Greetings!
Hey writers! Last month we witnessed the largest peaceful demonstration in the history of the United States! NoKings rallies are a testament to solidarity. People are rising and building the bonds of community.
Tuesday November 4 is election day!
Check out our election resources below.
In our latest Journal entry, Minnesota poet Athena Kildegaard writes about the American dream or nightmare.
Writing and arts activism have the ability to surprise, disrupt, and delight. This month, let's carry on!
American Dream
Over two decades ago I lived with my husband and our two small children in a comfortable house built on the side of the basin that dropped sharply to the city of Guanajuato, Mexico. Like everyone we knew—gringos and citizens—we hired a woman who came once a week to clean the four levels of our house. Over our three years there we grew to love Lourdes and her husband, Juan.
The time came for us to return to the United States. One day shortly before the moving truck arrived, Juan and Lourdes came to visit. They came to ask that we take Juan with us to Minnesota. He was small and could make himself invisible at the border. He was a hard worker; he'd find his way. Por favor. Please.
I live now not far from Appleton, Minnesota, home of the shuttered Prairie Correctional Facility, a prison owned by CoreCivic, a private prison operation based in Tennessee. ICE is on the verge of turning the prison into an immigration detention facility. Helicopters have been seen lowering containers onto the roof of the prison. The prison has stood empty so long that it's filled with mold, or so we've been told.
Appleton is a dying rural community. Many things have conspired to sicken it: school consolidation; the shift away from railroads as major transporters of goods and people; the loss of family farms to big ag; the disappearance of opportunities for young people. Some folks in Appleton are eager for the Prairie Correctional Facility to open again, and state legislators from the region have been lobbying for its reopening.
Meanwhile, western Minnesota is flourishing in large part because of the influx of immigrants. Public schools have more students; dairies and the complex of meat production operations depend on immigrant labor.
Right now there are job listings for border patrol agents in towns all around me: Chokio, population 411; Donnelly 223; Milan 416; Graceville 511; and many more.
Is this the work we want for our young people: rounding up and detaining other human beings so they can be held in dismal conditions without legal counsel or contact with their families? Do we want our neighbors to behave as if some people—strangers, brown people, innocents—are beyond the protection of the law? Do we want our neighbors to pay their rent, feed themselves and their children, by carrying out jobs that go against everything we as citizens of the United States of America hold to be self-evident?
I fear for our neighbors and our communities. Most of all I fear for people like Juan and Lourdes, good, loving, honest people whose American dream is quickly becoming a nightmare.
— Athena Kildegaard
Twin Cities Book Festival
Sponsored by Rain Taxi
- When:
- Saturday, November 8, 10:00am–5:00pm
- Where:
- Union Depot
St. Paul, MN
- Cost:
- FREE
25 Years of Celebrating Books & Book People
Rain Taxi’s Twin Cities Book Festival is the annual Minnesota gathering for readers, writers, publishers, and purveyors of all things literary. The TCBF features dozens of presenting authors, special children’s programs, and a wide variety of exhibitors featuring new and rare books, quirky literary curiosities, and more.
We will be there from 10:00-4:00 at the Rain Taxi Table located in the Book Fair.
We will have postcards available (with postage) so you can write your
legislators, favorite book store, library, small business, organization, activist,
writer ...
You’ll also have a chance to add to a community poem and
get informational resources for writers that might inspire future action. Make your thoughts heard and your words count!
No Kings
Spread the Word
No Kings was huge, the resistence is growing.
Tell the story.
Nationally
On October 18, more than 7 million of us rose up at more than 2,700 events in all 50 states, DC, and cities worldwide to say: America has no kings, and the power belongs to the people.
That is 14 times larger than both the Trump Inaugurations combined.
No Kings Day October 18 was one of the largest single-day protests in U.S. history.
More than 200 organizations signed on as partners for the 18 October protests.
If all 7 million of us who joined a No Kings protest stood shoulder to shoulder, we’d form a line stretching nearly 2,000 miles, almost the entire width of the continental U.S.
In Minnesota
- About 69 cities across Minnesota held No Kings rallies
- The biggest event was held in Minneapolis which had well over 100,000 people attending.
Music
Songs written for the day
Write to us!
We want to hear from you. Send us an email and let us know about your projects.
Please respond to
hello@writersfordemocraticactionmn.org.
We want to grow our list of resources on the WDA MN website, so send us the names of your favorite news sources, reading lists, podcasts, subscriptions, and other resources.
Thank you for being a part of Writers for Democratic Action.
