March 24, 2004 - MPR’s Chris Roberts interviews Honeydogs founder and songwriter Adam Levy about bands’ CD “10,000 Years," a concept album which tells a futuristic story while examining society's ills. Levy says the main inspiration came from his day job. He's a social worker in St. Paul.
March 26, 2004 - A new play at the Children's Theatre Company (CTC) portrays the tension and occasional conflict between Somali immigrants and Black-Americans. "Snapshot Silhouette" examines this cultural clash through the eyes of two 12-year-old girls, one Somali, one Black-American. One of the CTC's goals is to help launch a dialogue between the two communities in the Twin Cities. Minnesota Public Radio's Chris Roberts reports.
April 5, 2004 - A Voices of Minnesota broadcast with two businessmen. Edger Hetteen is one of the inventors of the snowmobile, and at 83 he's still developing new products for his northern Minnesota company. Banker Jim Campbell is the retired chief executive officer of Wells Fargo Bank Minnesota and now co-chair of a major Twin Cities study group made up of other CEO's.
April 15, 2004 - Immigrants to the U.S. often arrive with a tremendous hope for a new life as well as a deep sense of loss for the one left behind. Those themes, plus culture clash and the resilience of youth, are at the center of the play "Snapshot Silhouette." A product of the Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis, the play has for the past month been providing Twin Cities students a glimpse of what life is like for some of the region's newest immigrants. It is built around two twelve year old girls, one Somali and one African-American who, as circumstances have it, find themselves living together in the same Minnesota home.
April 16, 2004 - Hour 2 of Midday: A Voices of Minnesota broadcast with two remarkable women. Sabina Zimering, a Polish Jew, survived the Holocaust during World War II while literally working under the noses of the Gestapo. She wrote a book about her experiences, and now it's a play at the Great American History Theatre in St. Paul. Also, Hyun Sook Han, who survived the Japanese occupation of Korea during World War II and lived through the Korean War as well. She's a retired children's home society social worker, and she'll be honored on April 29th and May 1st for her work.
April 20, 2004 - It's unlikely that very many people in Somalia have read the novels of Nuruddin Farah, partly because Somalia remains largely an oral society, but also because Farah was exiled from the country after writing about African dictatorships in a trilogy of novels. Farah is increasingly read outside of Somalia though, and many call him the best writer Africa has produced. He's in the Twin Cities to talk about "Links" his latest work that draws on modern Somalia's history of terror, clan violence, decimated cities, corruption, and conflicting family relations. Despite that list of negatives in his country's everyday life, Farah says he writes to "keep Somalia alive" in the minds of other immigrants, and in the eyes of the world.
April 30, 2004 - In recent years, Minnesotans have placed increased emphasis on multiculturalism. Still, there's one group that often feels lost in the deluge of diversity. Deaf advocates say Minnesota's non-hearing community is three times as large as some other communities, but they say few people recognize its significant contributions to the culture. As Minnesota's Public Radio's Nikki Tundel found out, an exhibit at St. Paul's aND gallery is hoping to change that.
May 6, 2004 - MPR’s Chris Roberts profiles Coach Said Not To, a Minneapolis rock foursome that deliberately tries to defy categorization. Roberts interviews members Lee Violet and Eva Mohn about the thinking person's rock band.
May 13, 2004 - Flyte Tyme, the hit producing Edina-based recording studio run by Jimmy Jam Harris and Terry Lewis, is relocating to Los Angeles. Roberts reports on how the news is being received in the Twin Cities, and the legacy Harris and Lewis are leaving.
May 21, 2004 - MPR’s Laura McCallum profiles Cy Thao, a legislator and artist, who has an exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "The Hmong Migration" is a series of fifty oil paintings by Thao, and represent the unfolding of 5,000 years of Hmong history. Thao said he feels an obligation to tell the Hmong story, and to preserve it for generations.