'We are stubbornly OK': A Somali Minneapolis artist on resilience during ICE surge

KELLY GORDON: This is Minnesota Now. I'm Kelly Gordon in today for Nina Moini. Hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans are experiencing the ice surge in hundreds of thousands of ways. One Minneapolis artist took the spotlight that President Trump thrust on the state's Somali American community as an opportunity to share what it's like to be and create art as a Somali Minnesotan right now.

She published an essay about it in the national publication Hyperallergic. Her essay is titled "On Being a Somali Artist in Minnesota." Ifrah Mansour is a multimedia artist, and she's with me right now to check in. Hello, Ifrah. Thanks for joining me.

IFRAH MANSOUR: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Kelly.

KELLY GORDON: Yeah, I want to start by asking you-- this is like a loaded question in Minnesota today, but how you're doing and what the last couple of months has looked like for you.

IFRAH MANSOUR: Thank you so much for asking me. I have been saying this often, that we are stubbornly OK. Yeah, there's something about being presently alive in this moment. It feels both historic, both presently, if that even makes sense.

KELLY GORDON: You're saying, living in this moment, you're aware of the day-to-day and also the fact that history will have its eye on this?

IFRAH MANSOUR: Absolutely. It's a moment that we will be forever shaped and marked. But there's something magical that's also happening. There is an eruption of kindness. There is a resilience. I was describing this to a friend that lives outside of Minnesota. And I was like, Minnesota is literally falling in love with its strength, with its resilience. And it's beautiful the world is also witnessing that.

I'm grateful that there is a lot of people that are vocalizing and capturing the violence that is taking place in our lives. It truly seems that the trauma is unwavering. But I love that the resilience and our strength in Minnesota is also unwavering. We are stubbornly OK.

KELLY GORDON: Stubbornly OK is a wonderful way to say it. Your essay is so beautiful. We're going to link to the whole thing on our website if people want to read it. But I want listeners right now to get a feel for it. So can you read me an excerpt?

IFRAH MANSOUR: Let's see. "There was a time when the morning bus felt like a possibility. Now it feels like an unanswered question. Will someone you love be asked to explain themselves before they make it home?

Violence has a way of turning a familiar place into a guarded ground. And yet I think about kindness, the way strangers once helped me when I was lost. And I ask what has not been taken, but what we will continue to build from what remains.

We are people whom violence try to erase in our first home. And now we are here in our new home. And violence is trying to erase us once again. So we are unwavering. We remain generous, kind, and ourselves.

We have tasted the beauty of peace. And because we have known it, we are unwavering in our resilience and in our divine belonging. We sit in stillness, cocooned in the snow. We take refuge in our ability to be with one another in relationship to this second home that has chosen us.

We remind ourselves that we are worthy of peace, of belonging, of dignity. We remain steadfast. As an artist, as a Somali, as an American, I ask myself what my role is in this moment. I'm not here to perform grief. I'm here to simply witness, to stay strong, to stand strong.

Our greatest asset has always been our ability to build, to bring life to ourselves and to those around us. We live both unafraid and brave because we must. The world is getting to know us today. And when tomorrow comes, kindness will too."

KELLY GORDON: Ifrah, it's so beautiful. And honestly, it makes me feel the emotions of this moment, which I think is what good art does. [LAUGHS] When we're being overwhelmed by the events and the facts and the news, art gives us space to process. So I have to ask you as an artist, what does that standing strong look like for you as a Somali artist, too?

IFRAH MANSOUR: Standing strong in this time just means being in service to our community, showing up where you are most needed, which sometimes could just be really being with people, listening. It's almost like I've been telling people that some of us are on somewhat of a listening retreat because the gift of just listening to someone else, it is absolutely immense in this time. There's so much that your presence just communicates, that you're choosing to say that this is my home. It will be my home.

These bullies, they will leave my home. And we're standing up to care and to clean, to witness. Because I do feel like there used to be this narrative about immigrants, that we are essentially a transient, and we're just waiting to go back somewhere else. But Minnesota is our home.

KELLY GORDON: In fact, you wrote about that. You said in your essay that right now, the world is getting to know Somali refugees from a deeply stigmatized place. So I would love to flip that and ask, how do you want the world to get to know you and your family's culture, even in this really traumatic spotlight moment?

IFRAH MANSOUR: I think there's so much beauty that is still not known about the Somalis. I love that there's so much food that is being given at where people are gathering right now. I used to have a hard time explaining to my American friends why there are always like a guest in our house.

Our house literally felt like a hotel because there was this deep practice of generosity and caring for one another in the Somali community. I've always just felt like I had 50 family members, but it was just like relatives that needed up a place to crash, relatives that were receiving a medical care, maybe in Minnesota, these small, beautiful cultural practices, Kelly, that I feel like that are maybe being shown right now.

The fact that people are serving sambusa at protest is just so beautifully resilient. And one thing that I love about Minnesota is like all immigrant communities, we have figured it out a way to create care where care was missing.

KELLY GORDON: You even started your essay with a story about visiting Minnesota as a teenager a few years after you arrived as a refugee from Somalia, which really gave a snapshot of what Minnesota means to you. Do you want to tell that story a little bit and why it's important to you?

IFRAH MANSOUR: Absolutely. And I knew I was just a terrified teenager. I remember just being bored in the suburbs, and just I was-- people have glamorized the city to me. This is way back in the day when I didn't have a phone. So imagine the only bag that I had money, even my relatives' phone numbers were in there.

So I was completely distraught. I remember these complete strangers coming to my aid. I was just really amazed at how caring they were towards me. And this is something like-- there's so many stories in where you see people stranded in a blizzard, and a lot of people stop.

Kindness, it is baked into our Minnesota culture. I'm so grateful to have traveled for work now. And I've gotten lost so many times. And I did not receive the same reception, Kelly. I was just like, where are my fellow Minnesotans? Where are they?

And the other beautiful thing is we are a state who learns from all the horrid, terrible things that has happened to us. There are all of these support groups that were started when Philando Castile was killed, when George Floyd was killed. All of these groups, truth tellers, community caregivers, all of these groups that were formed have stayed in relationships. And now there's this beautiful eruption of care and kindness.

KELLY GORDON: Yeah, well, thank you so much for making the time today, Ifrah. And I would just encourage people to go online. Of course, we'll link to the essay that we're referring to but also to look at your other art.

It's so beautifully, I think, depicts what Minnesota means to you. And people will just love to see your different pieces that have been done, in addition to plays and all sorts of other things that you do as a multimedia artist. So thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today.

IFRAH MANSOUR: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Kelly.

KELLY GORDON: Yeah, that was Minneapolis multimedia artist Ifrah Mansour.