Healthcare Workers for Palestine Twin Cities hosted a press conference outside the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul on Oct. 25 to discuss the censorship of health care workers expressing their thoughts about the war in Palestine.

Around 50 people attended the press conference, which lasted about two hours and advocated for health care workers’ ability to speak in support of Palestinians and Palestinian Americans.

The attending speakers came from Students for Justice in Palestine, American Muslims for Palestine, Families Against Military Madness, White Coats for Black Lives and Minnesota Christians for a Free Palestine.

Some of the attendees, many of them wearing scrubs, donned masks with the words “censored” and “silenced” over their mouths.

Dr. Asfia Qaadir presented a live webinar on Zoom for PrairieCare in July about supporting patients from diverse backgrounds, including Palestinians. PrairieCare sent out an apology regarding the content of the Zoom and announced it would not be posted for viewing after the fact, Alycia Garubanda, a speech pathologist at Abbott Northwestern Hospital who attended Qaadir’s live webinar, said.

Many health care workers who supported Palestine felt they were unable to fully support their patients after PrairieCare’s reaction to the webinar, Garubanda said.

The rally consisted of speeches, chants and music. The speeches contained personal thoughts and experiences as well as the stories of Palestinian health care workers killed in the war.

Many of the speeches expressed concern regarding the censorship of health care workers when speaking about Palestine at work.

Qaadir, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at PrairieCare who presented a training webinar on supporting BIPOC and Palestinian patients, said censoring health care workers worried her, largely due to the implications it puts on caring for patients.

“Right now across the U.S., there is a widespread practice of banning Palestinian health education inside of hospitals, and people don’t realize that that’s happening,” Qaadir said. “That’s very problematic because it makes it impossible for us as health care workers to render trauma-informed care, to do best practices with all our patients.”

Garubanda said it is apparent to her the health care system does not want its providers to talk about Palestine. She said the health care system is hypocritical in how it prioritizes diversity, equity and inclusion.

“Every health care institution’s statements and values around DEI and racial equity are, frankly, garbage,” Garubanda said. “We can’t believe what you say because we see what you do. Your silencing us is directly harming our patients in this community.”

It is a disservice to the patients of providers to not educate them about these issues, Garubanda said.

“We cannot effectively treat any of our patients if we don’t understand the context that brings them to us,” Garubanda said. “And understanding historical, generational trauma and effects of all of this is vital for us to show up for our patients. If we pretend like our patients just arrive to us without any background before they arrive, we are not treating them effectively.”

Maryam Waz, a Palestinian-American nurse and University Medical School student who shortened her last name to protect her family still in Palestine, said ignoring the war goes against what it means to be a health care provider.

Waz said she was frustrated by her situation as a medical student.

“We have health care workers dying by the thousands, and my people dying, and I’m just supposed to go to class and pretend it’s okay and learn about these theories that they themselves don’t apply,” Waz said. “You learn about all these theories of socialist advocacy, yet there’s not one email, one message, just nothing.”

Qaadir said she hopes the actions taken by PrairieCare to not make her webinar available to the public can be an opportunity for reflection within the health care community.

“The hope is that this becomes an opportunity for PrairieCare to have a dialogue with the community, listen to the concerns, and then, hopefully, rise to that moment and really show up in the community,” Qaadir said. “That’s historically what PrairieCare has done.”

Around 10 protesters gathered outside Northrop Auditorium around 5 p.m. to protest Anthony Fauci’s lecture on the University of Minnesota campus, despite its cancellation earlier Tuesday afternoon. 

The protest was led by Action 4 Liberty, a Minnesota-based right-wing political organization, to speak out against Fauci’s involvement in national affairs during the Covid-19 pandemic, independent contractor for the organization Jesse Smith said. 

“We just wanted to make sure that people were able to speak their mind and contest the medical tyranny that we saw Fauci push,” Smith said.

A common concern was Fauci’s involvement with vaccine mandates. 

“The supposed vaccine really was an experimental shot,” Smith said. “It didn’t stop transmission and it didn’t stop people from catching it.”

The CDC said in a brief about vaccine effectiveness released  Feb. 1 that people who are up to date on their COVID-19 vaccinations were 54% less likely to get the illness.

Tom Cleland, a University alum and a supporter of presidential candidate Donald Trump and US Senate candidate Royce White, said mask mandates and lockdowns were a motivator for him to attend the protest.

“There were the masks, and we know that the virus particle is smaller than the weave of the mask,” Cleland said. “And then there were the lockdowns, which tanked the economy and were a way to get rid of Trump.”

A study published May 22 from the journal Clinical Microbiology Reviews said masking reduced the spread of Covid-19 by 85%.

According to a collection of studies published in the National Library of Medicine, of the 338 studies conducted, 79% proved social distancing measures substantially mitigated the spread of COVID-19.

Dylan Pekay, a member of the nationwide libertarian activism group Young Americans for Liberty, said he wasn’t concerned about the vaccine mandate, but felt lockdowns and online learning in schools negatively impacted students.

“The main thing I’m here for, which is fundamentally opposed to what Fauci did and what he advocated for, is the closing down of public schooling and otherwise online learning,” Pekay said. “Because I know that certainly stunted my growth and stunted the growth of those that were younger and older than me.”

The protest ended about an hour and a half early due to the lecture’s cancellation and low attendance.

Fauci’s lecture has yet to be rescheduled.

Anthony Fauci’s lecture in the Distinguished Carlson Lecture series, which was scheduled for Tuesday at 6 p.m., will be rescheduled.

The University canceled the lecture because of student protests and occupation of Morrill Hall against the Israel-Hamas war, according to an email from Melanie Sommer, the communications manager for the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

The new date for the lecture has not been announced.

“Given the importance of this lecture and the unexpected and complicated incidents that occurred on campus in the past 24 hours, University officials determined it best to reschedule to ensure a great experience for attendees and our University community,” Sommer said.

This is a developing story. Check Back for updates.

Faculty members from the University of Minnesota and other Midwest and East Coast universities received a grant to fund studies on dementia intervention, according to a Sept. 16 press release from the School of Public Health.

The EMBRACE Center is led by researchers across the country, including School of Public Health professor Joseph Gaugler. The center is funding studies about interventions in dementia care and why they work.

The Center received a $5.8 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to fund the studies, according to the press release.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, around 6.9 million Americans live with Alzheimer’s dementia. The disease became America’s sixth leading cause of death in 2019.

Intervention care is a program that improves the health and quality of life for a person with dementia and their caregivers, Gaugler said. Implementing interventions into treatment can be expensive and difficult.

“(Interventions are) often so unwieldy, it’s so complex, it requires so much training, it’s so costly,” Gaugler said. “That makes it very, very hard for home and community-based settings or other organizations to adopt those interventions and integrate them into their everyday practice.”

Gaugler said understanding why interventions work will open doors for those with dementia and their caregivers.

“If you know how or why an intervention works, what essential elements are, then when one tries to scale an intervention, make it fit into a given cultural context, organizational context, changes can be made where you still keep the essence of the intervention,” Gaugler said.

Gaugler said maintaining why the intervention works and how it works allows other changes around that to be more palatable. He added it still allows the intervention to benefit the people it was meant to.

The EMBRACE Center is already funding two studies, one by University professor Manka Nkimbeng, and another from a professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Nkimbeng said her study will delve into the health and well-being of caregivers in Black and African American communities around the U.S.

African American communities, including Black immigrants, are typically diagnosed with dementia later than white people, Nkimbeng said. This makes it harder for caregivers to adequately attend to their family member with dementia as they have limited access to different services. 

“Our work is really taking account that the care partners of this group have limited access to services, and then also the care partners of this group typically prefer to provide care for their relatives,” Nkimbeng said. “So our intervention is taking those things into account. How do we ensure that they are taking care of themselves as well as they provide care for the relative dimension?”

Laura Gitlin, co-investigator of the EMBRACE Center and professor at Drexel University, said the center will provide support for researchers beyond funding, such as webinars and consultations, to help keep the projects on track.

As the studies progress, Gitlin said the goal is to determine what parts of different interventions work so they are easy to implement in the home and in memory care facilities.

“This is all about intervention science and doing the best interventions that can maximize impact and be sustained,” Gitlin said. “Meaning it can be continued and embedded in sites and service settings and be sustained after the conclusion of a study.”

Giltin said interventions can be costly, another reason they are difficult to implement.

“Some interventions are complex and have different components to them,” Gitlin said. “We don’t know if all those components are necessary. They drive up costs when an agency tries to implement them.”

Understanding how the interventions work is integral to memory care, Gitlin said.

“If we understand that, then it can hopefully lead to adoption of those interventions by different healthcare settings, community-based settings because they would know what’s most critical to replicate,” Gitlin said.

The EMBRACE Center is one of the first memory care research centers allowing for collaboration across institutions in the country, Gitlin said.

“The investigators are working in very high, different, diverse groups, geographically, regionally, race, ethnically, language, language-wise, need-wise,” Gitlin said. “So it really brings great heterogeneity and diversity to understanding dementia care and what are the preferred approaches and benefits for different communities.”

RACHEL HOPPE: Hi, I’m Rachel Hoppe and you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota. In this episode, I explored the university’s history as a land grant institution, as well as learned from other students about their own understanding of the concept.

According to the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, (APLGU) a land grant college or university is an institution that has been designated by its state legislature or Congress to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862, 1890 and 1994. This definition, however, leaves some with more questions about the implications of land grant institutions. I asked students around campus about their understanding of land grant universities. Students Lauren Lillie and Dola Greene weigh in on the subject.

LAUREN LILLIE: Yeah, so what I think it means is that the land that we’re on is not owned by the school. It’s owned by someone else somewhere. 

DOLA GREENE: You know and honestly, I feel like that I still kind of don’t know all the way, but from my understanding, I mean, I know that this institution is built on like land that originally belonged to, you know, different Native American populations. I understand Minnesota has a large population of like Dakota and Ojibwe in particular. So, I think that’s as much as I knew about it.

HOPPE: Students’ understanding of land grant institutions is seemingly pretty broad. While some students may understand the general concept of land grant universities, there are different nuances that explain how these institutions came to be. The Morrill Act of 1862, signed by then president Abraham Lincoln, designated certain chunks of land throughout the country to be used by states specifically for the purpose of building public universities, over 100 million acres of land.

The TRUTH Project reported that in the case of the U, the state of Minnesota was given nearly 95,000 acres of land for the purpose of building a public university. The majority of acres were forcefully ceded by the Dakota in 1851. To put it simply, the creation of the UMN displaced indigenous people from around the state, taking them away from their homes. 

So, the definition provided by APLGU just grazes the surface of what it means to attend a land grant institution. Many students also feel as though they aren’t well educated in regards to the topic and would like to see more efforts to educate students about the concept. University students Kaylee Carriker and Caroline Weir have some ideas for the U to increase awareness. 

CAROLINE WEIR: I think that they should work on more outreach, whether it be to like a DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) module or like education with like different clubs, Greek life, organizations on campus, even different like the different colleges on campus, just something more small scale to really be able to make that message. 

KAYLEE CARRICKER: I feel, I feel like they could be doing more, yeah.

HOPPE: While some students look for new ways to implement education, others want to add it into pre-existing structures. 

LILLIE: Not to be one of those people, but like, when there’s like, you know when you’re a freshman and you have to take all those like little tiny introductory courses like don’t overdrink. Maybe there could be something like a small little module for that like just teaching you what it means and like how it affects the community and stuff like that.

HOPPE: Adding content in the modules taken as part of orientation for incoming students is one way to introduce the implications of land grant schools to students. Yet, there are already resources out there explaining the University’s history that students are not aware of. The aforementioned TRUTH Project, which stands for Towards Recognition and University-Tribal Healing, is a resource sponsored by the University that explains and analyzes how indigenous communities were impacted by the land grant. 

While the TRUTH Project is out there and accessible to anyone with internet connection, many affiliated with the University are unaware of its existence. When asked, students say that the U isn’t doing enough to increase awareness about the topic. 

GREENE: Yeah, I don’t think so. Not at all because, you know, even you know, everybody’s syllabus. I’m pretty sure maybe it’s a requirement that everybody’s syllabus has this little blurb at the end that talks about something related to this and one people don’t really read it at the end, usually and it’s like, okay, the syllabus is done about here.

LILLIE: I would say they don’t really educate us about it like you know, like all of our professors mostly will sign off and have in their email signature like, the U of M is a land grant university, but like I don’t think we really hear about it any more than that.

HOPPE: While University may encourage things like land acknowledgements in syllabi, the content isn’t necessarily in a place where students would seek it out. Furthermore, the University historically hasn’t explained how the school’s founding impacted the surrounding community. On the history page of the University of Minnesota’s website, it explains that in 1862, the “Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act [was] signed, establishing federal land-grant resources for schools that teach and research agriculture and mechanic arts.” While the explanation of events is accurate, it is only part of the story. It paints a picture of what the Morrill Act meant for the University, without acknowledging how surrounding communities were negatively impacted. 

Elsewhere on the Office of Admissions website, a land acknowledgement is included. It says, “we also acknowledge that words are not enough.” While the University has supported efforts like the TRUTH Project in the past, some indigenous faculty feel there is still more to be done. 

Vicente Diaz, the chair of the American Indian Studies department at the U, explained to me in an email that it is important for those of all cultural and racial backgrounds to learn and work through the impacts of the displacement of the Dakota and Ojibwe tribes.

“The problem is all who think that this is an AIS (American Indian Studies) or Native-person-only matter,” said Diaz. To summarize his comments, leaving issues that stem from land grant institutions to be fought against by indigenous communities only is inherently problematic. This situation portrays the displacement of Native Americans in the Twin Cities as an indigenous issue, even though they bear no responsibility for its creation and are the ones who have suffered its consequences. 

To be involved in change, regardless of your background, one place to turn is the Twin Cities Mutual Aid Project. TC-MAP provides resources to get involved with the Land Back initiative here in the metro, such as the Bdote Memory Map. The memory map is a snapshot of the Dakota tribe’s relationship and history with Minnesota, both before and after being impacted by the United States. 

As I mentioned earlier, Land Back is an organization that provides spaces for activism within the indigenous community as well as spaces for those to learn about the variety of issues impacting native communities, even beyond the concept of land grant institutions. 

Land Back provides numerous opportunities to learn about the impact the United States’ government has on different indigenous communities around the country. For example, Landback.art is an initiative being started by the organization to uplift the experience of indigenous people by placing billboards throughout the country. The billboards will feature art by indigenous artists while simultaneously creating a dialogue regarding indigenous people in the US. 

Overall, the University’s history is complex, and it can take time to understand what it means to attend the U. The actions of the government back in 1862 ultimately ended up displacing indigenous communities from their homes here in Minnesota and across the country.

This episode was written by Rachel Hoppe and produced by Kaylie Sirovy. As always, we appreciate you listening in and feel free to leave us an email at podcasting@mndaily.com with comments or questions. I’m Rachel, and this is In the Know.

RACHEL HOPPE: Hi, I’m Rachel Hoppe and you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota. In this episode, I explored the Minneapolis Vintage Market and its greater impact on the Twin Cities community. 

The Minneapolis Vintage Market is a monthly market hosted by various venues throughout the city with pop-up shops that sell vintage, second-hand clothing, home decor and household items. These pop-up shops are curated by local vintage retailers. Molli Slade, owner of the vintage shop Glam Diggers Vintage, discusses her experience selling at the market. 

MOLLI SLADE: I really, I enjoy it. We travel around to different locations. The vendors have changed a lot from 2018 to now. Cause a lot of times people will kind of graduate from the market. They’ve opened their own brick and mortar stores. You know, there’s five or six, seven, maybe even eight people I can think of that were vendors who now have brick and mortar, which is great. You know, that they’re being able to create another business model. So there’s a small business from using things that are already produced, you know, in the green way of thinking, that’s great.

HOPPE: Slade, who is a social worker by trade, started buying vintage back in the 70s. She enjoyed the punk rock community that shopped vintage. Kathryn Reiley, an adjunct professor of apparel design and retail merchandising at the U’s College of Design, started shopping for vintage clothing for similar reasons. 

KATHRYN REILEY: Well, in the 90s I was listening to like alternative and grunge music, and so a lot of those music groups, the musicians and the band members wore vintage clothing, and so that’s kind of how my friends and I got interested in it. You know groups like the B52s and REM and Delight, they were all wearing vintage clothing. Courtney Love of Hole, you know, was wearing lots of 1960s baby doll dresses, and so we all started shopping at like Ragstock and some of the vintage stores in St. Paul and Minneapolis and started getting into vintage clothing.

HOPPE: Vintage fashion offers a unique opportunity for young shoppers to find their desired aesthetic today. The Minneapolis Vintage Market hosts retailers that sell a myriad of styles from various decades. 

SLADE: I appreciate the wide range of styles because you walk through the market and there’s everything from you know, the Y2K like crop top and, you know, low rise jeans and there’s an audience for that to designer high end vintage pieces. And, you know, it might be everything from a 5 or 10 shirt to a 400 jacket. 

And each one has its crowd of people, or has its  customers, which is nice. We’ve got enough people who have a little bit of money for that kind of thing that they can support. Not like New York prices, but there is definitely an audience for the whole range, which is great. I kind of think of some of the vintage as like, it’s the gateway drug. Like, try out this, try out this vintage sweater and you’ll be back to try a vintage coat. 

HOPPE: While shopping vintage is a great way to find an individual style, it has the potential to get expensive. Depending on the era an item comes from, or other elements such as the kind of fabric of a garment, the price can become much more expensive than a piece from a more mainstream brand. That said, vintage pieces tend to be much better quality than clothing from brands considered to be fast fashion. So, while at face value buying new clothes is generally cheaper, the vintage clothing tends to last much longer. 

SLADE: I am glad to see things, that people are appreciating the, not the single, like appreciating reusing, you know, reduce, reuse, recycle, and that part is really cool that I think the younger generation coming up really gets that part and gets the impact on the planet and all the like fast fashions, you know. Not to, you know, all those brands we all know, that after three uses it’s shredding and it’s worthless and it’s poor construction, and then you have a, a jacket from the 1930s that’s almost 100 years old, is still solid and relevant, like you don’t look like you’re wearing a costume, which is awesome, and that’s good design. I feel like it’s important for me to share the history and why this is still relevant, you know and I, the provenance and the sort of, you know, why is this good design, or you what makes this a cool piece is super important to me.

HOPPE: As Slade said, buying vintage clothing doesn’t just help your wallet in the long run, but also the planet. Buying secondhand clothing positively impacts the environment as it keeps clothing from ending up in landfills and from being otherwise unused. Missy Bye, an apparel design professor also at the U’s College of Design, discusses the numerous benefits of shopping secondhand.

MISSY BYE: You’re saving production of the fiber, dyeing. Take a pair of jeans, hugely water intensive dying processes that pollute waters. The processing of cotton is hugely water intensive. It just goes on and on, and so if I don’t have to produce the garment again, I’m saving a huge chunk of impact on the environment.

HOPPE: Depending on the decade the clothing you’re buying is from, the materials could also potentially be more environmentally friendly. Some fabrics popular in today’s clothing create the risk of microfibers being put into the environment.

BYE: I think that people are aware of microfibers that’s been in the news. It’s invaded our waterways. It’s invaded animals, it’s in our own bodies, and we really don’t know the impact of microfibers, but it’s probably not good. So, I guess another thing with vintage clothes is if you’re buying pre 1970 you’re probably getting something that is natural fibers. You may get some rayon in there, but  you’re probably not getting too much polyester or other newer synthetics.

REILEY:  If you’re buying new pieces, look for things that have been made by hand or things that are made out of natural fibers, like organic cotton. Also things that have been naturally dyed if possible because a lot of mass production dying is bad for the environment, so things that have been naturally dyed are better, but sometimes those options can be hard to find. 

SLADE: I’m going in because I have a passion for this, and I want to share it with the other person. I want them to catch a little bit of that fire. And when I see people, when I’m able to pull something out that looks fabulous on them, that they’re like, ‘I never would have picked that out.’ Mission accomplished. Or I see something in another booth. 

We can, we all get to win in this and it doesn’t feel super competitive or icky. You know, like there’s, there’s enough to go around. I’m grateful that I do as well as I do and I work hard at it. I think about who the customer is going to be and I try to tailor what I’m bringing for that. And it’s fun. It’s fun to see people expressing themselves, being with their friends.

HOPPE: I feel like there’s been a lot of discussion about overconsumption in fashion. What are kind of ways to mitigate that? 

BYE: Stop buying so much. Overconsumption is a problem for the majority of the population. There’s some people that have a really good handle on that. But you don’t have to have a new outfit every day. You don’t have to look different every day. You don’t need a new wardrobe every season. The longer you can keep something in your wardrobe and wear it, the better. 

And I think that’s a little bit easier as you get a little bit older. Younger people are trying to find their identity and try to figure out what their clothing says about them and what kind of image they want to project. So I understand, you know, some turnover there and probably going second hand is a really good thing in that case, but if all of a sudden you think you’re into boho, you know, it doesn’t mean you have to replace your whole wardrobe. You know, do it a little bit at a time. Is it a good fit? If it’s not a good fit you haven’t, you know, changed your whole wardrobe over and you still have kind of a foundation.

HOPPE:  If you’re interested in attending the next Minneapolis Vintage Market, you can stop by the Machine Shop between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. on November 12!

This episode was written by Rachel Hoppe and produced by Kaylie Sirovy. As always, we appreciate you listening in and feel free to leave us an email at podcasting@mndaily.com with comments or questions. I’m Rachel, and this is In the Know.