A barista volunteers at Indigenous-owned coffee shop Pow Wow Grounds while it is closed for business but open to community members, during a statewide pause in daily economic activity to protest the U.S. government's surge in ICE agents in Minneapolis, on Jan. 23.Erica Dischino/Reuters
There is a coffee shop called Pow Wow Grounds, on historic Franklin Avenue in south Minneapolis, which has once again become a place of hope, warmth and refuge from tyranny in America.
In 2020, Pow Wow threw open its doors to offer food and supplies to those who were out on the streets demonstrating against the police’s murder of George Floyd. After Renee Nicole Macklin Good was shot and killed on Jan. 7 by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, the shop has provided free coffee, soup and a place to warm up for community members protesting the presence of ICE.
Pow Wow Grounds is owned by Robert Rice, a member of White Earth Nation, an Anishinaabe community that is the biggest reservation in Minnesota by land area. This makes sense, and not just because Minneapolis was where the American Indian Movement (AIM) was born – a group formed on Franklin Avenue in 1968 to address police brutality and poverty, including through volunteer AIM patrols to monitor officers’ interactions. It’s also because the Anishinaabeg are the first peoples of the land, and we believe in the strength of community.
“Everyone who is here is here to support, come together, lean on each other and protect our people,” said Winona Vizenor, the coffee shop’s manager and a member of Red Lake Nation, a Chippewa (or Anishinaabe) community.
Pow Wow Grounds has acted as a resource hub coordinated by the Indigenous Protector Movement for donations and community care as ICE operations have escalated.Erica Dischino/Reuters
Ms. Vizenor described a city under siege, where anyone who isn’t white is particularly at risk of being targeted by ICE. She told me about how she doesn’t know what to say when her three kids ask her why people are being taken away or killed on the streets, like Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis nurse who was shot to death on Saturday.
“We are under occupation. That is what this is – with the death of Renee Good and Alex Pretti – it is almost like there is a lawlessness. Our constitutional rights don’t matter.”
Even Native Americans are being targeted by ICE – and it’s an absolute and cruel irony that the original inhabitants of North America would be targeted by federal agents for not being “American” enough.
Three Oglala Sioux Tribe members have reportedly been placed in an ICE detention centre at Fort Snelling, on the grounds of a former prison for Dakota and Ho-Chunk people during the U.S.-Dakota War in 1862 and 1863. Hundreds died in those terrible conditions, and the survivors were then exiled to live in reservations in what is now South Dakota. It is unclear how many other Native Americans have been detained by ICE; the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council has since banned ICE from entering the Pine Ridge Reservation.
After Renee Nicole Macklin Good was shot and killed on Jan. 7 by an ICE agent, the shop has provided free coffee, soup, and a place to warm up for community members protesting.Erica Dischino/Reuters
First Nations in Canada – who sadly know a thing or two about being on the wrong side of a colonial government – have had to respond, too. Late last week, the Assembly of First Nations warned its people against travelling to the U.S. due to the risks of ICE detention and increased questioning.
“The AFN strongly condemns these actions and reaffirms First Nations’ inherent and Jay Treaty rights to cross-border mobility,” the advisory said, referring to the treaty signed by the U.S. and Britain in 1794 that declared that First Nations peoples had the right to settle and work unimpeded in the U.S., if they met a set of criteria.
But there is still hope to be found in places such as Pow Wow Grounds, which has become a rapid-response centre for ICE-observation patrols and a hub for organizing and mutual aid as Minneapolis feels the crush of an American government acting like a fascist regime. Just as in 2020, donations are piling up there – everything from groceries to whistles, eye-rinse kits, goggles, and even shoe spikes, because the streets are covered in ice. And AIM patrols have returned, with volunteers even coming in from outside the state. “We already had a blueprint of what to do,” Ms. Vizenor said. “So everyone jumped in and said, ‘We are going to do it again.’”
Pow Wow Grounds is now offering America a glimpse into how Native Americans gather and take care of others. “This is one of the safest places in the area,” Ms. Vizenor said of the coffee shop; when I called her on Monday, the place was buzzing. “Everyone is looking out for the community. You have people coming here who are Native and non-Native alike. They feel safe here. We are smudging all day, we are giving and accepting help.”
And it’s clear that Americans need this community care, more than ever before. “This community and city is here taking care of each other because no one is stepping in to help us,” she said. “That is the most terrifying thing about this.”