Coming up on Reel Midwest: Homegrown.

Indigenous people in Minnesota attempt to revitalize their language through technology.

The language focuses your attention in a certain way kind of tells you what's important or what to think about or point you in different directions.

It's like a road you know, if there's not a road there, you don't go down there.

And that's the way language works in your mind.

But first, a third generation community leader in Lansing, Michigan continues to fight for racial equity.

This work is not just for me, it's for any one person who couldn't go through the door that's why I'm here doing this work Reel Midwest: Homegrown starts now.

I think about my ancestors.

I mean, I know you guys fought and fought and fought and you hoped in you do hope that the next generation won't have to.

The world is moving, ahh, it's just that we're we're not moving at a pace that I would like.

The lenses that are used in this society are still tinted with racism.

There's so much work left to be done.

All right, this is where I think we should be we should be facing this way and then swing around to that in the background.

Hi, I'm Rachel Willis.

Your candidate for Lansing City Council at large.

Lansing, Michigan.

It's where I was born and raised.

It's my hometown.

To me, it is more than just the capital city for Michigan.

It is where I know, wonderful things can happen.

I love this city.

And I think I don't want to do this take I don't want to do this take.

I'm just gonna stick to the script.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the responsibility of public office.

Working on school board.

Working as a social worker, you have to have capacity to make transformative change.

I want to be available and assessable to be a representative.

How do I think we're going to advance an agenda that looks out for me when there aren't people that look like me in that space?

So this is what we need to do for the remainder of the campaign.

One is Canvasing.

There you go.

Rachel eh, that's a stinky baby woo, her diapers right her bags right there.

What You guys do stuff so different.

Back in the day, we did a lot of phone banking.

And my mom, as far as I know, is the first person in my family to run for public office.

She ran for the school board when I would have been in fourth grade.

And then my mom would just take me with her like we just went together and I was just exposed to that.

Okay.

And can you sit with grandmother and watch Baby shark?

I think that'll be a great Can see it I recall going with my grandpa to vote when they were first allowed to vote.

And he was so proud in at the time he was illiterate.

So he had he marked his name with an x Oh wow.

Whatever I'm struggling with right now, I know someone in that not so long ago that passed who had a lot worse than me.

Just breathe.

Know that you're not alone.

We are a big city and a little town.

You know we have access to lawmakers that I didn't see until I came to Lansing.

We can make a difference This is such an amazing time.

You know, I grew up in Alabama, black, white signs, all of that, you know, you name it.

There's still some places in Alabama that I don't go to as an adult because I couldn't go to as a child.

It's like you didn't want my money, then you're not getting my money now.

This work is not just for me, it's from any one person who couldn't go through the door.

That's why I'm here doing this work.

So thank you My father-in-law, John Lewis, is why we do what we do.

An amazing man.

I miss him a lot.

He would see something on the news and like Betty I'm gone but I really like that you don't need to go this time.

Betty, I gotta go.

Gotta go.

We like Oh, lord dad's out picketing so My husband was into black history to the hilt.

My house is full of pictures.

In fact, Ramaiah says the house is full of pictures.

In fact, Ramaiah says the house is amusing.

This is my grandfather, Because he was known for his dashikis and Afro-centric dress amusing.

This is my grandfather, Because he was known for his dashikis and Afro-centric dress amusing.

This is my grandfather, Because he was known for his dashikis and Afro-centric dress and talk.

Here's a picture of us think I was in high school.

and talk.

Here's a picture of us think I was in high school.

Well, you know what will be cool is we have to get Rachel's pictures up here, we have to add that next generation to the Lewis stairway wall of family photos.

It's funny to know that my dad was interviewed by the newspaper about this wall.

Now here I am standing where he was talking about the wall to you that just kind of moment just kind of hit me now.

Definitely learning more about my family.

For Ramaya she needs to know the history of some of these pictures.

And you know what your picture is not here.

We got to get your picture up here.

Oh my goodness.

Oh, there's so many photos on me whether it's your niece or your daughter, your neighbors.

The legacy that you leave behind.

Is what's important Mommy's getting ready to do something very important so you gotta stay with daddy.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, I have to go vote.

Can you say vote?

Say Vote.

Vote.

say yay, Mommy.

Thank you.

All right, you want your sticker.

Here you go there's your sticker.

My daughter is only two and a half.

But the more exposure to strong women of color, the stronger she will be.

None of the female candidates receive political action group funds and so they were including myself.

Significantly out fundraised compared to all of the male candidates My I Voted sticker.

I was number 123.

Take my selfie.

That's actually not terrible.

Nobody told my my eyes I look tired.

Okay, that's better.

I feel super nervous.

You know, I just think about like my grandpa.

And I'm just feel a challenge to want to just be involved with change making.

What's my tolerance level for going for more years of the same old, same old.

We can't do that.

Do you want me to show you how t works.

This is a report that publishes online.

This is how many registered voters 122,142 Yeah, so this is what we're waiting for.

We're waiting for them to tell us how many people voted for TT.

So on City Council at large two people in this list are going to win and two people are not going to win we're at 3% of the votes and I'm still in third place This is we didn't have this 10 years ago right you had to call the clerk.

Oh girl please I think we had an abacus There was not an abacus.

Thank you.

You guys get home.

Yes good try.

I did.

Yeah, so don't don't hang your head at all.

All right, your wife keeps calling me.

Okay, bye.

Bye.

Crap After the election, I mean of course I was disappointed.

The community had an opportunity to consider a ballot that was 50% female and voted and zero females in the city.

What happened when they looked at all of these black female candidates?

None of us were good enough?

None of us ranked?

We'll call daddy and ask him to look in the car for your other glove, ok baby.

Oh, okay.

I know.

It's my responsibility to do a better job saying that being a black woman in politics is something of significance.

No.

Daddy.

Would these things have neccesarily change the outcome?

Maybe not.

But would I have felt better about the outcome knowing that I had it on these things?

That's what keeps me up at night.

Last night from what it looks like everybody looks healthy that's not a given these days.

I just got back.

That bias that has driven our cultural norms within the district is going to take a lot of disrupting I just have to keep reminding myself we didn't get here overnight, it's not gonna go away overnight.

We said we wanted to do a comprehensive equity audit that's what we're doing.

We said we wanted to develop a plan to support black students regarding their well being we said that we wanted to develop.

How do we keep people understanding the importance of this It is exhausting.

But the work continues you dust yourself off you look to be that voice.

Alright, ready?

I want her to know that the sky is the limit the sky and beyond are the limit for her.

Know how they say we used to talk to everything.

Talk to those trees again when you put your same out and think of yourself as the little brother, the little sibling to everything we depend on here.

That's what I really like to think of.

So one of the first things I did and how I got into it was someone asked me to help to start Waadookodaading.

Waadookodaading is the Ojibwe immersion school in Hayward, Waadookodaading is the Ojibwe immersion school in Hayward, Wisconsin.

In schools, we think of language as vocabulary, usually it veers towards text.

Language you use is markedly different when you're at home, than if you're in a classroom or institutional domain.

And we need it to be spoken in homes, then it's naturally passed on.

I think of language vitalization as rebuilding relationships.

We currently have a design team working on a Ojibwe language, video game, essentially.

But the project before this was the forest walks.

(talking in Ojibwe) And we learned so much from listening to kids and others walking in the forest in Ojibwe, oh no, no.

Kids go to things and they're curious and they want to know, and they'll say What's this?

and they'll look at this and they'll feel it or taste it or smell it and they make a relationship.

It's so opposite of how we do education (ojibwe) Using technology, it's kind of opened up the field of education.

I have been focusing really on social media.

Hello all of my relatives.

Here's one, I've waited a long time to share with you all.

How do you say Mississippi in Ojibwe?

Misi-ziibi.

Misi-ziibi.

That word part Misi means large big, giant.

My goal was to make the language accessible to anyone who wanted to hear it.

What I loved about putting the language online is it made the language something that you could learn in the comfort and privacy of your own home.

You don't have to be in a classroom to learn the language.

Teaching one word a day, that may not lead to fluency, but it may lead to a deeper level of appreciation.

What I may be doing is passing down teachings that were shared with me to people I'll never I'll never speak to maybe someone coming seven generations from now.

The Hawaiians told us that radio is the best thing It's maybe not the most glamorous new tool new shiny tool, but everybody listens to the radio on their car.

Hey, that was good old boys like me from Don Henley.

It is 6:33am and it is Friday, April 8.

Let's get into a set of bad jokes.

Let's get in with some native jokes.

All right, here we go with your best res accent.

Everybody knows this one.

Hey, what do you call a man with one leg longer than the other?

Not even.

All right, let's start off the hour here.

Let's see Minnesota native news, A way into your heart from Steam Powered Giraffe.

We do the Ojibwe word of the day.

And we do the Ojibwe phrase of the day at the top of the hour.

It changes every day.

But I do try to make sure that that's always in there.

And I do try to use you know a little very mystical language we don't usually give good morning.

You know Ani, hi Nagoya, Nagoya, Nagoya.

wishu.

Hi I think of technology as just another tool.

You know, it's a pencil and paper with souped up on energy that appropriate technology idea, you don't have to use the most bells and whistles the most cutting edge, you have to use what's appropriate for the situation we're reclaiming our language, our indigenous language.

And we want the land back.

The language focuses your attention in a certain way, kind of tells you what's important or what to think about or points you in different directions.

It's like a road, you know, if there's not a road there, you don't go down there.

And that's the way language works in your mind.

And that means you have access to other ways of seeing the world.

(ojibwe language) We have a documentation grant to do conversations, we call that Ojibwe movies.

When we did the stories for the Ojibwe movies, the elders made up stories.

I mean, that's what I mean by elevate it, like, you know, to see themselves or to hear their voices or to hear their language on an app or in a movie makes it part of the modern age for them, it makes it makes them feel proud.

So from that, we were kind of inspired to say, how do we get this to more people?

What do our kids like to do?

A lot of young people like to play video games.

So these were just very fresh brainstorming designs.

This group came up with a game where there were different islands.

And you have a quest, but you realize you can't do it by yourself at some point.

So it was sort of a collaborative design.

There's a black snake, white people are trying to steal the land.

That's not a very new idea.

I know some language, my kids know some of the language.

But my grandkids, they're gonna take it further than what I what I want.

I want my kids to take it further than what I did.

And I want my grandkids to take it further than what they did.

And to keep the language alive.

In everybody should do that inspire people to speak language so they can take it further than what you did.

And just let it keep going.

I hope I hope that they see the beauty.

I hope they see the very profound teachings that have been passed down for thousands of years.

100 years from now I'd love to see the people be able to pass that down to the generations who are coming.

I feel very hopeful.

You know, just because of what I've seen, it's incredible.

Sometimes I have to poke myself.

This is just one place that I know about.

I think it's happening everywhere.

It's a feeling I get it's like seeing the world in black and white.

And then it's gonna be in color.

I am called Waabishkiimiigwan.

I am called Terry Goodsky.

I am called Kaagegaabaw.

(♪ music full ♪) ♪