This week on Minnesota Native News: AIM co-director, Lisa Bellanger, speaks about the legacy of respected AIM leader Frank Paro, who passed on earlier this month; and the Sioux Chef Sean Sherman tells MN Native News about his work after earning a Pathfinder Award this month.
Intro music
Announcer Marie Rock: This is Minnesota Native News, I’m Marie Rock. This week, we hear about AIM Co-Director Frank Paro. Here’s Emma Needham with more.
Service audio: AIM SONG
Emma Needham: Frank Paro, co-director of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and a revered figure in the Native American community, passed away on December 7, 2024, in Minneapolis due to health complications. Supporters, Indigenous activists, and Paro’s family filled the newly remodeled American Indian Center in Minneapolis on December 15 to celebrate his life.
Service audio: AIM SONG
Emma Needham: Paro was a pivotal member of AIM since it began in Minneapolis in 1968. Paro’s leadership and tenacity were instrumental in advancing the organization, which was created to address systemic issues affecting Native Americans in Minnesota and nationwide, including poverty, discrimination, police brutality, and rights to freely practice cultural traditions.
Lisa Bellanger: It’s a way of life, you know, like the three fires, our Midewin group, our Sundance Families, all our chapter families that are out there and about.
…To have access to ceremony, language teachings,
Emma Needham: Lisa Bellanger is the co-chair of AIM, named alongside Paro in May 2020.
In response to civil unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police officers, Paro and AIM Ballanger announced the return of AIM Patrol. In partnership with organizations along Franklin Avenue’s American Indian Corridor in Minneapolis, they organized volunteers, protected community buildings, brought residents food and supply, and ensured community safety, while police forces were occupied in other parts of the city.
This swell of community activity inspired, AIM to host on-going community fires
Lisa Bellanger: We’ve had a fire on Franklin Avenue for like the last, maybe two years, two and a half years….It was a fire for anybody in the community to they wanted to stop and put tobacco in the fire and make that offering…
Frank and he had the crew and they were digging up that little spot on the powwow grounds and he had gone and purchased a fire ring that they could put in the ground and they put rocks around it.
So he just took the initiative and said, you know, we need to like fix up our fire pit And, um, just recently we had his, his spirit fire right there.
Fire sounds, crowd gathering around fire in the city
Emma Needham: Bellanger says Frank Paro’s work lives on in that fire.
For Minnesota Native News, I’m Emma Needham.
Announcer Marie Rock: Next, we hear from Reporter Travis Zimmerman, who spoke with Chef Sherman about his recent awards.
Travis Zimmerman: Culinary innovator Sean Sherman, known as the “Sioux Chef,” has earned prestigious awards and national recognition. Most recently, at the annual conference of the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums, held in Palm Springs, California, Sherman, alongside director and producer Chris Eyre, received the Pathfinder Award, given to trailblazers for Native American issues.
Conference Applause
Travis Zimmerman: As Executive Director of North American Traditional Indigenous Foods or (NATIFS) and founder of Owamni restaurant in Minneapolis, Sherman’s work has a ripple effect.
Restaurant Noises, cooking lab sounds
Sean Sherman: I’m really just trying to bring Indigenous food ways into a larger conversation.
Restaurant Noises, cooking lab sounds
Travis Zimmerman: NATIFS promotes Indigenous foodways education and facilitates Indigenous food access. It operates an Indigenous Food Lab and Market in the Midtown Global Market.
Sean Sherman: The successes that we’ve had at places like Owamni, I feel very lucky that we get this kind of attention cause it just helps us broaden our platform to be able to have a louder voice.
Kitchen Noises, cooking sounds
Travis Zimmerman: A three-time winner of the James Beard Award, and winner of the Julia Child Award, Sean appreciates the recognition, but community impact is his mission.
Sean Sherman: You know for me, this work was never about me, I mean, it’s great that I get these awards but I feel like it just helps open the door for other people. That’s all I want to do is just, you know, leave this world a better place down the road.
Travis Zimmerman: With Minnesota Native News, this is Travis Zimmerman.
Flute Music
Announcer Marie Rock: Funder Credit
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