Amelia Schafer
ICT
Just as they’ve done for centuries on Turtle Island, Indigenous artists are using the tools and talents available to them to communicate about the historic immigration raids across the United States.
From her home in south Minneapolis, using an iPad and the Procreate app, graphic designer Jearica Fountain is creating bold, eye-catching designs to raise awareness about the large Immigration Customs Enforcement surge to her Midwestern community.
South Minneapolis, particularly on and near Franklin Avenue, is considered a cultural corridor for the city’s Indigenous population. But the area also has a high Latino and Somali population, meaning it’s been a targeted area for the surge of over 2,000 immigration agents in the city as the Department of Homeland Security works on what it’s calling the largest immigration crackdown in history.
“I feel like art has the ability to let anyone that views it reflect,” Fountain said. “It has the power to speak to everyone and it doesn’t matter how much knowledge you have about the subject. … Sometimes words can’t truly explain what is happening and what we’re seeing, but art can.”
A citizen of the Karuk Tribe, Fountain said she’s been drawing since she could first hold a pencil, having been surrounded by a family of artists.
Now an adult, Fountain’s designs are currently displayed across the Minneapolis metro area in an act of resistance.
Art has always been a method for Indigenous people to speak out. Historically, tribes across the northern plains, such as the Oceti Sakowin, or Lakota, Dakota, Nakota people, created winter counts, a visual calendar of the year’s events depicted through painted drawings on the leather side of a buffalo hide and later through paper.
Following European contact and broader colonization, winter counts began to depict children being taken to boarding schools, the smallpox epidemic and some of the first commodity deliveries to reservations.
Decades later, several Indigenous artists, like Fountain, are continuing the legacy of using Indigenous art to document and shine a spotlight on issues affecting their communities.
Fountain’s most popular design – a nod to the iconic Morton Salt Girl – depicts a young Native girl wearing a ribbon skirt and basket design on her shirt holding an umbrella and sprinkling salt behind her as she walks. The design is framed by the phrase “Mni Sota Makoce knows how to handle ICE.”
Inspired by Minnesota’s frigid icy winters, Fountain got the idea to Indigenize the immense amount of salt the state uses in the winter to defreeze ice.
“We’re basically in the Arctic, with how much salt we use to handle our ice situation,” Fountain said. “And right now we’re currently trying to deal with our ICE situation and get rid of it.”
Just blocks away from where Fountain lives, ICE officers shot and killed a 37-year-old woman, Renée Nicole Good.
“Right now what I’m creating affects everyone in Minnesota,” Fountain said. “It doesn’t matter your religion, political background, you are affected by ICE here in Minnesota.”
Fountain said she began supplying her designs to local action groups to use as posters and buttons at anti-ICE protests across the city. She’s also donating proceeds from sold prints to local relief organizations. Outside of the city, Fountain has heard from people across the country impacted by her art.
“Getting to hear back from people outside of Minnesota is kind of nice to hear because sometimes it feels like we’re living on an island here where only we know what is happening here and only we are the people talking about it,” she said.
Over 146 miles northeast of the Twin Cities, Lac Courte Oreilles tribal citizen Aerius Benton-Banai is using her talents as a seamstress to make a bold political statement.
Jingle dresses need to be created in a good way, she said, with a clear head and heart. News of what was going on in Minneapolis weighed on her too much and she needed to create something, she said.
“I transmuted all of my anger and distress into this piece,” Benton-Banai said. “I wanted to make a statement of support to all of our people really, that are being taken from us and seen as immigrants. No one is illegal on stolen land means we can’t criminalize people for wanting to migrate to a safer, better place for their life.”
The dress, crafted on red satin and adorned with 20 rows of multicolor ribbons, features a large patch on the center of the ribbon stack. The white, satin patch, with bold black lettering, reads “No One is Illegal on Stolen Land.”
“No one is illegal on stolen land built by stolen hands,” she said. “And I wished that I had added that little last bit, you know, because that is the true history of America and we know that.”
Benton-Banai, the owner of popular jingle dress design company House of Jingle Dresses, donned the red ribbon dress on January 16 and recorded herself speaking directly to her over 27,000 followers about what’s going on in immigrant communities across the country.
“I realize that not everyone can be on the front lines right now,” she said. “I have a daughter at home and it’s important that we stay safe, but also think of acts of resistance.
Acts of resistance can come in many forms, Benson-Banai said. It can be done through singing, dancing or creating.
“I wasn’t expecting such a huge response with my message,” she said. “As Indigenous people, we don’t see land with borders. We love the land and we appreciate the land for what it gives us. We don’t see it as something that is to be owned or bought or sold.”
Benton-Banai ends the video, which has been viewed over 280,000 times, with a statement, “Which side of history will you stand on?”
As the granddaughter of American Indian Movement co-founder Eddie Benton-Banai, she is carrying on her grandfather’s legacy of resistance – one stitch at a time.
“I wanted to spread my truths that were passed on to me by my family and my elders and theirs,” she said. “So that is our truth as Indigenous people. I think it’s important to remember also, as artists, it’s important to create and shift the culture. The people that are oppressing us know that controlling the culture is controlling the people. And it’s really important to remember that.”