Indigenous peoples are pushing to gain a permanent seat at the U..N. General Assembly, according to an article in the website Devex. It is a main focus driving this year’s U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. The annual meeting started April 24 and ends May 5. According to the story:
Indigenous peoples make up just 5 percent of the world’s population — about 400 million people — yet also account for nearly 15 percent of the world’s extreme poor, and occupy some 22 percent of the Earth’s land surface. Their participation in the global development agenda is key, senior United Nations officials said this week, but indigenous communities and institutions still collectively lack the right to easily enter and participate in United Nations meetings…
AIM Travels to French Festival to Sell Wild Rice
The American Indian Movement (AIM) Interpretive Center announced last month that it will attend the Foire de Tours in France, an annual 10-day festival which more than 300,000 people attend every year. It is going to sell wild rice, part of a larger effort to create a wild rice export business.
Each year the festival chooses a geographic area to highlight and serve as the central exhibit. This year’s theme “will be called Minnesota: l’Etoile du Nord (The Star of the North). As the featured destination, Minnesota will showcase performers, local art, culture, businesses, tourism, crafts and food.”
The festival runs May 5th to May 14th.
Tours and Minneapolis have been sister cities since 1991. AIM officials got to meet the Mayor of Tours and other elected officials when they visited Minneapolis last year as part of the 25th anniversary celebration of the sister city relationship. AIM will attend the festival and introduce the French to wild rice, including a presentation and seminar to local chefs and the public at the International Cité of Gastronomy in Tours on May 11.
Minneapolis American Indian Center Open House May 10
As part of American Indian Month, the Minneapolis American Indian Center (MIAC) will host an Open House Wednesday May 10, from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. 1530 E Franklin Ave. There will be door prizes called throughout the event, a table with MAIC program information, and a meal at noon (hamburgers/hot dogs, baked beans, coleslaw, chips, cookies and coffee/water.
Birchbark Book Reading Series May 10
Four authors will read from their works as part of the Birchbark Book Reading Series, Wednesday, May 10, starting a 7 p.m. at The Bockley Gallery, 2123 W 21st Street, Minneapolis (just a few doors from the Birchbark Bookstore).
Reading will be:
- Nora Murphy, author of White Birch, Red Hawthorn: A Memoir. Murphy is a fifth-generation Irish Minnesotan. She was born and lives in Imniza Ska, the white cliffs overlooking the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers in St. Paul.
- Choua Yang, whose poem “Refugee: 1984” was published in the Saint Paul Almanac. Yang is an aspiring writer who grew up in Saint Paul’s east side. After twenty years in the IT field, he went back to school to finish a long-awaited bachelor degree in English Literature just so he can get asked the question, “What are you going to do with that?”
- Taiyon J Coleman is a poet, essayist, teacher, and a Cave Canem fellow. She has an MFA from the University of Minnesota’s Creative Writing Program, a PhD in English Literature and Culture, and is a 2017 recipient of a McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship in creative prose. Her thought-provoking essays have appeared in numerous publications, including A Good Time for the Truth.
- Ronald P. Leith is the author of Poems from the Deep: A Man’s Journey through Heaven and Hell, and The Parable of Wood & Stone: Personal Notes form a Native Man’s Existential Journey. Ron credits his attending Red Lake High School in the 1960’s as a beneficial experience for him, allowing him to become re-acquainted with his Ojibwe-Anishinabe family and to develop a true sense of being a member of a truly great nation. Originally writing in Haiku format, Ron says his writing evolved through personal experience, vision and revision, trial and error, adopting and adapting many variations of style, format and structure.
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