Innovative Communities & Stories of Innovation

FAIN: BC-50533-10

Minnesota Humanities Center (St. Paul, MN 55106-2046)
Matthew Brandt (Project Director: March 2010 to September 2014)

To support partnerships with the Minnesota Council on Black Minnesotans, the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans, the American Indian Affairs Council of Minnesota, the Chicago Latino Affairs Council to tell representative stories from these communities. This program will be supported by four interactive multimedia websites and a communications initiatives to publicize them in the community. Outreach programming will include professional development workshops, public discussion groups, and public media communications.

Minnesota is often viewed as the land of German, Swedes, and Norwegians, as a land settled by Lutherans, Catholics, and a few Baptists. This identity is reinforced by homogeneous stereotypes present in media such as A Prairie Home Companion and in films such as Leatherheads and the Cohen Brother's epic, Fargo. These treatments fail to depict the real Minnesota. The Minnesota Humanities Center proposes partnering with the Minnesota Council on Black Minnesotans, the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans, the American Indian Affairs Council of Minnesota, and the Council on Chicano/Latino affairs starting in 2010 to tell representative stories -- Stories of Innovation -- from these oft marginalized Minnesota communities. Programs to share these stories include web sites for each of our four council partners, public programming to highlight and convey these stories, and a public outreach campaign to address the complex question of Minnesota identity.