In Solidarity with the Asian American Community

May 25th, 2021

To All Our Relations, 

This letter has been written on behalf of the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors Group (MUID) — a collaborative of over twenty-five American Indian organizations operating within the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota. The purpose of this communication is to express the full support of the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors Group for the Asian American community. Our collective stands in solidarity with our Asian American relatives and supports the fundamental right for all people to live free from fear, free from harassment, free from violence, and free from racism.

The membership of MUID condemns all violent crimes fueled by hate in the strongest and most unqualified terms. Such acts are antithetical to our ways, and yet again reaffirms that the promise of the dominant culture for everyone to pursue life, liberty, and happiness still has yet to be ensured for all. We are pained and disgusted that such acts can continue to occur, and our hearts are heavy with sadness for what our Asian American relatives are having to endure.

Accordingly, the membership of MUID would like to also state our continued solidarity and ongoing preparedness to stand together with our relatives of the Asian American community. Even in the face of our own community's challenges, we must let it be known that the American Indian people of the Twin Cities actively possesses the strength and requisite resiliency to fully support you while simultaneously addressing our own needs. Also, let it be known that we do not come alone. We arrive with all of our ancestors accompanying our people in the here and now as well — actively reminding us of what has been overcome before, and the abundant power inherent within our people. Standing together, our communities will continue to grow, prosper, and thrive as a result of our mutual support.

Further, MUID calls on all citizens to stand up and publicly vocalize their support for communities of color who continue to be subjugated to so many public, and virulent strains of open racism. In this time, we call out specifically the need to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in support of the Asian American community.

It is the hope of MUID that such open expressions of hostility and violence, rooted in hatred and racism, will be effectively abolished by our society as a whole. However, this hope is tempered by the reality that many of our society's institutions are still very much grounded in ideologies promoting white supremacy— whether such promotion is intentional or unwitting. Unless these racist underpinnings can be successfully deconstructed and rebuilt along the lines of authentic equity, and renewed through the consistent promotion and advancement of all the Creator's children, shameful incidents of violence like those currently being endured by our Asian American relatives will only continue.

Only after we as a society acknowledge the truth of white supremacist thought as being the seminal and foundational element within all of our civic enterprises, such tragedies as those that are befalling people of color will only continue.

Now is the time to advance the difficult work of deconstructing the racist base architecture that guides so much of the United States operations. We must endeavor to rebuild a new societal paradigm fully and authentically committed to justice and the betterment of all humankind.

MUID encourages all who are interested to join us, to join the leadership of the Asian American community to heed this call, and to work in concert with one another in order to bring this long- overdue vision of our ancestors into a reality for all of us to finally enjoy in the here and now.

Let us move forward in peace and harmony. Let us see what we can create together.

I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world.

And while I stood there I saw more than I could tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shape of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.

And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty and flowering tree to shelter all children of one mother and one father.

And I saw that it was holy.

Black Elk, Oglala Lakota (1863-1950)

Pidamaya yedo/Miigwech/Wibthaha/Pinigigi/Thank you,

The full membership of the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors Group