Bella Haveman

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written for a Writing for Social Change class at Bethel University as part of a package with a Q&A with clinical psychologist and professor Angela Sabates.}

COVID-19 was hard. I remember the world shutting down. I lost my job, friends, and the rest of my high school experience. I never walked and held my diploma until it was mailed to me a month into summer. There were no graduation parties or celebratory dinners. Just Zoom meetings and email threads. I was so bus

The drum beats pound, matching the energy within the room as Ali Olanda Olivia walks in, her bare feet making contact with the cold concrete floor. The dancers make a circle around three wooden drums, the drummers striking them with wooden rods. Each dancer rocks to the beat, moving from foot to foot and jumping with synchronized precision. Olanda Olivia wraps her wrists, waist and head with red fabric, and jumps in, matching each movement with practiced ease. Mexica Aztec Danza happens every Tu

From tradition to the runway, trailblazer Delina White celebrates her Native culture through fashion. ‘I’m living my dream’ Delina White stood behind a standing rack of clothing, sifting through her designs for the night as anticipation swirled in the air backstage at Quincy Hall event venue in Northeast Minneapolis. Models slipped into their Victorian gothic-themed designs while makeup artists airbrushed once-bare faces. A white fold-up table was stacked with red Gatorade, Dunkin’ Donuts coffee

Starr Chief Eagle stood in front of a crowd of onlookers as a drum beat began to swell from the large speakers behind her. She readied her body, preparing to reach for the first of 22 hoops that lay interlaced in front of her.

Chief Eagle had purchased a new red dress and flown from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to Arden Hills, Minnesota, earlier that day to stand in front of the quieting crowd at diversity block party. Children, college students and adults waited underneath a stai