on them.

“We don’t say no to anybody,” she said. For instance, Little Earth partners with Boys and Girls Club, which is not a strictly Native American organization. Whether a Little Earth resident or caller from East Phillips, the community will not turn a person in need away.

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Franks’ teen years at Little Earth and her background in teaching have prepared her for this role. She talked about the educational correlations between Native youth and class attendance. Little Earth has tried to implement educational incentives for older youth in its workforce development program. To qualify, students must maintain an 80% attendance rate, which is then matched with a student’s GPA for a stipend of up to $500 a quarter.

Franks says she tries to be a friendly face in the halls of local schools so students feel supported by someone who once walked in their place.

“You don’t understand,” Franks said kids often tell her, but she does. “I lived right over there,” she points. “I went to that elementary school.”

Her face lights up when she talks about the boy who smiled when she showed up at his baseball game, the unfiltered truth-tellers who make her laugh, the kids who call her “auntie” though they aren’t related.

“I’m in it for others,” Franks said.

Little Earth’s community initiatives don’t stop here. The grief group of men and women meets Thursday mornings to talk, laugh and cry. It’s run by Franks, who has lost both her husband and grandma. They add new words to the painted canvas in the front of the room as needed — generational healing, patience, accountability.

“We find comedy in our trauma,” Franks said. “We go through some shit with grief. … It’s like that itch that’s always there, but when we’re here laughing, it’s like we have a split second where I don’t have to scratch that itch.”

Programs at Little Earth center around embracing community and cultural practices, Franks said. Though its residents represent 39 tribes, they find commonality in shared spaces.

Mountain attends several Little Earth programs, including beading group, women’s group and grief group. She lost her mom two years ago, then her son Donavan. The two of them enjoyed long bike rides around Minneapolis lakes during the pandemic.

These days, she speaks of those rides with her son wistfully. The bike he helped her pick out sits in her apartment collecting dust since she got hit by a car while riding it in November. She does physical therapy to heal her body and dances in her regalia to heal her soul.

Mountain danced in Little Earth’s annual Mother’s Day Powwow, having learned how to craft her regalia from a Canadian woman online. She wore red velvet on her cape and worked in a purple strawberry to honor her Donavan. Her dress was yellow — her mother’s maiden name.

“It’s a healing dress,” Mountain said.

She can’t count how many powwows she’s been to, from Little Earth to Denver to Albuquerque’s Gathering of Nations. Her grandson dances too.

As Mountain, Frank and White grab lettuce and ketchup for their hamburgers (or Impossible burgers, in Franks’ case), they talk powwows from coast to coast..

“They say women will save your ass. The men pat it,” White says. “That’s why I stick with the women.”

When these women dance, they dance to heal. They dance to remember. They dance together.

Rachel Blood and Lydia Gessner are students at Bethel University in Minnesota.