Nicole Perez: Native people will not be silenced
STAR TRIBUNE OPINION EXCHANGE — FEBRUARY 27, 2023
By Nicole Perez
The demolition of the Roof Depot site is about pollution, but it's also about listening to Indigenous voices.
Last week, members of the Little Earth Defenders and the American Indian Movement began a ceremonial occupation of the Roof Depot site in East Phillips, where Minneapolis wants to build a new Public Works building ("Move ahead with Roof Depot project," editorial, Feb. 25). I was there at dawn, with my daughter and granddaughter. And I was there that night, when police surrounded us to evict our peaceful camp and try to silence the voices of Indigenous people ("Activists ousted from city site," Feb. 22).
I'm not a protester, and I've never done anything like this before. I'm just a grandmother who believes our children deserve a healthy environment.
Air pollution leads to asthma, diabetes, heart disease, strokes, dementia and even death. But these aren't just words to us in Little Earth. Our people see every day what happens when you grow up with arsenic, lead and air pollution all around you.
My 3-year-old granddaughter has asthma. My daughter has diabetes. Others have severe asthma, COPD and heart disease. My best friend has diabetes; she had a heart attack three years ago, and now she's in the hospital for an infected foot. Because her heart isn't functioning the way it should, she needs to get part of her foot amputated. She's only 47 years old and she has three kids under 18. What would they do if something happened to her? This is what the pollution already in East Phillips has done to us.
Thousands of cars and trucks go by Little Earth every day on Hiawatha, I-94, Cedar and Franklin. The land was poisoned by decades of arsenic from a pesticide plant. Men in hazmat suits cleaned up the soil around our homes — the same soil that's still under the Roof Depot. Two factories spew out pollution next door. Black soot is on our windows.