- Oh, are you gonna smile now, can I get a smile?

We've lost so many people in our community, and especially youth, due to the pollution in this area.

It's hard burying your child.

You know, it's not natural, especially if it can be helped.

The fact that we have to fight just to live and to live healthy, to be able to breathe, to be able to drink good water, the fact that we have to fight for that, that's environmental racism.

(instrumental music) (Cassandra speaking Anishinaabe language) - My native name is Four Bears Woman, also known as per Cassandra Holmes.

We are in Little Earth of United Tribes where I've lived most of my life.

Little Earth is a unique, one of a kind, Indian-preference housing in an urban area.

It's the only one in the country that's off of a reservation.

We make up like a third of East Phillips, one of the most diverse communities in South Minneapolis.

It's a really active community, but we're also the most polluted community.

- Our soil was contaminated, we were putting toxins into our bodies.

- The Arsenic Triangle is something I actually learned as an adult.

And I didn't know I grew up in an area that was considered a Superfund site.

East Phillips was covered in arsenic.

Our soil was so full of arsenic, that people had to come in and clean it up in the whole East Phillips community.

Like literally wearing white suits, come in to scoop up our yards and our soil and haul it away and bring in fresh soil.

(instrumental music) - Will you help me with this one?

It's really sad that we still have to fight for our people's lives because people get sick due to the pollution in this community.

I myself have lost a son.

He was 16.

But he was 14 when he was diagnosed with a heart condition he wasn't born with.

And then my neighbor who also grew up in Little Earth with me, she's my best friend.

Her daughter, 21 years old, just had her second child.

Went to the hospital, wasn't feeling good.

The next day she was gone.

And it was from a heart condition that she was not born with.

And we also lost another young lady, a young adult to asthma, heart condition, diabetes.

It's like another form of genocide.

That's Trinidad in that picture with the red phone, the one who passed away.

Like how many parents are gonna help bury their kids, you know?

Why do we have to fight so hard?

Just to live and that's our human right, you know?

(instrumental music) I have a lot of young people who asked me, after our last Trini, a lot of his friends were like, "How do you get up every day?

How do you do it?"

And it's like, I always tell them, "Baby steps."

I believe that's resilience.

Getting up every day, you know, taking them baby steps, moving to do what's right.

Not only for us right now, but for the future and for everyone, not just the people close to you.

Our youth, their lives are at stake.

They're still getting up, they're going to school, they're asking questions, very vocal too, they're not shy.

And when they started realizing why we're fighting so hard, they were like, "We wanna go to a community meeting."

They want to tell them themselves how important they were.

Well, there's always hope that we will have a good future.

We hope to have you know, green education, green training, green jobs, green living here at Little Earth.

We plan to have it here at our Little Earth Farm where we're at today.

In the Farm here, we hired our kids.

So we had some kids that needed to work, they wanted to make money for school clothes.

And it was so successful.

We had started off with like maybe 20 plus kids and every year it's grown and this year we had 70 plus kids apply to work in the Farm, to farm, to clean.

We had kids eating vegetables and fruits, you know like that they've grown.

Do what they love, get close to the Earth.

Learn the stories that go with planting and certain trees and medicines.

To be able to have food.

When George Floyd was murdered and all of our stores were burned down, we had elders who didn't have access to food, they didn't have transportation.

So our Farm bagged up so much fruits and vegetables.

The kids were able to drop them off to our relatives here and all of East Philips, not just Little Earth.

This is just a little vision of what the bigger vision is.

(instrumental music) Resilience is very strong in our community, and in our people.

Our ancestors fought so hard to give us the little bit we have.

We need to make sure we keep fighting, keep fighting to make sure we have that and more for our future.

I'm blessed to be raised with such powerful people in my life, and especially powerful women that show what warrior women, tough women, strong women look like for our communities.

I have a voice that I'm not afraid to use.

And I use it.

I know I'm not powerful just as myself, but I have a whole community that really believes in me.

And I always ask, like, "Am I doing the right thing?"

And if they tell me I'm doing the right thing, then I'm always gonna be that voice.

Our ancestors loved us and we didn't exist yet, but they knew we were going to exist.

Those are amazing, strong words that I think that we should all live by.

Because this is a old story.

You know, what are we gonna leave for our kids?