This Is an Occupation: Minneapolis, Ancestral Memory, & the Cycles We Must Name
- Rita Sinorita Fierro, Ph.D
- Feb 10
- 7 min read
I’ve been sitting on how to write this article for days. I’m watching what’s happening in Minneapolis with horror, as most of us, wanting to do my best to channel my power, and my rage, and not become hopeless and stunned. For the system feeds off shock and hopelessness. As long as we live from fear, state violence wins; racism wins. As a scholar of history and social patterns, I know we are in another deadly cycle. One that is not new. One that is endemic in our history. I was using Facebook to amplify the voices of community activism, community love, community courage. I was banned because of it. I share this not because I’m sorrowed or surprised. But because the “cost” of reactivating my account was a 360-degree video of my face. No thanks. Face recognition software is being used to track and harass people who protest, so, no thank you. I decided to be out in the open about it, in case you or your dear ones are experiencing something similar.
What finally got my pen to paper was a conversation with Dr. Katie Boone, Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development with an emphasis on Evaluation Studies at the University of Minnesota, with a dissertation study that focused on Place, Reconciliation with the Dakota in Mahkato (Mankato, MN) and Regenerative Evaluation. Dr. Boone is a person I deeply respect, for her strategic complex systems mind; her peaceful, big, and humongous heart; and her fierce stand for a better world. She is one of the many on the ground in Minneapolis and throughout Minnesota right now who are organizing neighbors, activists, elders, children, learning what they can, expanding what they can. She is steeped both in reconciliation work with Aboriginal Dakota elders and in racial justice work.
“How can I support?” I asked.
“Amplify that this is an occupation. Amplify any way you can.”
***
A message from Dr. Boone to elevate and connect this present day, living nightmare to the bigger, deeper patterns held in place over time.
Let’s look at the bigger picture. Vine Deloria and Daniel Wildcat in Power and Place: Indian Education in America say that, “History is not about time, it is about place.”
Why Minnesota? Why is Minnesota once again in the global spotlight? None of this is new. For many of our Black and Dakota relatives, seeing ICE occupy neighborhoods; executing, arresting, and pepper spraying protestors; separating families; and deporting children so fast the courts can’t keep up, is not new.
The Dakota people have seen this here before.
These are patterns of colonialism that we can see around the world. They are patterns and cycles, and we need to recognize them as such.
In Mni Sota Makoce (the ancestral homelands of the Dakota people) the Dakota people have survived genocide, displacement, and colonization. They have survived the generational traumatic effects of family separation whether it was through the boarding schools or child protection systems. They have continuously worked to preserve and practice their cultural and ceremonial rights, speak their Dakota language, sing their songs, and honor and remember their Treaty Rights as exiled people who were removed from their homelands and placed in present-day concentration camps commonly referred to as Native Reservations.
The impacts of colonization continue to perpetuate these ongoing effects. It is important to remember that the eruptions of violence between armed goons with guns occupying communities happens in cycles. The cycles are intentional. They have been happening since the Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny and Westward expansion on these lands of Turtle Island and around the world.
Mahkato (Mankato), Mni Sota (Minnesota) is the site of the largest mass execution in the continental United States. There were 38 Dakota warriors who were hanged by order of President Lincoln on December 26, 1862. It is also a place that has some insights to offer for the times we find ourselves in. For nearly 70 years, this region has grappled with and been working towards reconciliation in partnership with Dakota and non-Native people. Known as a reconciliation pow wow, it is held in partnership with Dakota and non-Indigenous people (the only one on Turtle Island) during the 3rd weekend of September. All are welcome.
Actions for healing, reconciliation, and forgiveness.
There are runners who run a 90-mile overnight relay starting on Christmas Day Eve to remember and honor this difficult history. They begin at Fort Snelling and end on December 26th in Mahkato. In the present day, The Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, where detainees are being held from the ICE Occupation, is in the Fort Snelling area. Dakota elders have shared that Adolph Hitler brought his people here to learn from what the United States government did to the Dakota people. In both Mahkato and Fort Snelling, there were concentration camps that held the Dakota people, before the hanging and before they were exiled out of their ancestral homelands.
For 17 years, the Dakota 38 + 2 Wokiksuye (Remembering) Horse Ride started with the dreamer, Jim Miller (see documentary “Dakota 38 + 2” on YouTube). The 330 mile, 16-day ceremonial horse ride is about healing, reconciliation, and forgiveness. Riders have been coming to forgive (not forget) and remember and honor their ancestors. They reconcile and forgive so that Dakota people can continue to heal and move forward. The Dakota 38 + 2 ride came to a close in 2022, and in 2024 a new ride for the youth started up, called the Mahkato Reconciliation and Healing Horse Ride. These rides and runs will continue for many generations to come, quite simply because as a nation, the United States of America has a hard time remembering, recognizing, and acknowledging these difficult and hard truths. You cannot heal what is not acknowledged.
This year, ICE arrived to Mahkato (Mankato) the same day that the Makatoh Reconciliation and Healing Horse Ride arrived to honor and remember their ancestors––the Dakota 38 who were hanged. Throughout the time I was with the Dakota riders while they were here in town, we were followed by multiple vehicles. We quickly learned that it was not safe to travel without being in groups, so we arranged for a multiple car escort to help ensure their safe return back to Crow Creek Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.
The Dakota 38 + 2 Ride and Mahkato Reconciliation and Healing Horse Ride have been riding for unification, truth, healing, and forgiveness. The Elders are seeing all nations rise. All communities are unifying to stand up for each other under this ICE occupation. Since December 26th, ICE has been occupying the ancestral homelands of the Dakota people. A total of 34 people in 2025-2026 have been killed by ICE. Now that we, as a country, have witnessed two white people be executed by ICE agents on the streets of Minneapolis, we are starting to learn that history has a terrible way of repeating itself. Our collective and historical traumas as a country, that was founded on colonization and slavery, will always come back to be healed. This is what is happening in Mni Sota Makoce under ICE occupation and ongoing colonization of the Dakota ancestral homelands.
F!€k Ice. Ice Out.
There is a reason they chose MN.
ICE arrived in Mankato on the 26th. The day that the runners and riders come to honor and remember the Dakota 38 who were hung. ICE followed us. It’s a commemoration of the massacre of the Dakota 38+2. They WANT to wreak havoc. For my Dakota relatives, it’s a blood memory that has been activated. Ceremonies have been held (and are ongoing) to honor and remember Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. We feel this collectively in our bodies, from feeling the collective power, strength and unifying solidarity of sacred community. Nearly 100,000 people moved through the streets of Minneapolis in sub-zero temperatures on Friday, January 23rd, only to witness another execution on the streets of South Minneapolis that following Saturday morning. Mni Sota Makoce is under ICE occupation, and the difficult truth is, Mni Sota Makoce has been under occupation for a very, very long time if you ask my Dakota relatives.
***
Dr. Rita in conclusion and closing information regarding lessons learned and support.
As a person who practices healing ancestral patterns, it seems to me that they are attempting to trigger the ancestral trauma. They get how ancestral trauma works. I shiver.
A recent Atlantic article said Gregory Bovino’s leaving the city was a good sign and that MAGA underestimated Minneapolis. Dr. Boone is not as optimistic. In our conversation she said, “The Border czar just had better manners in public, but the violence on the streets is the same.”
Talking with a strategic systems thinker like Dr. Boone is always enriching, because she sees patterns, and can see a way through them.
“We are a swarm that is learning as we go,” she says,” but we have to remember, they are learning from us too. I don’t believe this ends in Minnesota. I believe we are the prototype. They are dumping paramilitaries with 6-weeks of training on our communities. Tearing apart families––to discover how they can learn to scale up nation-wide. We are the training ground for the country. It’s important to share what we’re learning to stop it now.”
Lessons learned from Minneapolis Occupation:
Distributed leadership works. Not one leader, multiple layers of strategy, all with shared learning. No elevating single voices, no speeches, just learning from shared action and replicating what works.
Volume works. Whistles printed with 3-D printers to make them widely available. EVERY neighbor needs a whistle. Slave catchers thrive in the dark. They run away most of the time, when large groups of people swarm on a corner, a block, or a person.
Self-regulation works. We need spaces to let our bodies release the trauma triggers. There is so much happening at once; we are inundated. Our bodies, our physical systems are easily overwhelmed. We need space for joy and community in the midst of deep grief and collective trauma.
Building works. It is hard to build while we are traumatized, but it is necessary. Building processes, building communities, building networks. Build connections. Building strategies. Adapting as we go. We must build as much as we can.
Sanctuary cities are fighting back. Philly proposed an ICE Out legislation. Police forces (like in NYC) are horrified by how the slave catchers are sabotaging good policing efforts. They are planning an opposition. Other places must follow.
I asked Dr. Boone, Where do you draw strength? What regenerates you?
“The hope is this. That in the midst of violence, community gets stronger, gets kinder. There is comfort in being in community. There is warmth, there is honesty, there is love. I find rest and care in community."
May we all root our safety in this love, in community.
Vetted groups to support the Minneapolis community:
