Klassen retired from MSUM in 2010. Her contributions to MSUM, our students and in strengthening our connections with White Earth Tribal College were many and she will be greatly missed.

Jamie Holding Eagle poses for a picture in front of one of the gardens on the Lutheran Social Services plot, East of Rasumssen college in Fargo. Holding Eagle volunteers at many gardens in the Fargo-Moorhead area, she enjoys being outdoors in a low tech environment, June 26, 2012 Jesse Trelstad / The Forum

MSUM alum encourages community to plant gardens.

By: Janelle Brandon, SheSays Contributor, INFORUM

FARGO – Dil Maya Khadka stands over a collection of 5-gallon buckets with a hose, filling them with water to nourish the newly planted Growing Together Lutheran Social Services Garden in south Fargo.

Maya Khadka, 23, of Fargo, is just one of the 40 New American families receiving food she helped plant and is now tending.

“My baby,” says Maya Khadka pointing to her swollen middle. “July 27.” Born in Bhutan, Maya Khadka speaks very little English. When asked what her favorite vegetable is to grow and eat, she answers simply, “Tomatoes.”

Across the garden, Meena Sharma, who came to Fargo in 2008 from Bhutan, works as head housekeeper at Fargo’s Holiday Inn and Suites. But gardening comes naturally to her. She and her family farmed vegetables and rice in Bhutan.

“Our family sold the rice and vegetables from our field,” says Sharma. “We farm differently. We use animals to help us work,” she says pointing to the rows of gardeners weeding by hand or with tools in the LSS Garden.

Near the newly sprouted carrot tops, Jamie Holding Eagle, a volunteer in the garden, weeds her area in a gray skirt, tank top and combat boots. An unlikely gardener just three years ago, a deeper look into her family history for a project at Minnesota State University Moorhead revealed Holding Eagle was a descendent of Scattered Corn, a skilled female horticulturalist and corn priestess for the Mandan tribe in the early 1900s.

SCATTERED CORN

Holding Eagle is an enrolled member of the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Nation. Her great-great-grandmother Scattered Corn was the first female corn priestess for the Mandan. Scattered Corn held and blessed seeds and performed ceremonies for successful harvests on behalf of the tribe.

Just like her great-great-grandmother, Holding Eagle focuses on sourcing, saving, and using seeds locally. And now she’s helping others reclaim their place in the food chain through gardens that are planted and growing in yards, parks, vacant lots and schools throughout the Fargo-Moorhead area.

“We don’t use nearly enough of our farmland,” says Holding Eagle. “We outsource food production, bring food in that’s traveled thousands of miles, and it seems unreasonable because we have the ability to do so much here.”

Holding Eagle, who holds degrees in American multicultural studies, biology, and women and gender studies from MSUM, became interested in urban agriculture and seed procurement after learning what her famed ancestor had accomplished.

“I used to be a professed black thumb,” says Holding Eagle. “When my daughter was a baby, I bought a small container herb garden. It got moldy so I threw it away. I didn’t try to grow anything again for years.” Last year, Holding Eagle attended a conference in White Earth, Minn., led by Anishinaabe author and activist, Winona LaDuke.

“She spoke about living in a post-petroleum economy,” recalls Holding Eagle. “She said that eventually we will all have to know how to grow our own food and eat seasonally and live sustainably to survive.” New ideas were taking root for Holding Eagle.

Last year, she planted a garden in her backyard and tomatoes and strawberries in her front yard. When one of Holding Eagle’s bright orange heirloom tomatoes was ripe on the vine, she made a sign pointing to the fruit that said, “Free!” so she could share the bounty with her neighbors.

“No one took it,” she says. “That really got me thinking that I need to do more to make gardens visible in our community.”

Holding Eagle became interested in gardening as an opportunity for youth involvement because she sensed that, increasingly, children have a disconnection with nature.

GROWING KIDS

The research into school gardens is promising. According to www.kidsgardening.org, children have an increased interest and improved attitude toward fruits and vegetables, science scores go up, and social skills improve if children are involved in the growing process.

With Holding Eagle’s skills and school gardening on the rise, proposing the idea of a small-scale garden at Moorhead’s Ellen Hopkins Elementary School, where her two daughters attend, went over brilliantly with administration.

“The principal, Mary Jo Schmid, was really receptive to the idea,” she says. “The Ellen Hopkins school garden committee is wonderful. It’s a group that came together in a way you really hope for. Parents and teachers meet regularly and are really dedicated to helping this project develop.”

Moorhead High School shop class students made the raised beds for the Ellen Hopkins garden and the rain barrel was donated by a parent on the school garden committee. In addition, Seed Savers, a nationwide nonprofit dedicated to saving and redistributing heirloom seeds and plants to maintain biodiversity within the food supply, donated the seeds for the school garden start-up.

Holding Eagle enjoys the time she spends with her own girls in the garden.

“My girls love to garden,” continues Holding Eagle. “Whether at the school garden or at home, they choose what they grow and they also tend their herbs and food.”

Urban gardener Novella Carpenter, a farmer and author living in Oakland, Calif., visited Minnesota State Community and Technical College in Moorhead last year to talk about her adventures in urban agriculture which she chronicled in her book, “Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer.”

“My mom always encouraged me to farm and write,” says Carpenter. “I had been gardening and keeping livestock for awhile before I felt like I was ready to write about it. I love telling stories, and ‘Farm City’ was my outlet.”

Carpenter encourages women and girls to take more control over how they receive their sources of food by teaching classes. She teaches beekeeping, goat tending, and cheese making in Oakland and speaks to students about urban farming across the nation.

“I think there’s an urge for ladies to learn these skills again,” continues Carpenter. “To create and care for plants and creatures that will feed you and your family. It gives a sense of empowerment when you control your food.” Holding Eagle agrees.

“Adults I know are unsure of themselves in gardens, and so if we start gardening as kids, I think there’s a stronger sense of ability,” says Holding Eagle.

“Gardening with anyone requires lots and lots of patience. I have winced watching a kid yank a transplant out of a pot, but she’s more likely to want to come back and help if I can show her a less destructive method than if I get upset and chase her out of the garden.”

http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/366210/group/Life/

Main speaker Dr. Refugio Rochin is the former director of the Society for Advancement of Chicano and Native Americans in Science. Dr. Rochin was a professor of Sociology and Agricultural Economics and the founding director of the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives.

Conference topics will include: Apocalyptic events surrounding the ancient Maya calendar; the role of Latinos in this year’s political events; how the Latino community is changing in the Midwest; a motivational talk for students with an interest in science, technology, engineering, math; and profiles of successful Latino youth in the context of higher educational goals.

If you cannot attend all sessions, please attend the ones convenient to your schedule.

Conference Schedule:
Thursday, April 19, 2012
7:00-8:00 p.m.  Latino Politics and Issues in 2012,
Dr. Refugio Rochin, CMU Ballroom 200 B

Friday, April 20, 2012
9:00-10:20 a.m. Informal gathering with Dr. Refugio Rochin, CMU 227

10:30-11:20 a.m. Apocalyptic Nightmares and the Ancient Maya Calendar, Dr.
George Holley, CMU 203

10:30-11:20 a.m. Getting Ahead in America: Why and How!,
Dr. Refugio Rochin, CMU 205

12:30-1:20 p.m. Latinos in the Midwest: ¡Quien Somos!,
Dr. Refugio Rochin,
CMU 205

12:30-1:20 p.m. Latina/o Voices: Highlighting Our Successes @ MSUM,
Dr. Kandace Creel Falcon and Beatriz Castro,
CMU Underground

1:30-2:20 p.m.  God Child Project,
Ernesto Atkinson, CMU 203.

1:30-2:20 p.m. Latina/o Voices: Highlighting Our Successes @ MSUM,
Dr. Kandace Creel Falcon and Beatriz Castro,
CMU Underground

Sponsors include Organización Latina Americana, Student Activities Budget Committee, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and the Department of American Multicultural Studies.

At 6:00 p.m., in King Hall 110, there will be a screening of the documentary “Miss Representation.” This documentary premiered on The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) and takes a look at images and representations of women in the media. This screening will be followed by a panel featuring Dr. Kandace Creel Falcón, American Multicultural Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies, Jennifer Knecht, Sociology and Women’s & Gender Studies student and Staff, Tri-College NEW (National Education for Women) Leadership Development Institute, and Deepa Trivedi, Biosciences and Women’s and Gender Studies student.. Rainbow popcorn will be served. All events are free to attend for all students!

Tuesday, March 27 Bridges 162 at 4:30 p.m. Professor Tom Sibley will present: Wasps and Wolves, Math and Models
What can mathematics tell us about biology? Dr. Sibley will illustrate a range of answers using models made by his students. Whether the biology concerns how wasps construct nests, how the DNR manages wolves or how the HIV virus builds resistance to drugs, a mathematical model can provide insight to biologists.

Wednesday, March 28 Center for Business 111 at 7 p.m. Dr. Julie Sze will present: Defining Environmental Justice and Crossing Borders
Dr. Julie Sze will argue that the field of environmental justice studies is a border-crossing enterprise. These borders include research and outreach/engagement activities, and traditional divides between academia and community, race and environment, and the social sciences, humanities and sciences. She draws on over 15 years of research on social movements in New York City and the Central Valley region in California.

Dr. Sze is Associate Professor of American Studies at UC Davis, and the founding director of the Environmental Justice Project for UC Davis’ John Muir Institute for the Environment.

In her lecture, Dr. Sze will discuss the field of environmental justice studies as a border-crossing enterprise. These borders include research and outreach/engagement activities, and traditional divides between academia and community, race and environment, and the social sciences, humanities and sciences. Whether your interests lie in environmental, racial or social justice, this will be an evening you will not want to miss.

Julie Sze is an Associate Professor of American Studies at UC Davis. She is also the founding director of the Environmental Justice Project for UC Davis’ John Muir Institute for the Environment. and in that capacity is the Faculty Advisor for 25 Stories from the Central Valley. Sze’s book, Noxious New York: The Racial Politics of Urban Health and Environmental Justice, won the 2008 John Hope Franklin Publication Prize, awarded annually to the best published book in American Studies. Sze’s research investigates environmental justice and environmental inequality; culture and environment; race, gender and power; and community health and activism. She has published on a wide range of topics such as energy and air pollution activism; toxicity; the cultural politics of the Hummer, and on environmental justice novels and cultural production.

This lecture is sponsored by the MSUM Comstock Fund and is free and open to the public.

If you have questions about this event, please contact Kim Park Nelson at parknelson@mnstate.edu.

We hope to see you there!

The conference brings together scholars from across the country working on Chicana/o Studies. This year’s conference theme NACCS@40: Celebrating Scholarship and Activism – highlighted scholarship and activism in Chicana/o studies over the last 40 years. The conference had over 600 attendees and the most papers submitted for presentation in its 40-year history.

The panel will discuss issues of women and education, locally and globally. Panelists include Dr. Andrew Conteh, Political Science, Dr. Kandace Creel Falcón, American Multicultural Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies, and Deepa Trivedi, Biosciences and Women’s and Gender Studies student.

Please come with any questions you have about women and education. Rice and beans, and beverages will be served!

From the project website, 25 STORIES FROM THE CENTRAL VALLEY uses photos, stories and theater to paint a vivid picture of the environmental toxins that “the other California” lives with every day. Women leaders give us a window into the little-known lives of people who are making this region safer for everyone. Their stories are shocking, sad, and inspiring. Above all, they will broaden your understanding of the Central Valley, community change, and the necessity for civic engagement. 

More about Dr. Sze:  Julie Sze is an Associate Professor of American Studies at UC Davis. She is also the founding director of the Environmental Justice Project for UC Davis’ John Muir Institute for the Environment. and in that capacity is the Faculty Advisor for 25 Stories from the Central Valley. Sze’s book, Noxious New York: The Racial Politics of Urban Health and Environmental Justice, won the 2008 John Hope Franklin Publication Prize, awarded annually to the best published book in American Studies. Sze’s research investigates environmental justice and environmental inequality; culture and environment; race, gender and power; and community health and activism. She has published on a wide range of topics such as energy and air pollution activism; toxicity; the cultural politics of the Hummer, and on environmental justice novels and cultural production.

Any faculty is welcome, but because we are providing lunch, you must RSVP by next Thursday March 8 if you plan to attend.  If you would like to attend, please email Kim Park Nelson at parknelson@mnstate.edu and indicate whether you’d prefer a salad or a sandwich. Please also note any dietary restrictions. After the RSVP deadline, I will send a confirmation along with the event details.

I hope you can join us for this engaging dialogue. Please contact Kim Park Nelson if you have any questions about this event.

Schedule of Events

Monday, November 7

9:00 AM: Opening Pipe Ceremony (Library Mall) – Delvin Rogers, Jr. Spiritual Helper and member of Three Affiliated Tribes

9:30 AM: American Indian Spirituality (CMU 203) – Delvin Rogers, Jr.

Loss of American Indian Traditions (CMU 205) – Tom Ross, Cultural Resource Assistant, MN Indian Affairs Council

10:30 AM: Peltier Project “Incident at Oglala” (CMU 203)

12:00 PM: Lunch (CMU Ballroom A)

History of the Prairie (Chicken) Dance and Exhibition (CMU Ballroom A) - Mike Gabbard, Delaware Tribe

1:00 PM: Make a Native Language Your Second Language (CMU 203) – Jim and Bernice Green, Pine Ridge Oglala

2:00 PM: An Elder Talks to Native Youth: Don’t Be Afraid of Change! (CMU 203) Darlene Pipeboy, Sisseton, S. D.

3:00 PM: Beadwork and Dreamcatcher Craft Workshop (CMU Ballroom A) Bernice Green, Pine Ridege Oglala and Chelsea Ducheneaux, AISA Officer

6:00 PM: Sweat Lodge - South Fargo (location and appropriate dress will be discussed during the American Indian Spirituality Session)

Sponsored by American Indian Student Activities

Thursday, November 9

7:30 AM-5:00 PM: “Managing Diversity in Time of Change and Development” (CMU) Register online at www.culturaldiversityresources.org or call (701) 526 3000 for more information.

Students free with ID; minimal registration fee for public.

Sponsored by Fargo-Moorhead Cultural Diversity Resources and MSU Moorhead

Wednesday, November 16

7:00 PM: “A Good Day to Die” (CMU 111-American Indian Research and Resource Center)

Dennis Banks co-founded the American Indian Movement (AIM) in 1968 to call attention to the plight of urban Indians in Minneapolis, MN. The film presents an intimate look at Dennis Banks’ life beginning with his early experience in boarding schools, through his military service in Japan, his transformative experience in Stillwater State Prison and subsequent founding of a movement that, through confrontational actions in Washington, DC, Custer South Dakota, and Wounded Knee, changed the lives of American Indians forever.

Sponsored by American Indian Student Activities

Friday, November 18

9:00 – 12:00 PM: Dragons After Dark partners with the American Indian Student Association to bring you anevening of American Indian activities, food and crafts! (CMU Underground)

Sponsored by Dragons After Dark and American Indian Student Activities

Saturday, November 19

8:30 AM – 5:00 PM: “Walking With Our Youth” (Fargodome) – Providing tools for families and educators to help with the success of our youth. Free and open to the public. Families and students encouraged to attend. RSVP to staebnm@fargo.k12.nd.us or call (701) 446-3541.

Sponsored by Fargo Indian Education Program

Refreshments served at most events. For more information or questions, contact AISA President Laine White, whitela@mnstate.edu, AISA Vice-President Josie Green, greenjo@mnstate.edu, or AISA Advisor Jody Steile, steilejo@mnstate.edu, 477-4272.

Tuesday, March 8 – International Women’s Day – 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. – CMU Ballroom A.
Student panel discussing issues around access to food, a light lunch of brown rice and beans, Sri Lankan dancing performance. Free!

Wednesday, March 9 – 7:30 p.m. – Weld Hall Glasrud Auditorium – Screening of the film Women from the Land: Women, Prairie, Culture by Teresa Konechne.
Panel discussion on land use, women’s experiences in rural culture, and life on the prairie with local experts and film maker follows the screening. Light refreshments will be served. Hosted by MSUM Film Studies, Women’s Studies, and American Multicultural Studies.

Monday, March 28 – 6:30 p.m. – Science Lab 118 – Professor of Biology and Multidisciplinary Studies Emerita Yvonne Condell will do a talk on Women Nobel Prize Winners.

All are welcome to these events!

A panel discussion on land use, women’s experiences in rural culture, and life on the prairie follows the screening. Panelists include Anthony Adah, a faculty member in MSUM’s Film Studies Department, Kandace Creel Falcon, a faculty members in MSUM’s Women’s Studies and American Multicultural Studies Departments, and Rinita Dalan, a faculty member in MSUM’s Anthropology and Earth Sciences Department.

“The filmmaker hopes to engage the public in a conversation about our relationship to land,” says Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson, chair of the Film Studies Department.

The film has received many positive reviews. Mark Brenden, a journalist for Minnesota Daily, writes, “Director Teresa Konechne tells us about her homeland, the rolling plains of South Dakota, through serene original music and gorgeous storytelling as simple as the land it describes. Konechne originally sought to relate a story about her mother, but ended up telling us about our mother — Mother Earth.”

The screening is part of MSUM’s celebration of Women’s History Month, and is sponsored by the MSUM Women’s Center and the MSUM Diversity Events Fund. The event is free and open to the public.  Light refreshments will be served.

For more information, contact Kristjansson-Nelson at (218) 477-4624 or kyja.nelson@mnstate.edu.

Off and Running is the story of Brooklyn teenager Avery, a track star with a bright future. She is the adopted African-American child of white Jewish lesbians. Her older brother is black and Puerto Rican, and her younger brother is Korean. Though it may not look typical, Avery’s household is like most American homes

— until Avery writes to her birth mother. The response throws her into crisis. She struggles over her “true” identity, the circumstances of her adoption and her estrangement from black culture. When it seems as if her life is unraveling, Avery decides to pick up the pieces and make sense of her identity, with inspiring results.

Film preview and details.

Kim Park Nelson, who teaches in the MSUM American Multicultural Studies Department, organized the screening and will be Avery’s official host. We’re excited for this unique opportunity to engage with Avery and her story and spend time thinking and talking about race and American identity in the 21st century, and would love to have you—and any friends, students, or colleagues you’d like to invite—in the room.

Read more.

Off and Running is the story of Brooklyn teenager Avery, a track star with a bright future. She is the adopted African-American child of white Jewish lesbians. Her older brother is black and Puerto Rican, and her younger brother is Korean. Though it may not look typical, Avery’s household is like most American homes—until Avery writes to her birth mother. The response throws her into crisis. She struggles over her “true” identity, the circumstances of her adoption and her estrangement from black culture. When it seems as if her life is unraveling, Avery decides to pick up the pieces and make sense of her identity, with inspiring results.

Sponsored by MSUM departments of American Multicultural Studies, Film Studies and Women’s Studies with support from the Diversity Events Fund and Multicultural Affairs. Additional support from Concordia College Intercultural Affairs.

January 27
7:30 p.m. • SL104
“The Case of the Female Orgasm at the Intersection of Science and Society”
Dr. Linda Fuselier, MSUM Biology/Women’s Studies Department

February 16
7:30 p.m. • CB108
“Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Veiled Tradition of African American Cheerleading”
Dr. Phyllis May-Machunda, MSUM AMCS Department

March 3
7:30 p.m. • CB109
Honors Focus Forum
“Hero, Id, and a Feminist Beowulf:  Freud Meets Epic Flicks”
Dr. Edward L. Risden, St. Norbert College

April 5
7:30 p.m. • CB109
“Science, Politics and the Limits of Diversity”
Dr. Claudia Murphy, MSUM Philosophy/Women’s Studies
Dr. Linda Fuselier, MSUM Biology/Women’s Studies
Jamie Holding Eagle, MSUM senior, Biology/Women’s Studies

For more information, please contact Annette Morrow at morrowan@mnstate.edu.

She writes: “Tracing the lives of eight Midwestern Mexican American women, my research interrogates the role of stories and storytelling in familial relationships and community building. I engage with Chicana feminist understandings of identity through these Midwestern Chicanas’ stories of growing up in the Midwest (in the 60s and 70s) and their lives as women – while paying particular attention to the intersectional categories of gender, race, class and sexuality.