North Star Way

John Noltner

23 hours ago

North Star Way: Minnesota navigates a harsh winter

This is the second year A Peace of My Mind has partnered with friend and journalist Barry Yeoman to produce stories together.

Last year we spent time in South Louisiana and we immediately started exploring where we might focus our attention next. Then Operation Metro Surge was launched and Minnesota found itself, once again, at the center of national and international headlines.

“Barry, just come here,” I said.

Over the summer, we interviewed 17 people who found creative and courageous ways to show up for community. Each week over the coming months, we will share one or two stories on our podcast, on our website, and on social media.

North Star Way: Minnesota Navigates a Harsh Winter launches on October 27.

These are powerful stories of hope, healing, and human connection. We hope you’ll listen.

Here’s Barry:

To many Minnesotans, the largest immigration enforcement action in U.S. history felt like a military siege.

More than 3,000 federal agents, masked and heavily armed, descended on the North Star State last winter. They stormed houses, smashed windshields, and deployed tear gas and pepper spray. They arrested nearly 4,000 people, including children, citizens, and those with green cards and pending asylum cases. They shackled detainees, refused them access to lawyers, and forced them to sleep on cold floors. They spied on peaceful protesters. On two January mornings, a mile apart, they killed poet Renée Good and nurse Alex Pretti. They also arrested a cook named Victor Manuel Díaz, who later died in federal custody.

Many people feared leaving their homes, even for urgent needs like medical care. Racial profiling became so widespread that Black and brown citizens carried their passports. In the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul―still trying to heal from a series of police killings that culminated in the murder of George Floyd―residents found themselves reeling all over again.

That’s part of the story of Operation Metro Surge.

The other part is how the people of Minnesota donned their mittens and got to work. They poured into the streets in protest, day after frigid day. They blew whistles to alert their neighbors to the presence of immigration agents. They tailed suspicious vehicles, recorded the license plates, and checked them against a crowdsourced database. They videotaped everything. They sang songs of resistance.

They reactivated mutual-aid networks that sustained their communities during the Covid-19 pandemic and the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. They ferried food from locally owned grocery stores to immigrants’ homes. They patrolled school drop-off zones. They covered the rent of families who couldn’t work. They formed “cash mobs” to support immigrant businesses. They prayed with detainees.

By the thousands, they assessed what resources and skills they had, and then used them to help neighbors and strangers.

“The people in Minnesota came together during this crisis in such a profound way, but in such a typical Minnesota North Star way,” said immigration attorney Gloria Contreras Edin.

It was an outpouring that some residents believe helped shorten the federal occupation. From the outside, it looked extraordinary. From the inside, it felt like the natural extension of Minnesota’s norms: Look after your neighbor. Check in on the elders. Help push that truck out of the snowbank, no matter what the bumper stickers say.

“We didn’t do anything that we wouldn’t normally do,” said artist Laura Migliorino. “It doesn’t take much to put a bag of groceries on your neighbor’s porch because they can’t get out.”

Operation Metro Surge produced thousands of stories. We recorded 17 of them. Over the next three months, you’ll meet the Minnesotans we interviewed and photographed:

• Pastor Hierald Osorto, whose bilingual Lutheran congregation provided joy and sanctuary during the occupation;

• Gloria Contreras Edin, who pulled late nights to provide legal assistance to families caught up in the surge;

• Juan Leon, who used his tow truck to repatriate vehicles that were abandoned during immigration arrests;

• Laura Migliorino, whose ICE Ghost Shoes marked the sites of arrests and killings;

• Sarina Partridge, who organized a singing resistance;

• HwaJeong Kim, a St. Paul City Council member who found herself called out by the White House;

• Rev. T. Michael Rock, who fought for the right to pray with detainees;

• Connie Rhodes, who has devoted her life to interrupting violence;

• Emilia Gonzalez Avalos, who helped train thousands of people to assert their constitutional rights;

• Louise Matson, director of a Native American organization that distributed food, gas masks, and eye wash;

• Samuel Ebute, whose vocational training program for youth pivoted during the surge;

• Katelyn Vue, a journalist whose stories hit close to home;

• Tracy Wong, who opened her restaurant to protesters fleeing chemical irritants;

• Bruce Nestor, an attorney who defends both immigrants and protesters;

• Cal Robinet, a labor and community organizer who was indicted as one of the Minnesota 15;

• Sofia Padilla, an artist who uses puppetry to heal communities; and

• Xavier Vázquez, whose work during the surge included reuniting a two-year-old boy with his deported parents in Ecuador.

There were people we couldn’t interview. Some had legitimate fears of speaking out publicly. Others were still processing the trauma. Those we did interview told extraordinary stories―vindication of the old adage, “Don’t invade a winter people in winter.” We hope you’ll check them out.