Kare11
Red Lake Nation College in Minneapolis starts first fall semester
Over 370 students are enrolled for fall classes.
MINNEAPOLIS — Red Lake Nation College- Minneapolis is welcoming students to its Minneapolis campus for its first fall semester.
Classes started last week, but U.S. Senator Tina Smith stopped by Tuesday afternoon to get a tour of the new facility and speak with students. College leaders said Smith was one of the biggest supporters of this college.
This is the college’s second location. The first is in Northern Minnesota on the Red Lake Reservation.
Executive Director at the Minneapolis location, Nadine Bill, said the college has been looking to expand its options.
“There’s a large population of Native students in the Minneapolis/Twin Cities area that represent the Red Lake Nation and many other tribes across the country. And Minneapolis is one of the largest urban Indian populations and what was missing we felt was a tribal college experience for those students,” she said.
She said their Minneapolis site is one of the first tribal colleges and universities in a major city. Through their distance learning program, Bill said students from across the country are attending classes virtually.
“Tribal colleges are a reflection of the tribal communities. Tribal colleges are about educational sovereignty, which is about preserving the culture, language, and history of the people in those areas, so Tribal Colleges are vitally important,” Bill said.
She said over 370 students are enrolled for fall classes. Bill said the college offers students an opportunity to earn an associate’s degree. She many of them go on to attend four-year universities or jump into the workforce.
“It’s vitally important that students see themselves in higher education,” she said.
Keely Smith had no interest in going to college until she visited Red Lake Nation College.
“I struggled through my high school, adolescent years. I came in support of a family member, and I ended up loving and signed up for classes,” she said. “I think that as Indigenous people when we’re in other schools, we’re very limited in numbers so sometimes we don’t feel support, or we don’t have any friends, or any allies, so in school you just struggle, or you just want to hide in the shadows.”
Smith is entering her third semester, working toward her associate’s degree.
“I want every Native American to experience this to have this opportunity because I think if I were to go to a regular college or anything like that, I don’t think I would be able to succeed,” Smith said.
She said Red Lake gives her the support she needs to be successful while also empowering her.
“I absolutely love it. It was probably one of the best decisions I’ve made,” she said. “It’s a sense of community, it’s a sense of education.”
Will Hanson said he was attracted to their program because it allowed him to “learn about my culture but still be working toward a bigger goal at the same time for education.”
He said randomly showed up one day, and really like the curriculum. Now, it’s the reason he gets out of bed.
“I’m very proud. It gets me up in the morning to come here, it gets me out of bed, it gets me excited to learn and to actually do the work and knowing that I can use this knowledge to both better myself and my community,” he said.
Hanson said he didn’t learn much about his culture in high school and learned what he could on his own.
“I had to push to learn about my culture and like do like an independent study to learn about it,” he said.
He’s happy to be a part of a school that celebrates his culture and is excited about his future.
Jeremy Jourdain was 17 when he was last seen on Halloween 2016.
BEMIDJI, Minn. — The search for Jeremy Jourdain, who was last seen on Halloween in 2016, continues now eight years later.
Jourdain was last seen at a family member’s house in Bemidji, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior Indian Affairs. He left the residence near the 500 block of Wood Avenue after midnight and while people followed him, no one was able to find him.
Jourdain was 17 at the time.
Officials said he was wearing a blue and grey sweatshirt, and blue jeans when last seen. He is Native American and is described as 6 foot 5 and 175 pounds.
If you have any information on his whereabouts, you can contact the Bemidji Police Department at (218) 333-9111. Tips can also be sent to 1-833-560-2065, or you can email ojs_mmu@bia.gov.
The organizations say many Asian Americans are planning to vote despite lack of candidate outreach.
ST PAUL, Minn. — Most people have been contacted in some way shape or form by a campaign in the last few weeks. And if the polls are right and the race for president is a dead heat, every vote will matter.
That’s why this is a head scratcher:
According to a September 2024 voter survey by Asian American Pacific Islander Data, 27% of Asian-American voters said they hadn’t been contacted by either political party trying to get their vote. Last spring, earlier in the voting season, it was even more – 42%.
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are the fastest growing racial or ethnic group nationwide.
Their voter participation levels are growing too, with 60% of eligible Asian-American voters turning out in 2020. And AAPI Data reports as many as 90% of Asian Americans they surveyed said they plan to vote this cycle.
“Candidates are not reaching out to Asian Americans, which is a huge mistake,” said ThaoMee Xiong, executive and networking director of the Coalition of Asian American Leaders.
She says even though there are more than 200,000 eligible Asian voters in Minnesota, the Asian vote is under-appreciated.
“Neither the Democratic or Republican parties have been reaching out in huge numbers,” Xiong said. “They’re sending general mailers to everyone but … they need it in their native language.”
That’s why CAAL is partnering with two more organizations to keep voter turnout high and reach anyone candidates or advocates missed.
Xor Xiong is from Asian American Organizing Project, which focuses on engaging metro-area teens and young adults.
“Many of our communities are still facing barriers to go to vote,” he said. “There’s been more times than I like to admit in terms of when I was having a conversation over the phones of voters being surprised that they can take time off to go and vote, or they can bring the kids to the polling locations, or they can even bring someone to translate for them.”
“In Ramsey County, because of the large Hmong American population there, the polls in Ramsey County are federally required to provide interpreters and translated materials,” ThaoMee added.
Their nonpartisan campaign, Get Out the Vote for Asian Minnesotans, aims to get people registered and well-informed.
“Throughout Covid, there was a lot of anti-hate around the AAPI community and we are still feeling the impact of that to this day,” said Amanda Xiong, a community organizer with a group known as CAPI USA. “Even if folks are afraid to go to the polls, due to that, we try our best to then educate them around absentee ballots, voting early.”
“And so yes, there is a huge increase in terms of voter turnout, but then why is it still 70% feel as though they don’t belong?”
In 2021, the FBI reported a 168% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes.
In Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center, the groups knocked on at least 700 doors in one session alone while keeping safety top of mind.
“We make sure that there’s a car following all the door knockers,” ThaoMee said. “We put everyone on text chain … and we are putting a lot of precautionary measures in place for the day of voting.”
After the election, the CAAL plans to conduct surveys and send the results to county election officials. They’ve done this before and say it led to policy changes this year at the legislature including measures to ensure people have easier access to interpreters.
Minnesota groups work to encourage Latino voters to get to the polls and dispel misinformation.
MINNESOTA, USA — While the secretary of state publishes polling information in the Spanish Language, experts say there are still challenges when it comes to activating Latino voters. Minnesota groups have been hard at work getting voting information out and challenging misinformation.
Communities Organizing Latine Power and Action (COPAL) says it is still working to inspire Latino voters to the polls days before the election.
Eva Peña is one of the volunteers who spent part of Wednesday at their headquarters on Lake Street, calling Latino voters and making sure questions are answered in either English or Spanish.
“I’ve been able to help people figure out if they’re registered or not to vote,” smiled Peña. “And that part has felt super fulfilling for me.”
About 6% of Minnesota’s population is Latino and COPAL’s organizing director Ryan Perez says language isn’t the only barrier. Fear is a hurdle, too.
“There’s some common myths that folks are still facing,” said Perez. “They think, is it unsafe for me to vote? If I vote, will that put my relative in jeopardy?”
Perez says a myth has spread on social media that if you exercise your right to vote as a citizen, it could put undocumented loved ones at risk of deportation.
The secretary of state’s office reaffirmed Wednesday that all eligible Minnesotans should vote without fear of repercussions.
“As much as we think social media seems deregulated and there’s a lot of false information for English speakers, it’s even more so for non-English speakers,” said Perez.
Annastacia Belladonna-Carrera is the Executive director of Common Cause Minnesota. Her organization runs an election protection program and has volunteers flagging misinformation on social media as part of its efforts.
“If I’m your cousin, or I’m the small business owner where you frequent with your family, and you see me reposting something, you’re gonna be more likely than not to believe that because it’s coming from me, right?” she pointed out.
Belladonna-Carrera says there’s an additional challenge in reaching voters with accurate information in rural areas as well.
“It’s that isolation,” Belladonna-Carrera said. “It’s not just geographic isolation, it’s linguistic isolation.”
But volunteers say it’s not just about showing up, but showing leaders that they need the Latino vote.
“They’ll be thinking about, well, how can I make the how can I make life better for our Latino community?” said Peña.
For more resources in Spanish on how to vote, go to the Secretary of State’s website.
