Her Vang -Historian Post-doctoral Fellow in Hmong Studies at the UofM

A link to an hour long video with Her Vang touching on many topics about the Hmong community.  

Minneapolis 81 is a blog that takes you through the history, sights, and gems of the different neighborhoods in Minneapolis that for the casual passerby would otherwise go missed.  I think it’s a great project and a good resource for an out of towner interested in exploring the city or a local person wanting to learn more in depth about the place they grew up in.  

The only criticism I have, is that I dislike the way the posts are made.  So far, when focusing on one particular neighborhood, the blogger is jamming a lot of information into one long blog post, tiring for a reader to digest.  The information would be more easily digested if posted about one topic or place at a time per blog post, then tagged accordingly as “Loring Park Cafes under Loring Park, or Powderhorn Park historical sights under Powderhorn Park, or Northeast Art Galleries under Northeast”, so later, the reader can leisurely peruse through specific things they’d like to see or learn about when they click on the Neighborhood links instead of having to scan through the entire post.  

That would also allow for more or new information about the particular neighborhood to be expanded on freely and organically through individual submissions from all locals in the area instead of from just one or two official tour guides.  Community involvement indeed.  Honestly I just want everything on the internet to be organized like tumblr, quora, twitter, the fluid freedom of these social sites makes sense, feels like flying or swimming.  An extension of communication and community that’s so fuckin natural. 

This Minneapolis men’s fashion blog popped up over the summer.  The first thing I noticed, were that the models, for the most part, are people of colour. It’s 2012, and you’d think something like that wouldn’t feel so novel, but, yes, it is novel. It’s refreshing to see people of colour in photos and fashion.

I love this article.  It’s sooooooooo true. I’ve been complaining about this for a year and 6 months now.  I gave it a valiant effort the first year back in Minneapolis to make new friends and socialize, but the fact is, you can’t change longstanding culture. 

I was telling a friend, that being back in Minnesota and dealing with the stonewalling (the group-oriented culture here)….well, it’s actually a hella lot like Japan. In response, my friend mentioned that a Japanese colleague of his who worked in Minnesota for a time, had those exact sentiments about Minnesotans. Validation, ya’ll, I knew I wasn’t crazy! If you want to experience Japaneseness without leaving the United States, just come on over to Minnesota for a few months and you shall see. 

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. I’ve monitored my behavior over the year and noticed that incrementally I’m turning Japanese-I mean Minnesotan. This troubles me, yet, at the same time, it’s inevitable. In another year, I may officially become a hermit in the woods.