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Hi I’m Eric Olsen and this is Andrea Olsen. And we’re from Bagely, Minnesota.
My name is Darwin Sumner and I’m from Red Lake Indian reservation.
My name is Mary Ringhand and I’m from Penema, Minnesota.
[Speaking Ojibwe]
My name is Black Standing Woman and I’m from Red Lake and I’m Bear Clan.
My English name is Catherine Bolio.
We’re all Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians that live in Red Lake.
It’s a nation that was held onto by our forefathers.
When all of the land of the United States was taken away from our people, Red Lake was one of the lone hold outs.
So we hold our land in common.
I love the fact that we have a closed reservation,
meaning that it’s solid Indian land; it’s not allotted.
It’s beautiful and I get strength from the natural beauty of our land, of our reservation.
It’s paradise, actually. Everything I like to do is right there in Red Lake. Fish, hunt, trap.
It’s nice that when you go to the store, you know people by name.
I just love it, it’s full of beautiful natural resources and beautiful people.
This is my second rural community I’ve lived in and I am finding more hope.
I’m glad for Study Circles.
The circle is the traditional way of the Indian people for thousands of years.
Today is like cut-throat. Competition is not our form.
We’re more into competition when it’s win-win.
I think Bagely is a challenge because the same people that are in leadership volunteer for all of the same committees, or different committees.
It’s all the same people. And we, I think, have become stagnant.
It seems like only the political people’s families flourish where I'm from.
The strongholds of the people that control these communities for years is a big challenge.
I think that tribal politics has gotten in the way of our traditional ways of having that circle expanded and including everybody.
Language revitalization is stated as a big goal in our community right now,
but how to do it when we are struggling with survival and oppression and economic challenges is very difficult.
Because nobody has access to transportation on a regular basis, or even telephones, or computer and internet.
I don’t think that that oral history has been passed on as it could have been or should have been, rather.
I think we need to create ways of sharing with our younger people a national consciousness.
And I mean national as far as our reservation, our own tribal history.
The hope of our community I think is to heal from the past of what all was taken away from us.
And I see our future as hanging onto the language, trying to recapture that
and teach it to our young people, and our traditions.
I want to see people who haven’t had a voice, finally have a voice.
And if anyone has ever paid the price for the one-sided history that has been out there, it’s been
the people of color of America. Because of the prejudice.
So maybe we can build bridges, I think that’s the thing now.
I want to see no limits to the ideas that can come out of new people meeting together.
This, you know, hopefully will be able to bring people together toward positive change,
and not necessarily change away from our traditions but change to keep out traditions alive.
I think if something happens, and we can actually get something done, that will just start the ball rolling.
And then they see success in one area, it will give everyone the encouragement to keep going and tackle bigger issues.
Momentum? Yeah.