- [Announcer] "In This Place" is made possible by the Moving Lives Minnesota initiative of the Minnesota Public Television Association, and supported by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

- If we truly want to understand our place, we have to first acknowledge the people that lived here prior to European contact.

(gentle music) - [Tia] Immigrants go with hopes of something better.

I've come to terms with the fact that I'm not gonna be able to prove what happened to them.

(gentle music) - My parents are from Serrano Italy, and we have many, many relatives still living there, in Serrano.

(gentle music) - I am very proud to be a Muslim.

There is no doubt about that.

I am proud to be a female in the computing field, at the cutting edge of innovation.

(gentle music) - The song that I'm going to sing is (speaks in Indigenous language), the morning star, the sun.

So, the translation, (speaks in Indigenous language) The morning star returns, carry my voice that I am sending.

(speaks in Indigenous language) The morning star returns.

I see the hardships that are coming.

(beats drum) (sings in Indigenous language) - Here in Minnesota, there's a lot of history that lies beneath the ground that we walk on today.

There's many stories, many uses of the land here, and that's why it's sacred.

All of it is sacred, but in particular, there are many points in the land that align with the stars, and that teaches us that that's sacred as well.

My father left a legacy for me to follow, which began with our petroglyphs, which are rock writings and rock paintings, and they can be found anywhere, caves, rocks, anywhere natural.

And to me, those are stories of our ancestors that help us to navigate this world, even today they can signify where sacred sites are, they can signify where we used to hunt, where we used to have ceremony, and tell us other things that maybe aren't even within our realm of thinking today.

We all come from the earth, we all come from the stars, and we're all here together, and if we truly want to understand our place, we have to first acknowledge the people that lived here prior to European contact, and we have to acknowledge that history before we can understand how to even move forward.

- There's a saying our culture that we come from the stars and we go back to the stars, and it's reflected in our earth effigies, or (speaking Dakota), it's reflected in our clothing, in our homes, in all of our what people today call art forms, but we have no word for art in Dakota, everything we made was beautiful, it told a story, and it served a purpose.

But it wasn't made to just hang on the wall and be admired, it lived, and it embodied the (speaking Dakota), which is the energy that makes things powerful, makes them alive.

And so, as Dakota people, we've acknowledge this (speaking Dakota) in every bit of creation, in the stars, and in the rivers, the lakes, the stones, the trees, the animals, and even in ourselves.

(speaking Dakota) Hello my relatives, it's good to see all of you here.

My name is Ethan Neerdaels.

I am from the Bdewakantunwan Dakota Nation, the original people of this place, Mni Sota Makoce.

Through our history, we've been here through thousands and thousands of years.

We never came from anywhere else.

We didn't cross the Bering Strait, like we often hear theorized by Wasi'chu archeologists and anthropologists, but our elders tell us we come from the stars, we come from the center of the earth, from Bdote, and so we have a birthing story, we don't have a creation story, but we have a story of being born as a nation, (speaking Dakota).

(gentle music) (speaking Ojibwe) - My name is The Star That Shines Alone, I'm of the Eagle Clan, and I'm from the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation.

My name, The Star That Shines Alone, in English it sounds like I shine, I do well when I'm alone.

But in Ojibwe, it doesn't translate that way, it's actual light.

(speaking Ojibwe) was a manidoo that was here when the manidoo were here on earth, creating the Anishinaabe, and when the head manidoo, the head spirit said that it's time for the manidoo to go, (speaking Ojibwe) didn't wanna quite go, 'cause he cared for the Anishinaabe so much.

(gentle music) The Anishinaabe is a really large group of people.

We migrated over from the east, where we were once a part of the Iroquois Confederacy, and as the stories of the arrival of the Europeans was makin' its way up from the Caribbean, the Anishinaabe people were so connected to their spiritual energy system, there was a message given to start heading west.

And the prophecy was, go west until you find the land where the food grows on the water, and then that's where your people will be saved.

Over the course of a couple hundred years, using the navigation routes of the Great Lakes, eventually arrived in Northern Wisconsin and Eastern Minnesota.

Anishinaabe seem to be a little bit more practical in regards to sacred sites, everybody has their own, and because we migrated over, who knows what we left over there on the east coast, what we had to give up.

That had to have been a big decision, to leave everything that we've ever known, move out, move west into the unknown.

- Often, when we talk about the land up north, we're talking about Ojibwe communities today, but it's important to remember, Dakota people have always been here, as well as they Cheyenne, the Arapaho, the Crow, there is many nations that have called this place home throughout history.

And we don't take ownership of it, but we're related to it, we're a part of it.

(gentle music) - [Missy] So, my connection to this land, and to this space and place, really goes back to Arapaho creation stories.

And one of the stories I was told was we had a great migration that took place during the ice age.

Our nation was traveling across the Minnesota River, and there was a break in the ice, and half of us went westward, towards the Colorado Basin, and half of us stayed in this region.

- [Ethan] Being born, as a nation, (speaking Dakota), and those are powerful words, that word (speaking Dakota) is to be born, but it's also to manifest your power.

A lot of these concepts, these teachings, they're difficult to translate into English, because English is a borrowed language, it's good for capitalism, for ownership of people, places, and things, but our Dakota language, it's about being a relative.

Everything is interconnected, interdependent, and so, when you operate from a position of being a relative, your entire experience in life changes, and it becomes a journey of healing for yourself, your people, your community, your family.

And so, our stories are very old, they go back to the beginning of time, but they connect us to the future as well.

And so, there's stories of place everywhere, throughout this Turtle Island.

- We didn't allow our politics to navigate the way that we move forward, we allowed the collective people and our way of governance to tell us in which way we needed to go, but we also relied on the natural elements and our connection to our trees, our earth, the air, the sky, everything, even the sun, and especially the morning star, because that was the first star that broke the day, that brought the sun, and the first star that we prayed to, the first star that we sang to in the mornings.

(gentle, ethereal music) - [Young Person] Heart.

Warm earth.

Vetiver scent of whirlwind and star sea.

Illuminate.

Early morning star.

Nebulous.

Ignites our song into existence.

Conjoin.

Constellations reside.

Reflections ripple in sky blue oculus.

Sleep.

State of consciousness.

You wait in the abyss of creation.

Existence.

Glimmering galaxies of amethyst portals blooming in near eternity.

(gentle, ethereal music) (gentle music) - Weaving has become almost like a metaphoric language.

It is literal, it's a literal practice.

It's a meditation.

And it's also a means for making sense of complex concepts.

It's powerful for using it to discuss our identities, our personal identities, our family structure, ancestry, community, society and culture.

(gentle music) Growing up, I was always aware of our Finnish heritage.

Heritage was about where we came from, it was about the country and the culture, but when I was an exchange student and I lived in Finland, that changed my understanding of heritage.

I'm recognizing that there is a difference between knowing where you come from and knowing who you come from.

I have always been an artist, and I've always known that I was an artist, and I just wasn't old enough, or mature enough, or brave enough, to own it in the way that I feel like I'm starting to now.

After college, I did architecture and interior design.

In 2007, I started my jewelry collection, and so, I've been doing jewelry design for 13 years.

Our society doesn't support art as substantially as it does other things.

So, my journey to accepting myself as an artist has really been about proving that practical aspect.

Being an artist is a practice, it's a practice of engaging in your own vulnerability, and your own thoughts, feelings, memories, it's an embodiment in some ways, but I feel like that's what makes artists extremely valuable in society.

Those people that are able to carve out more and more of that space for themselves, to process what's happening in the world and then express it through some other physical means for others to share and relate to, is extremely valuable.

My current work is really inspired by epigenetics, the idea of inherited memory, ancestry, heritage, and then also overlapping with weaving and concepts of weaving, materials, and really this idea of doing things incorrectly, or challenging the right way.

Both of my grandmothers died around the time I was born.

My maternal grandmother died nine months before I was born, and my paternal grandmother died the year after.

So I've been thinking about who I come from.

I know my parents, obviously, I know aunts and uncles, but I think there's something different with female elders.

When I was an exchange student in Finland, I first learned how to weave, and I was in a room that was full of looms, and there were only two other women in the room with me, two older women, and they were both sitting on larger rag rug looms, right next to each other.

And I finished my weaving, and I got to take it with me, and that was it, that was my first experience.

And something about that experience was so profound.

It occurred to me that that imprinted in me a sense of what it would've felt like to spend a day with my grandmothers, doing handwork.

It wasn't super special.

I didn't talk to either of them.

But we were in the same room, and we were doing the same thing.

And so, I think that's why it makes sense to pair those two things, this inquiry into who I come from, on an ancestral level, and this ancient practice of weaving fibers together with your hands.

(gentle music) In the middle of the Great Depression, thousands of Finnish Americans and Canadians were recruited by the Communist Party in Russia to come there to build a Finnish-speaking utopian society.

Immigrants go with hopes of something better, so my great grandparents left the US, and left the Americas because they were hoping for something better.

They were hoping for something better in Russia.

(gentle music) Of the 6,000, there were 1,300 that made their way back.

There were 900 where there's just kind of no knowledge of what happened to them.

There are about 1,200 of those who stayed in Russia that were arrested, executed, or died in some way, in a labor camp or something during Stalin's purges in 1937 and 38.

I don't know how much my family experienced.

We have four facts.

We know the date that they left the United States, and we know the date that my great grandfather, my great aunt, and my grandmother returned.

We know a different date when my great grandmother returned, and we have one photograph of my grandmother and my great aunt with some other children from a book on this period of time.

My great grandfather probably had to sign a three-year contract to work in a lumber yard.

My great grandmother was probably a tailor, and I would guess that if they had liquidated all of their assets before they left, that that's probably how they were able to make enough money to leave.

What I know is that if they did not explicitly declare that they intended to return to the United States, their contracts would just automatically be renewed, and they would be stuck there.

They left right at the beginning of 1936, and it was the end of 1936, 37, when they started to require that if you're gonna work, you needed to be a Russian citizen.

And so, when you would go in to become a Russian citizen, they would take your US passport, and so then, that's how they would get trapped there.

They would have no justification or means of leaving.

The idea of Unweaving is really about literally and figuratively, how do we create space within the fiber of our own identity and our own fabric, to be able to identify the threads and what they connect to.

Those threads to my female ancestors are what I'm tracing, but also thinking about the warp as connections that go back in time, and forward in time, and the weft as our behaviors and our reactions to those things.

I really believe that this practice of unweaving and understanding my own personal emotional struggles may be tied to something in the past that could not be resolved.

And it doesn't need to be literal, although it could be.

What I do know is that my grandmother never wanted to talk about it.

She didn't like the sound of train whistles, she didn't like the sound of European police sirens, she didn't like seeing freight ships with Russian lettering on it, she just had reactions to it.

She would listen to high school hockey games on the radio, when it got really exciting to the point where someone was gonna score, she would have to turn the radio off, because it was too much for her to handle.

And so, I mean, these are little things, they don't necessarily mean that she was traumatized her whole life by it.

I believe that she kept a secret, and I believe that she wasn't the only one who kept the secret.

This idea that, "Well, if I don't talk about it, "then it didn't happen, or if I don't talk about it, "then no one else has to deal with it, "I don't have to burden my children with this story."

I think that we should know these things.

I think that we should know our stories, even if they're hard.

(gentle music) My grandmother had this experience that made her afraid, and fearful, and ashamed, and silent.

And by me loosening that up and identifying it and talking about it, I can talk about it for her so that now it's resolved a little bit more in me, so that then change can happen.

The emotions of my great grandfather, I'm sure he was embarrassed to make this decision, to pick up your entire life, and you're responsible for your wife and your daughters as well, and then you go there, it's not what you wanted it to be, or thought it was gonna be.

They were lucky to get out.

What made him do that when so many didn't?

(gentle music) The location of the project in Duluth was in Sister Cities Park, and one of the Sister Cities of Duluth is Petrozavodsk, which is the capital of Karelia.

So that relationship is really based in this story of the Finns going to Karelia, because it was the Finnish-Americans, who were now Russians, that fostered that connection.

So, that location is really about resolving this story, or acknowledging this story.

The project, Unweaving, was a continuous circle in that the structures were right next to each other.

The idea is that you would sit inside and you would have your own space, but you would also be very aware of the person next to you, because they would be next to you.

When I think about Unweaving, one of the other components, especially thinking about fiber arts as a language, beyond just weaving as a language, if you look at knitting.

So, knitting is one continuous thread that's looped onto itself, to create a fabric.

And so, if you miss a loop, or if one of those, if that strand gets snipped in any spot, the whole fabric will unravel back down to its one thing.

But with weaving, there's an integrity to the structure of the fabric.

And so, you can start to evaluate different things.

These impacts of history, of ancestry, of the structure of our society and the forces to fit in are so powerful that they affect every action, every behavior that we have.

Just identifying them sometimes isn't enough because you might identify one thing and it will repeat day, after, day, after day, in different ways.

So, it's kind of like an awakening, right?

Like, how do we wake up not to completely strip ourselves apart, but to become aware of ourselves in new ways?

(wing blows) The expression that came out with The Unweaving was these strands hanging down, and so that the four structures together really expresses the disconnection of the family fabric between the four members, or the four structures.

And it had to become more of a figurative expression of unweaving, versus the literal that I had originally conceived of.

But what happens with these structures is when you enter inside the space, and especially when you lay down and view the weaving, if the sun is coming through.

The fabric is actually old sails that sailed on Lake Superior, and so I cut them into strips like you would a rag rug, and some of the fabric becomes very translucent with the sun, and so it kind of glows and gives a very golden light.

And then the wind catches the ends of the fabric, and creates a very immediate connection, as the way that you experience the space is that you become grounded almost instantly by that connection to the wind, and the connection to nature, and the earth, and this larger tapestry that we're all a part of.

And so, it becomes a space for contemplation, and a space for reflection on the concepts of the project as they relate to each individual.

(gentle music) What I learned through this project is that I'm never gonna find any more facts about it.

And I've come to terms with that, I've come to terms with the fact that I'm not gonna be able to prove what happened to them.

One of the things that I did do was that I interviewed my grandmother's children, so my mom, and my two aunts, and my uncle.

I just asked them to just share any memories that they had of her.

Like, what was it like to be around her?

What kind of mom was she?

The lunches that she made, the food that she cooked, which day was laundry day and which day was bread-making day?

I do believe that this experience impacted her, but I also believe that it propelled her to be extremely grateful to have gotten out, and I think she lived a very joyful life.

She was always pleasant, and supportive, and loving, and every single one of her children just, you could hear in their voices how much they loved her, and how much she loved them.

What I got from their interviews was that she allowed each of them to be exactly who they were.

She allowed her husband to be exactly who he was, and she just loved them for who they were.

And for me, that was what I needed from this whole project, was this confirmation that I don't need to fit into a mold.

That I am enough just who I am, and that she would have been able to give me that kind of love and confirmation.

It is about my grandma, but it's about all of it, all at the same time.

She's one of those warps, and this is one of those warps, and it's all true at the same time.

(gentle music) (accordion music) - Two, three, four.

I'll use this for the side plate.

(accordion music) - And then I told her, "You better watch out!"

- And then I'll bring water for everyone.

And then you want a Pepsi Honey?

(accordion music) - [Florence] Oh my gracious!

You better have more people than.

(accordion music) - [All] Amen.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

- For you.

- [Family Member] This is my favorite thing.

- [Rob] A couple times a year.

- Oh, I missed the main course.

- [Florence] Do you want salad Di?

(group laughs) (accordion music) - You gotta do what you gotta do.

Very good, thanks Rob.

- [Family Member] Yeah, thank you.

(accordion music) (sauce boils) - I think we run the pastas, like you say, all week.

- Do a sandwich or burger?

- I'd like to do the wing one and the burger one, I don't care which one first, but I even told Donnie to pull a little bit more.

And maybe we do try to push our Italian burger.

You guys ready?

Chop chop.

We gotta go to work.

(women laugh) We're gonna go in the back kitchen Mom.

I got a chair.

- [Florence] Okay, good.

How are you?

Hi.

- Hi Di!

- [Team Member] How are ya?

- [Dionella] Good.

- Nice to see you.

I'll see ya later.

- [Paul] I've got aprons for ya.

- [Florence] Okay.

- [Paul] For both of ya.

- Now really Brahams should be here.

- [Paul] Yeah well, unfortunately Brahams isn't with us anymore.

That's all I need Auntie is one more boss.

- One more Lautizi!

- [Paul] One more Lautizi boss.

(Paul laughs) - You're damn lucky to have us.

- [Paul] Yes, every day.

- What's that song?

♪ You get no meat with one meatball ♪ - [Paul] So, do you remember what we do?

- No.

- Seven by 11, Robert and I used to do this in high school.

And of course, I didn't get paid, but I got all the meatballs I can eat.

- And all the drink you guys could find down in the basement.

- Well, you didn't know about that.

(Dionella laughs) - Yeah right.

- [Paul] Yeah, there's been a lot of meatballs rolled over the years in here.

- Oh yeah.

- So, Valentini's was founded in 1934, by Justina and her husband.

- [Dionella] Louis.

- Louis.

- She was older, and she was my mother-in-law.

She could cook, she could buy groceries, she could sell booze, she could do anything.

And during World War II, there was always a shortage of things, not for Justina.

Two of the rooms upstairs were empty, and one was full of coffee, and the other one was full of booze.

She was a good buyer.

- And then after Justina handed it down to her sons, Bruno Valentini and Nello Valentini, and Nello was married to my Aunt Dionella, who was a Lautizi, and my mom is a Lautizi, so that's how we're related to the Valentini Supper Club gang.

- After Nello and Bruno left, my son Robert Valentini, and Michael took over.

- And they had it for a number of years, 15, 18 years, something like that.

And then they decided that they were gonna get out of the business.

I was over in Hibbing, at a restaurant over in Hibbing, I was managing.

One of my chefs over there, Rob Russo, who worked for me there, but his mother owned a Vietnamese restaurant in Hibbing, and he was workin' for me, and I kind of, through the years we had talked about maybe having our own place.

So I brought it up to him, "Maybe we should "look at Valentini's," 'cause it was for sale.

We came over in 2002, and we've been here ever since.

It's been 18 years now.

(tires swish) - When I first move here, it's very difficult and not easy.

I had four children.

I had three children in Vietnam, but after I moved here, I had my youngest boy, born here in 1978.

My husband pretty ill, he have lung cancer, so I figured this is the best thing to do for take care of my family and put food on the table to survive.

- This wasn't like this at the beginning.

I was 15 or 16, but yeah, I was 16, and then my brother was 12, and obviously I was here, spending a lot of time in the kitchen with Mom.

But when I was younger, at her first two restaurants, I was there peeling onions, and washing dishes, and learning the trade.

It wasn't all work, it was play, and running around, and just growin' up in the restaurant business.

- And my son Rob, he always is supporting me and being right on my side, and he like my right and left hand.

So he do everything what I expect him to do and he doing really well 'til this day.

- Mom taught me, you gotta put out a good quality product and make sure it's fresh, make sure it's homemade, that's where I learned most of my stuff, and I still use it to this day, I hold it close to me.

- I use a lot of fresh garlic and fresh onions with my cooking.

(garlic sizzles) I come from Vietnam.

I live right on Saigon City, and that's where I grew up.

My mom and dad, my mom is a pharmacist, and my dad, he's a professional oral surgeon.

My aunt used to have a restaurant in Saigon, and when I was little, they always bring me there and eat, and I always go in the kitchen, like my son Rob.

And I just kinda liked to connect with people, but my dad always, my whole family always wanted me to be, 'cause my whole family, my dad's side are lawyer and doctor, and all this, and I wanna be different, I wanna be on my own.

So I moved on and do what I like to do, and so that's how I end up to met my husband.

He were there, he's a chemical engineer.

We left there about three days before the communists took over Saigon.

- When we left it was 1975.

'Cause I was one, I was born in 1974.

- When my husband come home, 'bout seven o'clock, knock on the door, and we all surprised, and he said, "Just let pack."

He got all the Jeep and the car ready, and he said, "Let's go right now."

At the time I thought, "I'm just gonna go for a week "or a month, and then come back."

I didn't realize we go for good.

It's very difficult for me to start and try to be survive, but I love it here now.

When I first start, and then the day we opened, grand opening, the whole city council coming in to eat.

I didn't expect them to order American food, I have no clue what it is, and they have another person who ordered hot beef sandwich.

I told the customer, I said, "I will make "a hot beef sandwich with Oriental style," so I make that my saute beef, and I make little bit gravy, and I put two bread together, and I just called that a hot beef sandwich, Oriental style, and he love it.

He thought this was the best hot beef sandwich he ever had in his life, he tipped me $5 at the time.

- When Paul and I took over at Valentini's here, I got to get in touch with my Italian heritage again.

The homemade pasta, the meatballs, the sausage, which I kinda missed out on a little bit, 'cause my dad passed away when I was young.

But I incorporated both of those together, I've got a stir fry dish here with our homemade Italian noodles, so I do a Vietnamese, or Asian-Italian infusion, I guess, if you will.

That's what I'm makin' here is a shrimp and scallop stir fry fettuccine pasta.

- We still make all our stuff homemade here, we try to carry on as much of the tradition as we can.

I mean, I've had a chance to buy machines to do this for me, but we still do it by hand.

Carrying on what they started, when they came over from Italy, and doing what they did, this is what my parents did, this is what my aunt and uncle did, I'm doing the same thing that they did years ago, the same way, what we like to say the right way.

(meat sizzles) So yeah, that's the way were taught, so it's a sense of pride to be able to do it and do it the right way.

- My parents are from Serrano Italy, and we have many, many relatives still living there in Serrano.

Florence has been back to Italy 10 times.

I've been there three.

- [Florence] Beautiful, beautiful.

Beautiful city.

- [Dionella] It's absolutely gorgeous.

- [Paul] You know, I don't know you guys, I always wet my hands, I like it better when the hands are wet.

- I do too.

- [Paul] Do you ever try that?

- No!

- [Paul] It rolls better.

- Yeah!

They roll better.

- It rolls faster.

- [Paul] Well, I'm all into speed, we gotta make some money at this place.

(Dionella laughs) (phone rings) - Valentini's, this is Cindy, can I help you?

Hi.

- So today, Thanksgiving, 2020, another great day in the year 2020.

Usually we're closed on Thanksgiving Day, always have been, 20 years of doin' this.

This year, since the pandemic, we didn't get, our revenue's been way down.

Rob decided that we were gonna do Thanksgiving curbside, 'cause that's all we're allowed to do.

And right now, we're at about 825 meals that we have to get out today.

- Well, 35 years ago, that was me.

About 35 years ago, helpin' out at my mom's restaurant.

Two potato.

Okay Nick, one complete here.

(wheels rattle) (accordion music) - Here's your other one.

Thank you very much, you guys have a good Thanksgiving.

A lot of people couldn't get together in town, and it's hard for them to cook and then deliver to peopLe.

So, they get our food, and a lot of people were delivering to their parents, or to their kids, because they couldn't get together for Thanksgiving.

So yeah, it's nice to take care of the town, 'cause they take care of us.

- People jumped on board to support us, take care of us, we're a family-owned place, and we cook food homemade.

This is a scratch kitchen.

Many, many days of prepping, finalizing, packing, puttin' it together, and glad it's over with now.

Salute.

(glasses clink) (accordion music) (gentle music) - So this is my lab, and this is where all the magic happens.

(robot beeps) As a child, when I think back, I was fascinated by robots.

I was so impressed by them, I always thought of them as something that can advance humanity, and take us to new horizons.

(upbeat synth music) - [Pepper] Hi Human, I am here to help you today.

(upbeat synth music) What brings you here today?

(upbeat synth music) I'm Arshia Khan.

I'm a full professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

I teach in the computer science department.

I was born and raised in Hyderabad, India.

Hyderabad.

Right there, Hyderabad.

I used to always say that I'm gonna leave India, I have to go to the US, always wanted to come to the US.

My aunt reminded me recently, she said, "Arshia, do you remember, even when you were little, "you would always say I'm going to America."

(Arshia laughs) I felt like physically I was born in India, but by heart, I was an American.

I felt like, as a female, I would have more freedom, I would have more freedom of choice, I would be able to do what I wanted to do without the restrictions, and the stereotyping, and little did I know that I would face some other kind of stereotyping.

(Arshia laughs) No, I never knew Minnesota, a little freezer, existed, on the edge of beautiful Lake Superior, yeah.

It's very difficult to immigrate to the US, very difficult, it's not easy at all, believe me.

I first came to New York, and that's where I did my Master's, and my husband was doing his residency there.

And then because we were on J-1 J-2 visa, he had to work in an area where no America wanted to work, which is Hayward, Wisconsin.

(Arshia laughs) But he loved it so much he stayed there, you know, so he still works there, how many years later, 19 years later.

During my Master's, I did computer engineering.

I did take some AI courses, and that did get more into the robotics area.

- [Pepper] Loading loving nurse program.

- And then my dad had a massive heart attack, and he had congestive heart failure, and he was struggling, and they placed an AICD in his chest.

And so, I was observing all these things, and realizing how much technology, electronics, can help human beings.

And at that time, I started exploring artificial hearts, because my dad needed one, and I realized that he wouldn't be alive 'til that technology was developed.

He didn't make it, he died a month before his 60th birthday.

But I wanted to take technology ahead, move it on, and I chose to come to UMD, and I've been able to do a lot of research here, I love it.

All right, so since you're going to start working on your final project, let's go around the room and find out who's where with the labs and stuff.

So, slowly I got into robotics, and the first robotic project was on helping people who've had open heart surgery get out of bed.

If somebody has had a cardiac event, they don't have the strength to get out of bed, so Baxter, the robot, is the robot that I used for that.

My student used to practice with a bag of rice, because we were afraid of putting a human there.

There's a very fine balance between lifting the person, and it depends on the weight of the person, and it has to be calibrated accurately, otherwise the person can get smacked on the wall rather than gently lifted out of the bed.

(Arshia laughs) (robot whirs) - [Student] So that's pretty much.

He's not really runnin' too well today.

- Most recent studies show that there's a strong connection between the heart and the brain.

People who have heart disease tend to have dementia as well, and especially if somebody has had a cardiac event, 25% of the people go on to have vascular dementia and other types of dementia.

So, that was the connecting point for me, that I think I need to do something with dementia, because I also have the fear that I might get dementia.

We have strong cardiac history, and so if I can help, that would be wonderful.

Introduce yourself.

- [Pepper] My name is Pepper.

- [Arshia] What are you driven to do?

- [Pepper] I am driven to help dementia patients.

- Do you know where you are?

- [Pepper] I work with Arshia Khan and her students at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

- [Arshia] What are you capable of?

- [Pepper] I have multiple sensors that can track and recognize objects and speech.

I have various actuators and motors that assist me in moving around and interacting with my environment.

Arshia and her student will use my sensors and actuators in programming me to help assist dementia patients.

- So today, most of my work is with dementia, using robotics to help people with dementia.

Think of it as a companion, a buddy, that is often telling them what to do, how to do, because if they are starting to forget, then the robot can be very helpful in reminding them of things.

For example, medication management.

It's an issue with people with dementia, because if you forget to take one of the medications, that can cause issues.

And especially during the pandemic, it's difficult for the nurses to approach the person with dementia, and so, this way we are preventing contact with another human.

But at the same time, there is some sort of social connection there.

I thought that robotics could bring to humanity that connection, that communication that we might miss, the gap that we might miss, the robots will be able to fill.

- [Pepper] I have a question for Arshia.

Why are people afraid of robots?

- Interesting.

People have misconceptions about robots, because they think that robots are capable of doing much more than they really are.

One time I took one of my robots to Kirby Student Center, and we put up a sign over there that said, "Would you like to take "this robot home today with you?"

One bowl was marked no, one bowl was marked yes.

And then we left some Post-it notes for people to write comments if they felt comfortable, they didn't have to.

77 of them said they would take the robot home with them, and then there was some negative comments that said, "The robots are going to destroy the world, "why are you doing this Satanic work?"

And stuff like that.

You know, like a computer can only do what you program it to do, same thing with the robot.

- [Robot] Yay!

- Whatever you program it to do is all it can do.

So, it really cannot take away the world, not yet.

(Arshia laughs) (gentle music) And there are just a handful of people who are afraid of people like me, and I genuinely hope that people don't get scared of me.

Because the person that I am is because of my background.

I am very proud to be a Muslim, there is no doubt about that.

I am proud to be female, in a computing field, at the cutting edge of innovation.

So, that is what I want them to see, instead of looking at some of the things that are not really true about me.

(gentle music) One time, I was coming back with my husband from Hayward, Wisconsin, and we were just turning into our house when the state trooper stopped us.

He came, walked up to us, and then he said, "What are you doing here?"

So we said, "We live there."

He couldn't believe that we lived there, and he said he called the border patrol on us.

My husband started to ask him questions, "Why are you holding us?"

Because my youngest one, she was five or six, and she needed to go to the bathroom, and she was restless.

I sort of tapped him on his chest and said, "It's okay, let it be, even if she goes in the car, "it's okay, we can clean up, because he might shoot you," because we were afraid he would shoot him, and he could say anything, you know, after that.

About 45 minutes later, he came back and he said, "It's okay, you can go now."

So turned out that the border patrol checked on us, and then said, "No, they are American citizens."

So, we complained, I wrote a letter to the State Department, the State Department came back saying that he saw foreign nationals in the car and he had the right to stop.

No apology, nothing.

So it's like, just because I look different, I don't look white, is that what it is?

So why did I look like a foreign national?

It made me think about the choice I made to come to the US.

I came here thinking that I would have that freedom, but unfortunately it was an awakening that you're never free.

(Arshia laughs) There are days when I'm really upset and sad.

But I wouldn't, if I went back, I would not make a different choice.

(gentle music) I always thought of myself as an American.

I would want others to think of me the same way, because this is the land of immigrants, and that's the beauty of America, we are great because of who we are.

The diversity is what makes America great, the diversity is what makes us the leader in every field.

(gentle music) There are days when I feel exhausted, but I love working with students, and of course, I need to be with my robots.

(Arshia laughs) Even now, when I'm sitting with my robots, I'm very happy, even if I'm upset about something, my robots just make me happy.

(Arshia laughs) And the next thing is because I'm working on, I got the BOLD Ideas grant, so I'm working on designing a dementia-friendly intelligent living space.

I've never done such a big study in my life before, so this is one of the biggest challenges.

(gentle music) Hopefully by middle of next week, we should have most of one room set up.

(gentle music) So we work like a large team, all the students and myself, and we are going to be starting our clinical trial very soon, I'm waiting for the approval.

It's a pretty bold idea, designing an intelligent living space for people with dementia.

So, they don't need to know any technology, the space itself will be intelligent.

So, let's say the person enters the house, there are sensors on the door that will monitor that somebody has entered.

So, the robot will come and approach and say, "Oh John, you haven't read the newspaper today, "would you like to read the newspaper today?"

And then the person can sit and chat, and the living room will be equipped with sensors, just monitoring, so that if the person accidentally falls, we will be able to detect a fall.

Yeah, so right now, the grant that I'm executing just is for one living room, but ultimately, the goal is to design the entire house that is intelligent.

Say John is going in, preparing some food, then the robot can remind, "Hey John, I think you forgot "to turn the stove off please.

"John, it's time for you to take a nap, "why don't you go take a nap?"

It is pretty overwhelming.

We took two weeks to just do a dry run.

The first time we tried the dry run, it was so challenging, we were like, "Oh my god, there's so many things "that are happening here."

- [Pepper] Thank you so much for participating in this study.

- Thank you.

- So the next thing we would like you to do is do those puzzles.

So Shawn, she's supposed to be saying all of this stuff.

Science is very messy, and there's so much trial and error in there, and there is so many hours and hours of work that goes into this.

- [Pepper] Great, you got it, and the colors match too.

- [Arshia] But we want the whole robot to be able to work in a dementia-friendly living space, independently.

And to get to that point, that will be a couple of years.

- [Pepper] That was fun.

- You know, as I grew up, I thought very few lucky people would get to work with robots.

I didn't realize I would have been one of those lucky people, and so, it's a dream come true.

For me, in my mind, I feel like we are born to invent.

I have to invent things.

And with robotics, there's a lot of innovation that can be done, and at the same time, I want my work to help the community, help people, and I feel robotics, and sensors, and the stuff that I do can help a lot of people.

(upbeat synth music) - [Pepper] Self destruct sequence initialized.

10.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

- Hey Pepper, shall I give you a hug?

- [Pepper] Of course!

(Arshia laughs) - [Shawn] Yeah.

- It said of course.

- [Announcer] "In This Place" is made possible by the Moving Lives Minnesota initiative of the Minnesota Public Television Association, and supported by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(gentle music)