A peace tree was commemorated on October 18, 2021, Indigenous People’s Day, to honor the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two Spirits (MMIWG2S) of Wisconsin. Indigenous People’s Day celebrates Indigenous culture while also educating on the historical inaccuracies that have come along with Columbus Day. This event brought together many people from the Fox Valley and surrounding communities, showing support for the local Native communities of Wisconsin. The peace tree is a white pine from the Menominee Forest, generously donated by the Menominee people. This tree stands tall in our community and was planted adjacent to Ellen Kort Peace Park near the banks of the Fox River below downtown Appleton. This tree serves as a reminder of how we can better treat each other and the land.
The event was live-streamed and recorded. If you missed the live event, you can watch the recording on Facebook here.
On the evening of Thursday, August 25, The League of Women Voters of Appleton hosted keynote speaker Elaine Weiss, author of the highly acclaimed narrative history The Woman’s hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote.
An accomplished storyteller, Ms. Weiss riveted the well-informed audience with details and photos, allowing them to feel that they almost were present. For three generations the suffragettes persisted, continuing to organize even after repeated failures and, for many years, lacking even the telephone (invented in 1876).
The campaign began with the 1848 Seneca Falls convention, at which Frederick Douglass was the only man to express support. Through a world pandemic, a civil and world war, numerous failed state campaigns, court battles and petitions to Congress, it culminated in marches and protests (which resulted in some arrests, imprisonment, and force-feeding), that led to the Nineteenth Amendment:
Please meet Cainan Davenport, otherwise known as K the Barber. He and his friend Michael Linwood own Taperz, a family-oriented barber shop located almost on the corner of College Avenue and Richmond Street in Appleton. K had some free time, which is rare fpr such a busy man, and gave me a few minutes so I could ask him about his thriving business and about how he uses his business to serve our community.
How long have you and your friend, Wood, owned Taperz barbershop? What kind of services do you offer there?
We’ve been in business for a little over three years. Basically, we cut all races, ethnicity, and genders. We have created a comfortable “old school” environment where our customers can come to talk, laugh and get a great haircut.
We are open Tuesday through Saturday from 10-6. Our busiest time of day is every day, all day. Every time we are in the shop, we are pretty much busy.
You not only run a successful business but you use your space to invite neighbors to the shop on Sunday afternoons to discuss issues and just be together. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
On Friday, July 16, I along with other ESTHER members went to Marinette in support of the Coalition to Save the Menominee River. This event was inspiring and allowed me to hear the stories of those who are working diligently to protect the river.
The extractive industry is a threat to wildlife, the surrounding environment, and Native communities. The extractive industry brings violence to Native communities and exacerbates the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Being at this event, I heard from people who are working specifically on this issue and how I can get more involved. This is my biggest passion, and it felt reaffirming hearing from people who care just as much as I do.
If we are looking for ways to better protect the environment, we need to listen to Indigenous communities such as the Menominee. Indigenous communities have been protecting and healing the land for many years. Their relationship with the land provides the best template for how we can move forward and heal the land and ourselves.
It was such an honor to witness a water blessing done by five generations of Menominee women. They mentioned how in their community, women are the water protectors. Women have a sacred connection with the water as the womb holds life-giving water. That relationship with the water is so beautiful and is just one of the many reasons why the Menominee River needs to be protected.
This year the ESTHER board nominated Steve Hirby for the Celebrating Volunteers Janet Berry Award. While another worthy volunteer was selected, ESTHER would like to recognize Steve for everything he has done and continues to do for our organization. Steve’s dedication and his expertise in not only fundraising but also data management have been instrumental in our ability to thrive as an organization. Steve is a visionary and an organizing member of the board. He has a standing position on the board and the executive team not just as a representative of his faith community or a task force but because he is … Steve.
As part of the nomination process, we asked people from three other organizations to write letters of support and their response was immediate and positive. Pastor Steve Savides (First Congregational United Church of Christ) wrote about there being no one more “beloved or respected” than Steve in the church, Pastor Jane Anderson wrote about ways Steve has been instrumental in helping the Wisconsin Conference of the United Church of Christ re-envision itself and position itself for the future, and Maren Peterson, Executive Director of NAMI, wrote about ways Steve has been a “lifeline of hope” for hundreds of individuals and families in the Fox Valley. All spoke to his kindness, open mindedness, patience and keen intelligence.
Steve exemplifies the spirit of the Janet Berry Award. He truly is “A volunteer who has made great strides in his efforts to impact positive change in the Fox Valley, by creating, working for, and donating to a local community organization, and [his] efforts through time, resources, and influence – have been paramount to the success not only of [ESTHER] but also in building a just community.” We were very proud to nominate Steve Hirby for the Janet Berry Award.
Look into the eyes of a mother…who faces the agonizing decision of choosing between her children. One, who made the difficult decision to leave his homeland, Mexico, in search of an escape from poverty. The others, who chose to stay and try to eke out a living in a country whose poverty rate escalates, as does the cost of living, due to their policies, and ours. Either decision she makes, she loses a child.
In this case, she chose to come to America, facing the untold terrors of crossing a border and coming to a strange and often unfriendly land. She joins her son and struggles everyday to make a living and send money back to her family. She has not seen her beloved son and daughter for years; she does not dare return to Mexico and they, like most Mexicans, cannot get a visa even to visit her here. She does not see her children, her mother or her brothers, and knows that she may not see them, ever again.
I’ve looked into her eyes and, as a mother, felt her grief as she celebrated Mother’s Day. When you look into her eyes, thank whatever higher power you believe in that you were fortunate enough to be born here, where you don’t have to make decisions that break your heart, and realize that it is indeed only fortune that separates you from her. Look into her eyes when you think about how we will solve the issue of immigration. I hope you can feel compassion for her and urge our politicians to make just and fair decisions as they ponder this issue; decisions that will no longer tear families apart but allow paths to citizenship for those already here and opportunities for their loved ones to join them.
Lizette Bailey, of Waqsecewan Indigenous Catering, will cook you anything you want, and you will absolutely love it. Her specialty is Pre-contact Indigenous food, the foods that Native Americans prepared before everyone came over to North America. She states, “I serve vegans, vegetarians and anyone with any type of allergy. I make any kind of food. Italian, Asian, Pub Grub…you name it.”
Wāqsecewan (pronounced: Watah-Chee-Win) means: “Flows Bright” or “Bright Flowing Water.” A more specific description is, “How the light is so sparkly on top of flowing water.” She is Turtle Clan of the Menominee.
Wāqsecewan (Lizette) wants to reopen her catering business. She wants to do it safely, by serving smaller parties in a socially distanced manner. She says, “I love it when I cater an event and when I share a story about the food that was prepared. When people are eating, there is a smile. It is so important.”
Wāqsecewan can be reached either by phone or email: 715-851-9501 • waqsecewancooks@gmail.com. Give her a call. Miigwech!
—Jill Smith
Read her story (and a recipe) in her own words below.
Sometimes my two worlds, as a science fiction writer and political activist, run into each other. Or deal with the same problem. Right now, one of those is these is the idea of hope for the future. It's easy to think of things going wrong. In writing that's called, Dystopia. It's fairly easy to think of those ideas. But both the Christian idea of "The Beloved Community" and writing Utopian fiction requires thinking of things getting better in the world where we really live. Can we imagine that? We need to.
What if the food pantry closed, not because there were no volunteers but because there were no people that needed it? What if all the charities that send clothes and food and medical supplies overseas weren't needed? What if we didn't need to advocate for fair trade because the people making the clothes could easily find out how much they were sold for? What if instead of just trying to ensure equal access to limited resources we could have all the resources we needed? What would it look like if everyone had access to medical care and education? What would that world look like?
Our world is set up on the idea of scarcity. Whether it's people trying to make sure they have a monopoly on technology or their children to get to go to a better school or even that antique store that tells us that these items might be the only Pairpoint lamp or piece of artwork we'll ever see. This idea of scarcity is at the root of much of the world's evils. If we see that resources are few, we want those for our family, tribe or race. Soon we hate those we pushed aside. We fear that they will do to us what we have done to them.
There is one secret that breaks our world of scarcity apart. There is enough. Enough food, enough clothes, enough medicine. Maybe there always has been enough. We just have to live as though there is enough. What does that look like? Maybe it's the beloved community. Maybe it's Utopia. But the best way to get there is to live as though we are already there.
If there is plenty, we can ask ourselves, do I need that tool, dress, clock? After all, if I need it, I can always get it later. Do I need a lawnmower or could I burrow it from a friend? One less thing to clutter up a garage. We need to figure out what we really need to own if we don't have to worry about, "What if I need it later?"
Ask yourself are you living the way you want to live? Or the way you think you have to live? The World is waiting for your answer.
It was a shocking vote at last week’s Common Council meeting (4/21/21), when the Council sent back to committee the resolution addressing the increase in xenophobic, anti-Asian attacks in our country and the City of Appleton. After the courageous speaking out, especially by elders and then others, of the Hmong community – sharing their gut-wrenching experiences of fear after threats and harassment, the vote was in the hands of those who listened but did not hear.
A need that we all have when dealing with racism is to get out of our heads and into our hearts and the hearts of others. It is a letting-go experience. We need to respect the authors of the resolution that reflected the study, research, and words exposing the unsettling truths that give rise to fear in the Asian community. And yet some members of the Council offered intellectualizations to justify their opposition rather than to hear the trauma of the Asian community and to undestand the reasons why. Based on comments, tears and overall impressions given by members of the Hmong community after the meeting, they received the message that the Council would not support them in their fears.
Who are we to say that they need to ask for our support in a better way? Compassion, compassion, compassion.
Almost lost in the news of the gut-wrenching testimonies in the death of George Floyd is the equally horrific increase by 150% in the attacks and killings within our beloved Asian community in the past year. The killings of Asian women in Atlanta and the brutal attack on an elderly Asian woman on the streets of New York are only recent examples of this ongoing tragedy in our midst. Members of the Asian community in the Fox Cities are being harrassed as well.
And then there is the plight of the high percentage of missing and/or murdered indigenous women. Mark Charles, indigenous author of Unsettling Truths, adapted a diagnosis from psychologist Rachel McNair, who says that some perpetrators of crime suffer from Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stess (PITS). Charles suggests that we as a country suffer from the same trauma, a subconscious guilt after four-hundred years of genocide and slavery, and don’t even realize it.
How long will it take for us to face our denial as a nation? Growth in this consciousness within our community will occur when we are willing to face reality and see ourselves as part of our national systemic racism. We as members of ESTHER encourage all of us to realize that we can no longer consider ourselves to be “innocent bystanders” to what is happening in America today. Last week, Ron, a young South Korean, asked that we “be self-aware, speak up, ask questions, be genuine and have respect for everyone.”
On the evening of Thursday, August 25, The League of Women Voters of Appleton hosted keynote speaker Elaine Weiss, author of the highly acclaimed narrative history The Woman’s hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote.
Please meet Cainan Davenport, otherwise known as K the Barber. He and his friend Michael Linwood own Taperz, a family-oriented barber shop located almost on the corner of College Avenue and Richmond Street in Appleton. K had some free time, which is rare fpr such a busy man, and gave me a few minutes so I could ask him about his thriving business and about how he uses his business to serve our community.
On Friday, July 16, I along with other ESTHER members went to Marinette in support of the Coalition to Save the Menominee River. This event was inspiring and allowed me to hear the stories of those who are working diligently to protect the river.
Lizette Bailey, of Waqsecewan Indigenous Catering, will cook you anything you want, and you will absolutely love it. Her specialty is Pre-contact Indigenous food, the foods that Native Americans prepared before everyone came over to North America. She states, “I serve vegans, vegetarians and anyone with any type of allergy. I make any kind of food. Italian, Asian, Pub Grub…you name it.”
