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. 

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.     

82-year-old Ruby Leith Minkel and her daughter Carrie Minkel-Johnson live in the Lower Sioux Indian Community in southwest Minnesota. Together, they make star quilts as gifts for people both within and outside of the community.

“I love making the quilts, and it's just something that I appreciate,” Leith Minkel said.

When they are not at home in their personal sewing rooms, the two utilize the Lower Sioux Cultural Incubator, a community center that provides a variety of cultural classes, activities and space to use.

The quilting studio is lined with several sewing machines. Thread, scissors and other supplies can be found in small plastic bins. The space has two large tables for laying fabrics across, rather than on the floor.

Leith Minkel first learned to sew in high school, but she didn’t start making star quilts until the mid-1990s. She says she only needed to be shown twice before she started working independently. 

“I started teaching it. I taught a few women around here that are still doing it, and I'm glad they are, because I don't want that lost. I want to keep that going,” she said. “That's why I got her [Minkel-Johnson] going.” 

For Minkel-Johnson, a seamstress in her 60’s, she says she never imagined herself making quilts. She finally said ‘yes’ five years ago after many years of her mother asking to teach her. 

“I never wanted her to teach me how, because I thought, if she teaches me that, what else can she teach me? You know, that was the last thing that I could think of that I wanted to learn from my mother,” she said. “[I] didn't realize it was going to bring us closer together and to spend more time together.” 

Leith Minkel says it didn’t take long for her daughter to catch on to the sewing patterns, just like herself.   

Minkel-Johnson says she enjoys working closely with her mother. Quilting keeps them busy and active with fulfilling order requests or traveling to various powwows together with a table and chairs in tow.

“We don't make a lot of money making these quilts. It's more [about] having your little fingerprint on something that's going to be out there,” said Minkel-Johnson, “I'm enjoying it. I love doing it with mom.”

Even though the two are neighbors, Minkel-Johnson says the quilts bring them together. Outside of their shared love for quilting, she says it’s rare that they see one another.  

“We're so busy trying to get our quilts done. We'll call each other, ‘Okay, what are you doing? How far are you?’” she said.  

Leith Minkel shares in those sentiments that she loves being able to share a special bond with her daughter over star quilts.  

“It's nice because, at least I got her with me,” Leith Minkel said. 

Birthdays, graduations, weddings or funerals are events in one’s life that may call for a gift of a star quilt or blanket.  

“When you're making it, you're thinking of who you're making it for,” Leith Minkel said.  

She recently began working on a star quilt for a baby, choosing fabric from children’s cartoons, and pink fabric for a base color. Star quilts can be created in a variety of sizes and colors, depending on the recipient’s age or interests.  

However, one thing consistent within the designs of the quilts is the signature diamond-shaped star with eight points.  

“The Natives, they came from the Star Nation,” Leith Minkel explains. 

While holding a quilt with her mother — showcasing a star as its centerpiece with vivid colors of the medicine wheel: yellow, red, black and white — Minkel-Johnson shares what she had been taught about star quilts. She points to the Seven Fire Councils, an alliance of the varying groups of the Dakota, Lakota and Nakota people. The two make their star quilts with this in mind — the points on the quilt represent each of the seven. 

“And the eighth is for the person who made the star,” she said.  

To both, a star quilt represents honor.  

“I always feel that it's an honor to give the quilt to them, and I can just feel the honor it is for somebody that's receiving one that we made,” Minkel-Johnson said.  

Recently, they made about 50 star quilts for this year’s graduates in the Lower Sioux Indian Community. They also make star quilts upon request for those outside of their community, including graduates living in the Twin Cities area.  

Leith Minkel says she can make a full quilt within two days.  

“It's something that I'll probably do till the day I'm gone,” Leith Minkel said.

Chandra Colvin covers Native American communities in Minnesota for MPR News via Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities. 

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with a brother and sister who are both award-winning storytellers. They talk about their work and how they support each other as part of our MPR News Power Pairs series.

Guests:

• Daniel Bergin is a filmmaker, executive producer and director of history at Twin Cities PBS, where he was hired more than 30 years ago as a production assistant. He has won more than 20 regional Emmy Awards for his films covering diverse topics rooted in Minnesota history, including “Jim Crow of the North,” “North Star: Minnesota’s Black Pioneers,” and “Out North: MNLGBTQ History.” 
• Lea B. Olsen is a veteran TV analyst covering her 15th season with the Minnesota Lynx and is a sideline reporter for the Minnesota Timberwolves. She also covers both the boys’ and girls’ state high school basketball tournaments. Beyond the court, Lea is a professional speaker and the founder of Rethink the Win — a platform that challenges athletes, coaches and parents to see sports as a powerful tool for growth, connection and lifelong impact.

Check out Angela’s previous Power Pair conversations.  

Do you know a Power Pair?

We’d love to hear your ideas for Power Pairs to interview. Send us your suggestions.

Like most school districts in Minnesota, St. Paul Public Schools is facing a complicated set of challenges.

Enrollment is up a bit this year, but the small increase follows years of decline. The district faces a budget shortfall, has already made deep cuts and plans to ask voters this fall to approve a tax increase to support schools.  

At the same time, student performance is stuck where it was before the pandemic and proposals from President Donald Trump and from Republicans in Congress would reduce support for public education.   

MPR News host Angela Davis talks about the challenges facing public education with St. Paul’s new superintendent, Stacie Stanley.  

Guest:

• Stacie Stanley is the superintendent of St. Paul Public Schools, the second largest school district in Minnesota. Prior to joining the district in May, she served three years as the superintendent of Edina Public Schools, as associate superintendent in Eden Prairie Schools and on the leadership team in the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District. She’s been a classroom teacher, curriculum math specialist and a principal. She graduated from St. Paul’s Central High School.

It was Memorial Day weekend, five years ago, when George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Bystanders recorded the nine-plus minutes that Chauvin calmly kneeled on Floyd’s neck, as the Black man pleaded for help and air. That video rocketed from phone to phone, from media to media and sparked worldwide protests against police brutality.

But for the Black community in Minneapolis, Floyd’s murder was just a chapter in a much longer story.

Long before 2020, people had been organizing, creating and demanding change.

Certainly, in the immediate aftermath of Floyd’s death and Chauvin’s 2021 conviction, progress was made. Businesses and institutions promised to invest in racial equity, to develop new community practices, to reckon with systems of harm.

But in the neighborhood where Floyd lived and died, has that change taken root?

That was the question at the center of a North Star Journey Live event hosted by MPR News host Angela Davis earlier this month. On May 6, a cross section of Black community leaders came together at Pillsbury House Theatre to talk about real change, deep healing and defiant hope. The conversation was candid, often surprising and ultimately inspiring.

Panelists:

• Angela Harrelson, George Floyd’s aunt and registered nurse
• Anthony Taylor, community development lead for the Cultural Wellness Center and outdoor educator-activist
• Jeanelle Austin, founder of the Racial Agency Initiative and a board member for the George Floyd Global Memorial
• Jerome Richardson, cofounder of the youth-led Minnesota Teen Activists
• Signe Harriday, artistic producing director at Pillsbury House + Theatre and lead local organizer for the Million Artist Movement
• Tabitha Montgomery, executive director of the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association

Special guests:

• Junauda Petrus, creative activist and current poet laureate for Minneapolis
• Elder Atum Azzahir, founder and executive director of the Cultural Wellness Center

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS. 

About 4,500 people are released from Minnesota prisons each year. Many of them have spent years, if not decades, behind bars, separated from friends, family and community.

What happens when they finally return? How do they rebuild their lives during this complex and often precarious transition?

That was the topic at a collaborative Sahan Community Live and North Star Journey Live event recorded on April 24 at the St. Paul Neighborhood Network.

Co-hosted by MPR News senior editor Brandt Williams and Sahan Journal digital producer Alberto Villafan, formerly incarcerated Minnesotans shared first-hand stories of what makes reentry such a difficult process. Community leaders and reentry advocates also shared what helps and what holds back people as they exit incarceration and reintegrate into their community.

Guests:

• Antonio Williams is the founder and executive director of T.O.N.E. U.P., a grassroots organization dedicated to empowering formerly incarcerated individuals.
• Rea Smith is the Women’s Services Project Coordinator of the Behavioral Health Division at the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
• Erick Washington is the co-founder of the Kingsmen Project.
• James Becker is the assistant federal defender and federal defender representative in the District of Minnesota Reentry Court program.
• David Riley is an addictions counselor at RS Eden, a Minneapolis-based organization that offers treatment for drug addictions, housing assistance and reentry support.

George Floyd's murder in 2020 led to calls to end police violence and racism. Five years later, advocates say not enough has changed.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with Medaria Arradondo, the retired Minneapolis police chief, about his book, “Chief Rondo: Securing Justice for the Murder of George Floyd.”

Guest:

• Medaria Arradondo is the former police chief for the city of Minneapolis. He is president and CEO of Optimus Sui Consulting and he serves on the Board of Commissioners for the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority. He is also a member of the executive board of the Fentanyl Free Communities Foundation. And he is co-author of the new book, “Chief Rondo: Securing Justice for the Murder of George Floyd.”