Project: MNT Intern Interviews

Minnesota Transform has placed over a hundred undergraduate and graduate student interns and fellows across community organizations and University departments doing social justice projects in the humanities. Our community partners include local arts and advocacy organizations, as well as public schools and higher education institutions in Minnesota. In the Fall of 2021, MNT collaborator Andrea Manolov interviewed a handful of MNT interns about their experiences working on projects such as contributing to the creation of local history exhibition on school segregation, relationship building across decolonial campus mapping projects, community programming for artist development, and much more.

Graduate student Carissa Thomas supported the creation of Separate Not Equal: The Hale-Field Pairing, an exhibition at the Hennepin History Museum which explored the history of activism against segregation in the public school system.

Fa’aumu Kaimana is a graduate student in the Anthropology department. She has been working with the Decolonial Mapping Project to create an Indigenous-focused digital campus tour.

Ibrahim Hirsi interned for the Sahan Journal, documenting stories from the Twin Cities African community on the effects that the COVID-19 pandemic had on them.

Minnesota Transform partners with Minnesota Youth Story Squad to support undergraduate students in internships focused on racial justice with youth in public high school and middle schools. MYSS undergraduate interns lead workshops on racial, environmental, and social justice through art and media projects with Minneapolis Public School youth as mentors in the classroom.

Samantha Schwartz worked with Jewish Community Action, conducting research on police abolitionism.