Sacred Minnesota

The Twin Cities area—and all of southern Minnesota—is Dakota homeland. A series of sites along the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers form a sacred landscape the Dakota call Bdote. The Bdote sacred landscape connects contemporary Dakota people to Grandmother Earth. These sacred places are sites of both genesis and genocide in the past, and erasure in the present. Produced with Carleton College.

Indentured servitude replaced slavery when it was abolished across the British Empire. Laborers from India found themselves in South America and the Caribbean. Some Guyanese Indians now call Minnesota home, bringing their Indo-Caribbean culture with them. Their sacred Hindu temple is an old Lutheran Church in Farmington, Minnesota, and it's a welcome place for all. Produced with Carleton College.

Thousands of Cambodians fled genocide in their home country, many arriving in Minnesota in the 1980s. Minnesota's Cambodian community found healing and belonging through building what is now the largest Buddhist temple in North America in rural Hampton, Minnesota. Throughout their temple, they encode Cambodian culture and history for future generations. Produced with Carleton College.

Minnesotans from Mexico often feel isolated here, by language and culture. A tradition of keeping altars in their homes creates sacred space and provides them protection, connection and hope in their frigid new homeland. Centuries ago, the Virgin of Guadelupe revealed herself to an Indigenous Mexican, sanctifying the Native ancestry of all Mexicans. Produced with Carleton College.