Home Is Not a Safe Place: Irene Maun
Mid-Americana: Stories from a Changing Midwest
Release Date: 05/28/2021
Home Is Not a Safe Place: Irene Maun
Mid-Americana: Stories from a Changing Midwest
Irene Maun is originally from the Marshall Islands, a Pacific island nation struggling with the legacy of U.S. nuclear testing and facing the devastation of climate change. She now lives in Dubuque, Iowa, where she is nurturing the health and resilience of a growing Midwest Marshallese community.
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Journey into the New: Dominique Serrand
Mid-Americana: Stories from a Changing Midwest
Dominique Serrand was born and raised in Paris. While studying at the Jacques Lecoq School for international theatre, Dominique forged a special bond with classmates from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Together they founded Theatre de la Jeune Lune, or Theatre of the Young Moon. The young drama company moved to Minneapolis in 1981 and closed in 2008. Later that year, Dominique and a few of his partners from Jeune Lune formed The Moving Company, which continues to produce new work in the Twin Cities.
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Conversations with America: Abdirizak Abdi
Mid-Americana: Stories from a Changing Midwest
At age six, Abdirizak Abdi fled civil war in his native Somalia. He lived in a refugee camp in neighboring Kenya, then in the capital city of Nairobi, and as a teenager moved to the United States. Today, he is the principal of Humboldt High School in St. Paul Minnesota, one of the first Somali-American school leaders in the country.
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I Reached for Books: Hem Rizal
Mid-Americana: Stories from a Changing Midwest
Hem Rizal was born in Bhutan and migrated to Nepal with his family when he was just a year old. He grew up in the Gold Hap Refugee Camp in Nepal and later settled with his family in Seattle. Hem is a graduate of the University of Washington and taught briefly in the Des Moines Public Schools with AmeriCorps before joining the Teach for America program for four years on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He is presently an M.A. candidate in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
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Always in the Gray Areas: John-Paul Chaisson-Cardenas
Mid-Americana: Stories from a Changing Midwest
All his life, Guatemalan-American John-Paul Chaisson-Cardenas has lived in the gray areas between worlds. This has made him skillful at building bridges between white Midwesterners and immigrants in the Heartland, a calling that has been both risky and rewarding.
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America Looks Like Scotland!: Zoe Bouras
Mid-Americana: Stories from a Changing Midwest
Zoe Bouras is a Communications and Development AmeriCorps VISTA with the Immigration Project in Bloomington, Illinois. She emigrated with her mother from northern England to rural Illinois when she was eight years old, and has called Arthur, Illinois, home since then. Zoe began her path to American citizenship just last year. She hopes to be naturalized in 2021.
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Stick to Your Roots: Pavel Polanco-Safadit
Mid-Americana: Stories from a Changing Midwest
As a kid in the Dominican Republic, Pavel Polanco-Safadit pounded away for hours perfecting his technique as a classical pianist. This passion led him to the U.S., and eventually to the Midwest, where he has rediscovered his Latin Jazz roots and the Indiana roots of American Jazz.
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America Has Its Own Ghosts: Kao Kalia Yang
Mid-Americana: Stories from a Changing Midwest
Kao Kalia Yang is an author, public speaker, and teacher. She was born in the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand and settled with her family in St. Paul, Minnesota, when she was six years old. Kalia has an MFA from Columbia University and has taught in K-12 schools in a variety of communities, as well as at many colleges and universities. For more information about her writing, teaching, and availability for public speaking, visit her homepage: https://kaokaliayang.com/.
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The Gospel of Seed and Soil: Liz Garst
Mid-Americana: Stories from a Changing Midwest
Liz Garst grew up in Coon Rapids, Iowa, in a family of agricultural pioneers. She shares childhood memories from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s visit to their farm and how the family legacy inspired her own career in international agriculture. After jobs with the Peace Corps and the World Bank, she came home in the 1980s, at the height of the Farm Crisis. Now she helps manage the family land as Whiterock Conservancy, where she promotes outdoor recreation and sustainable agriculture.
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Flip the Sky: Bob Leonard
Mid-Americana: Stories from a Changing Midwest
Bob Leonard is News Director for KNIA/KRLS, where he also hosts the podcast In Depth. He also writes for The New York Times, Salon, and many other national newspapers and magazines. As a professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico, Bob supervised archeological research with the Navajo and Zuni nations. After the birth of his first child, Bob supplemented his faculty salary by driving a cab in Albuquerque. His experiences as a cab driver inspired his first book, Yellow Cab.
info_outlineIrene Maun is originally from the Marshall Islands, descended from a Micronesian royal family. Like many Marshallese, she and her family have struggled with chronic illness due to the lasting impacts of U.S. nuclear testing and colonialism in their tiny island home. In the wake of war and weapons testing, US troops and corporations flooded the islands with processed foods. The most popular and iconic of these is Hormel Foods’ SPAM, which has been linked to obesity and other chronic diseases across the region. Irene eventually moved to Dubuque, Iowa, temporarily leaving her small children and accompanying her diabetic husband to secure medical treatment for him in the U.S. She now helps other Pacific Islanders navigate healthcare as a leader at the Pacific Islander Health Project, including many who work at a Hormel meat packing plant in Dubuque. Learn more about the project and support it’s parent organization, Crescent Community Health Center.
COVID hit the Marshallese community especially hard, including Irene and her family. The pandemic spread rapidly among packing plant workers and their families due to existing medical conditions, crowded living arrangements, and unsafe work environments. The pandemic could have been even more devastating without the resources of Crescent and its staff. For years, Irene has also for more federal support, advocating to restore Medicaid coverage for Marshallese in the U.S., a promise made to compensate for nuclear impacts. This lobbying was finally successful in December 2020, as part of COVID-relief legislation.
Read more about the Marshallese community in Dubuque (in English or Marshallese) through some of the story collections online. The Facing Project published a 2017 collection of local stories, including Irene’s: Facing Diversity: Marshallese Stories. In 2020, The Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque gathered stories of diversity in Dubuque, promoting understanding and solidarity in the midst of the pandemic: #AllofUsDubuque.
This episode features a clip from the video performance, “Anointed,” by Marshallese poet, climate activist, and educator Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner. The project was supported through a collaboration with filmmaker Dan Lin, Pacific Resources for Learning (PREL), and the Okeanos Foundation. Visit www.kathyjetnilkijiner.com to read more of her poetry and watch more of her videos.