The drum beat loudly as parade-goers in Minneapolis sized up the unlikely trio marching. Three women -- two Somali and one American Indian -- walked arm in arm.
This small, bold act was designed to send a message to the American Indians and Somalis living nearby: We can and should be friends.
Along this stretch of pavement, in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, a people who have been on this land the longest regularly bump up against a people who have only recently arrived. Once, they clashed, now they are attempting to forge bonds.
Calling themselves the Native American Somali Friendship Committee (NAFSC), ambassadors from both communities meet monthly to try to find common ground.
"I was one of the top ones saying, 'I can't stand these people. They park in our parking lots. They stop in the middle of the road and talk to each other,'" said Mike Forcia, a committee member who runs the Wolves' Den cafe at the American Indian Center. "Getting to know these people on a personal level has really changed that."
During the 1950s and 1960s, the federal government relocated many American Indians from reservations to cities. "The idea was to assimilate us. Get us off the reservation," said Terri Yellowhammer, an attorney and Friendship Committee member.
Thousands of Indians moved to Minneapolis and settled primarily in one neighborhood, where they became one of the largest concentrations of urban Indians in the country. It's where civil rights activists met in the 1960s and 1970s to found the American Indian Movement.
The federal government also chose Minnesota as a resettlement site for the thousands escaping Somalia's bloody civil war. Many came to the same neighborhood, where rent was cheap. Somali-owned businesses started opening, and the grumbling began. Wade Keezer, another Friendship Committee member, remembers when the first wave of Somali refugees started appearing in the neighborhood in the early 1990s, the women covered head to toe in flowing fabrics.
"I thought they were some new type of Catholic nun," he said.
In some Somali circles, where alcohol is taboo, Indians were viewed as drunks.
"A lot of people really started noticing when they started opening halal markets and getting into the subsidized housing," Keezer said. "A lot of Indian people couldn't get into there because they couldn't pass the background checks."
Tensions reached a boiling point in the summer of 2009 when an American Indian woman reported that she had been beaten and robbed by three Somali teenagers.
The hateful comments about Somalis that Keezer overheard told him it was time to do something. He fired off an email reflecting on what was happening, sparking a community conversation.
"People come and tell their real stories," said Amina Saleh. Yellowhammer was one of the founding members. "The message I got from the Somalis I met with fairly early on was, 'This does not reflect our values. These attacks on your people -- this is not who we are,'" she said.
The Somalis talked of youth who were growing up as orphans, unschooled and unconnected to Somali culture. That resonated with Forcia, Yellowhammer and Keezer, who saw similar problems among American Indian youth.
"We have the same dynamics, but instead of finding common ground, we were just oil and water all the time," Forcia said.
NASFC members have been consulted to ease tensions between American Indian and Somali kids on school buses. Other local groups have asked about NASFC's work, hoping to apply it to their own communities.
When Khadra Abdi went to her first meeting, she just listened, but even that was difficult.
"I left the meeting and said to Amina, 'Did you hear what that guy Mike said? He said we don't know how to drive! What does that mean?'" she asked.
In those first months, Abdi and Saleh wondered how much honesty people could take. But they kept coming back, and Abdi started seeing things differently.
"Before, if I saw a Native walking on the same side of the street, I was going to the other side of the street," she said. "All I know is they don't want me. I'd rather not deal with it."
She began to understand why her behavior might offend some Indians. Now, when she sees a Native American coming her way, she looks up and says hello.
"Before, I really didn't care," Abdi said. "But now, I care. This is my little theory: I'm going to be friendly to this person so maybe, they will be friendly to another Somali person. I don't know if it's going to work, but I try it every day."
Source: Naples Daily News
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