North Star Journey

Most Americans believe college is too expensive. In a Gallup poll released this summer, only 12 percent of U.S. adults say four-year colleges and universities provide an affordable education. But at the same time, a majority of parents surveyed say they still want their children to get a degree.

What’s a student to do?

Here in Minnesota, relatively new programs like North Star Promise aim to close the gap for low-income students. But is it enough to make a real difference when it comes to overall affordability?

MPR News host Angela Davis took that question to St. Cloud on Thursday. She hosted a North Star Journey Live discussion at St. Cloud State University with financial aid experts on the front lines of helping students figure out how to pay for college — and current students — to see if the hopes about changing affordability are being felt.

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Last March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

It mandated a shift in how American history is portrayed in federal institutions, with a goal of eliminating “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology.”

Instead, according to the executive order, the focus should be on a more “patriotic” narrative. And to ensure that happens, funding was cut for anything that “degrades shared American values” or “divides Americans by race.”

This order applied largely to federal institutions, like the Smithsonian museums and the National Parks System.

But here in Minnesota, the funding restrictions and shifts in ideology were felt immediately. History museum directors and curators — the people who collect and keep Minnesota history — were alarmed at what might be coming their way.

So what happened? Were their fears realized?

North Star Journey Live went to Mankato to find out. At the annual conference for the Minnesota Alliance of Local History Museums, Angela Davis hosted a live discussion to talk about the ramifications of the federal order in Minnesota.

Guests:

• Jessica Potter, executive director of the Blue Earth County Historical Society
• Dave Nichols, executive director of the Rice County Historical Society
• Mai Vang Huizel, founder and director of the Hmong Museum
• Kyle Ward, director of the social studies education program at Minnesota State University Mankato

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When federal agents surged into Minnesota in January, communities didn’t just face a legal issue. They faced a moral one.

Faith leaders showed up. Churches became distribution hubs for food and diapers. Nonprofits organized ride shares and distributed rent money. Clergy mobilized to protest, sing, champion and, in some cases, face arrest. “Our faith compels us,” was the common refrain.

“Operation Metro Surge” is over now. But churches, mosques, synagogues and faith-based nonprofits say their work is just ramping up.

A group of faith leaders joined MPR News host Angela Davis for a North Star Journey Live event at our studios in downtown St. Paul on Thursday, March 26, to talk about what they experienced on the front lines of the immigration enforcement surge and how their faith both compelled and comforted them. They also shared gifts from their own faith traditions to help Minnesotans process our collective moral injury.

Guests:

• JaNaé Bates Imari is a minister and the co-executive director of ISAIAH, a multi-racial, multi-faith, nonpartisan coalition of faith communities in Minnesota.
• Rev. Hierald Osorto is senior pastor of St. Paul's-San Pablo Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, a multicultural, multilingual, inclusive Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) congregation.
• Rabbi Arielle Lekach Rosenberg is lead rabbi at Shir Tikvah Synagogue, a reform congregation in south Minneapolis.
• Imam Mowlid Ali serves as an imam and youth counselor at Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center in Minneapolis.

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Earlier this year, South Korea’s government admitted that widespread corruption had tainted hundreds of thousands of adoptions from its country. Babies who were thought to be orphaned had living parents. Some children were trafficked. Paperwork was falsified. Records were destroyed.

Korean adoptees worldwide were left reeling, including here in Minnesota, home to the largest population of Korean adoptees in the U.S. Many had already wrestled with questions of identity and racial and cultural belonging. Now even the small bits of information they had about their past could no longer be trusted.

How are Korean adoptees who call Minnesota home responding to this foundational earthquake? Earlier this month, MPR News’ North Star Journey Live project hosted a gathering of adoptees who are deeply invested in the search for truth about their origin stories at Arbeiter Brewing in Minneapolis.

Moderated by Twin Cities PBS reporter Kaomi Lee, who is herself an adoptee, the panel shared their personal histories and how the work they do today is moving the narrative forward.

Guests:

• Kaomi Lee is a reporter at Twin Cities PBS. She is also the host of Adapted, one of the longest running Korean adoptee podcasts.
• Ami Nafzger has been working on behalf of Korean adoptees for decades as the founder of the Korean-based GOAL (Global Overseas Adoptees’ Link) and the newer Minnesota-based Adoptee Hub.
• Matt McNiff is the board president and director at Camp Choson, one of many Korean culture camps started in the Upper Midwest in response to the wave of adoptions from Korea.
• Cam Lee Small is a licensed clinical therapist who specializes in adoption literacy, working both here in the Twin Cities and online. He’s also the author of “The Adoptee’s Journey.”
• Mary Niedermeyer is the CEO of Communities Advancing Prosperity for Immigrants, also known as CAPI, a Minnesota-based nonprofit.

Correction (Dec. 2, 2025): An earlier version of this story had an incomplete title for CAPI. The story has been updated.

Find a resource guide to learn more about this topic at MPRnews.org.

While holding a can of Budweiser and tending to chicken thighs on a backyard grill, Natalia Mendez talks about their grandfather.

“This is like a smell of my childhood,” Mendez says.

Mendez occasionally pours some beer on the chicken, making it sizzle and smoke, tempering the flames caused by fat dripping on coals. 

“My grandpa, when he taught my dad this recipe, said it has to be Budweiser,” Mendez says. 

Mendez muses that perhaps their grandfather preferred it because it was a rice beer, instead of wheat, and maybe that gave the chicken a unique flavor.

“For a while, they were calling it ‘Budweiser America,’” Mendez continues. “It's interesting to think about my family's legacy to America and what that looks and felt like for them, because my grandpa was an immigrant and a civil rights activist.”

Artists Diana Albrecht and Ryan Stopera join Mendez at their south Minneapolis home as they cook their grandfather’s “Drunk Chicken.” It’s one of 12 recipes featured in Albrecht and Stopera’s new cookbook, “Back of House: Recipes from the Caretakers of Our Communities.”

“Back of House” is different from the typical cookbook.

There are recipes, yes, but Albrecht and Stopera also filled the book with the stories, portraits and documentary photos of the Minnesota people and communities behind the food, from steamed fish and apple stew to tongbaechu kimchi and mulawah flat bread.

The chefs featured, who range from at-home to working chefs, are from the diasporas of Mexico, South Korea, Armenia, Ghana, China and beyond.

The book “celebrates a lot of chefs that don't get their flowers, that aren't as visible as celebrity chefs, and that feels really special right now,” Stopera says. 

Many of them "are grandmas and aunties that literally supported the backbone of their family for generations based off the food that they made,” Albrecht says.

Albrecht and Stopera began working on the book with the help of a Waterers grant a few years ago, before Albecht relocated from Minneapolis to Los Angeles. The inspiration came partly from Albrecht’s explorations into her own heritage.

“I am a Korean adoptee,” she says. “I grew up not knowing anything about Korean culture, and so for me, food was a really easy way in to learn about Korean culture.”

Albrecht wanted to expand on her experience — to learn more about food and identity — and took the idea for a book to Stopera, who was running the former cafe at the Northeast Minneapolis arts organization Public Functionary.

“Running a cafe for three years just deepened my appreciation for chefs and folks who feed their community,” Stopera says. “It was just an easy response to Diana like, ‘Let's do it.’”

Together they photographed and interviewed the chefs at home with their families and friends, and Albrecht designed the book cover to cover. 

Albrecht says she discovered that so many of the recipes have been passed down orally.

“It’s all up in their head, and it’s never been archived, it’s never been written down,” she says. “Oral tradition is very important, but I think in this time, everything gets lost on the internet or lost in our beautiful, beautiful brains, and to have something that is tangible, written down, to preserve, to cherish — I'm learning the value and importance of that.”

Stopera says the process of creating the book became a lesson in understanding community. 

“I've been thinking a lot about third spaces and the need for them, and just the need to gather in person,” he says. ”To spend nearly two years having really beautiful conversations with people about ancestry and culture and history, it made me more present and reminded me that the village can take care of each other.”

Mendez knew they wanted to participate to help highlight how immigrant communities have shaped American food.

“Especially right now in America, this project specifically feels really, really important, because people who look like me, people who look like us, are being pulled over and legally allowed to be racially profiled, being taken away,” Mendez says.

“A lot of these people, especially the people that my grandpa was working with, himself included, were people who just wanted a job and they wanted more opportunities and a place to have kids and let them not have to labor in the fields.”

Mendez’s grandfather, Salvador Sanchez Sr. was born in Northern Mexico and, as a young adult, moved to Milwaukee for work.

There, Sanchez co-founded the Latin American Union for Civil Rights, one of the first migrant farm worker labor unions in Wisconsin, and organized marches and protests for the Obreros Unidos (United Workers) movement.

He died in 2024, while the book was in process. 

“Drunk Chicken” calls for marinating bone-in skin-on chicken thighs in a mixture of chopped white onion, Adobo seasoning, soy sauce, and, as the book states, “Budweiser [no substitutes].” 

The book also advises, “Like a lot of cultures based in oral traditions, this is a passed-down recipe with no specific amount of each ingredient. Measure with your heart.”

Mendez says it became the family’s Sunday after-church staple, but their grandfather originally created “Drunk Chicken” to feed his community. 

“This is a legacy recipe, because it's something that was developed because you can feed a lot of people with not a lot of ingredients, quite honestly, for not a lot of money at these camps for laborers,” Mendez says. 

Stopera pulls some of the new cookbooks out of a box, fresh off the printer. It’s the first time Mendez and Albrecht have seen them. They tear up. 

“The idea that people could be making his recipe feels so good because it's continuing that legacy of him, like feeding people, working hard and providing for their community,” Mendez says. “That's what this was all about.”

Albrecht and Stopera host a release celebration for “Back of House” Nov. 8 at Bar Brava in Minneapolis. There will be a book signing at Public Functionary on Nov. 14.

Correction (Nov. 8, 2025): A previous version of this story misattributed a quote. It has been corrected.

Traditionally, a college degree has been seen as a ticket to a secure future.

But not today. Thanks to soaring tuition costs and weighty student loans, many people are questioning the value of college. A 2025 Pew Research poll found that only one in four U.S. adults says it’s “extremely or very important to have a four-year college degree” to get a well-paying job.

And many young Americans — including Black, Latino and Indigenous students — contend they can build solid careers without seeking further education. In a 2025 survey by New America, a majority of young Americans agreed “there are lots of well-paying, stable jobs that people can find with only a high school diploma or GED.”

So is college still worth it — especially when it comes to low-income or first-generation students?

MPR News’ North Star Journey Live project teamed up with Sahan Journal Community Conversations in October to host a panel discussing the pros and cons of higher education. They also discussed other burgeoning post-secondary options, like trade schools, apprenticeships and becoming an entrepreneur.

Guests:

• Frida Torres Macal is the founder of That Social Invite, an independent social media marketer focused on helping women-owned businesses and professionals grow.
• Marquan Harper is a sophomore at the University of St. Thomas, where he is double majoring in Digital Media Arts and Marketing Management. He’s also the founder of Ador Hospitality, a Midwest-based hospitality group dedicated to enhancing the nightlife experience for young adults aged 18-24.
• Jalayah Johnson is enrolled at the Finishing Trades Institute of the Upper Midwest as a second-year glazer apprentice for the Empire House.
• Ali Osman is a high school counselor at South High School in Minneapolis.
• Jessica Yang is the senior implementation manager at the Get Ready GEAR UP Minnesota program administered through the Minnesota Office of Higher Education.

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MPR News host Angela Davis talks about the power of poetry with Junauda Petrus, the poet laureate for the city of Minneapolis. Junauda says poetry is “soul medicine” that can unite us in our shared humanity. Angela also hears from poet and performer, Tish Jones, about what poetry means to her.

Guests:

• Junauda Petrus is the poet laureate for the city of Minneapolis. She is an author, playwright, filmmaker and co-founder of the experimental artist collective, Free Black Dirt. She is the author of the Coretta Scott King Award-winning young adult novel, “The Stars and the Blackness Between Them,” and the children’s book, “Can We Please Give the Police Department to the Grandmothers?” 
• Tish Jones is a poet, performer and educator in St. Paul. She’s also the founder and executive director of TruArtSpeaks. 

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with a Twin Cities rapper and mindfulness instructor who says yoga saved his life.

Artist Rocky Casillas Aguirre has created a mental health universe populated by a ragtag cast of characters.

Twitch is the protagonist. He’s bright orange, with big cartoon eyes and very cute.

“He’s a little campfire flame, and he represents the kid in all of us who sees the world with curious eyes and has lots of questions,” Casillas Aguirre says.

Then there’s his best friend and mentor, Mystic Weenie, an ancient hot dog.

“He’s about 5,000 years old, has a lot of wisdom, has seen a lot of things.” 

Joining them is the easy-going Pablo. “A little Mexican snail who travels the world with his little knapsack full of snacks,” Casillas Aguirre says. “He wants to learn about different cultures, different ways of life, and his motto is, ‘Slow your roll.’”

There’s a talking brain, Dr. Lola the Axolotl and many more. They go on healing journeys together, riding a rainbow of emotions and learning mindfulness. Now, they are on view at the Northfield Arts Guild for Casilla Aguirre’s first solo show, “U are the Universe (Eres El Universo),” a bilingual all-ages immersive exhibition about mental health. 

The gallery is filled with more than 70 comics, animations and sculptures that employ both English and Spanish, including a medicine cabinet with fake prescriptions for meditation (meditación), laughter (risa), fresh air (aire fresco) and cat cuddles (abraza un gato). 

In a series of comics, Twitch advises on the different kinds of meditation (sound, breath, walking and more). A comic guide explains “How the body responds to stress/Cómo responde el cuerpo al estrés” with cartoons of a howling amygdala (amígdala) and dancing adrenal glands (glándulas suprarrenales).

The exhibition is inspired by Casillas Aguirre’s own challenges with mental health. When the pandemic hit, he began to struggle with anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia and hallucinations.

“I didn’t grow up talking about mental health at home, so I didn’t have any resources or tools that I could lean on,” he says.

He saw doctors and therapists, and started meditating and drawing.

“I took refuge in art, which is something that I’ve done all of my life, as a little kid,” Casillas Aguirre says. “Between meditating and just practicing self-care and drawing my feelings, I found a new purpose, my art found new purpose, and that was to communicate about mental health.”

Casillas Aguirre has a background in conservation biology and was the executive director at Sharing Our Roots, a nonprofit regenerative agriculture farm outside of Northfield, but he decided to become a full-time artist.

“A lot of my art is geared towards youth, because I'm trying to create the resources that I didn't have growing up in hopes that the kids of today will grow up to be happy, healthy adults tomorrow,” Casillas Aguirre says.

He has done art sessions with students at Bridgewater Elementary and has a partnership with the Northfield Public Library, where some of his murals are on view in the children’s section. The library also has copies of his children’s book featuring Twitch and Mystic Weenie: “Where Did the Anxiety Go?”, which is also published in Spanish, Somali and Swahili.

The artist’s work is also geared towards the Latino community. Angelica Linder, the library outreach manager who does bilingual programming, says Casillas Aguirre is bringing awareness to an important issue.

“Our community, we are not taught how to express our feelings. You just tough it up and move on and then that's it,” Linder says.

She likes Casillas Aguirre’s colorful artwork because it makes mental health discussions more approachable and positive. She calls it a “combination of his heritage, the mental health aspect, bringing awareness to some strong issues in our community, and all through art without feeling sad after looking at it.”

Casillas Aguirre was born in Tijuana, Mexico, but he spent most of his life in Northfield. 

At the gallery, he stands in front of one of his posters. It features a little cartoon figure wearing an Aztec headdress surrounded by thought bubbles in English and Spanish. For the piece, Casillas Aguirre interviewed people in the local Latino communities about their anxieties and used their responses, anonymously.

“Looking at mental health from a Latino perspective, there are a lot of things that Latinos are stressed out from that the white community may or may not relate to,” he says. “I was undocumented growing up and have been a citizen for about eight years. There are a lot of these things that I can relate to.”

The thought bubbles include concerns about going to the doctor without an interpreter, running out of food, childcare, making rent payments and racism.

“There’s one that says ‘ICE immigration officials took my friend yesterday. What’s going to happen to her kids?’” Casillas Aguirre says. “That, as we know with the current administration, is happening more and more. Latinos don’t feel safe, they don’t feel welcome.”

In his experience, Casillas Aguirre says there’s still a stigma about discussing mental health in the Latino community, which has been heightened by the political climate. He hopes his art can be a catalyst.

“A lot of people suffer from anxiety, stress, etcetera, and once we start talking about it more, I really think that that can lead to individual healing and collective healing for entire communities,” Casillas Aguirre says.

He points to another poster with community responses. It’s titled “Why don’t we talk about mental health?/¿Por qué no hablamos de la salud mental?”

One thought bubble says it’s because society tells them to “keep it together,” others say it’s generational: Their parents didn’t talk about it, so they don’t either.

Casillas Aguirre points to Twitch calling out from the bottom of the poster.

“Twitch says: Friends, let’s be brave and talk about mental health more at home with our kids and within our communities,” he reads. “If we can allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to be honest with ourselves, to keep our hearts open, we can find healing together. Everyone deserves happiness, including you.”

 “U are the Universe (Eres El Universo)” closes at the Northfield Arts Guild Aug. 2. In September, the show will travel to Mercado Local in Northfield. The show will then be on view April 13 through June 13, 2026 at the Paradise Center for the Arts in Faribault.

Across Minnesota, there are people working every day to strengthen their communities. 

Sometimes it starts with a small business. Sometimes, with a personal passion — and sometimes, with a gym. 

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with Dalton Outlaw — someone who combined all three. He’s an entrepreneur, a boxer and a community leader based in the Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul. 

Guest:

• Dalton Outlaw is an entrepreneur, boxer and community leader based in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the founder and owner of Element Gym, a fitness facility that combines boxing, fitness, and community engagement. 

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