As red sand filled the cracks along the sidewalks in front of the Electa Quinney Institute for American Indian Education on the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus, community members stood in quiet solidarity as drums beat. 

The pouring of red sand marked another year of remembrance and healing for missing and murdered Indigenous women and relatives, referred to as MMIWR.

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The symbolic act of pouring sand was part of the HIR Wellness Institute’s ninth annual Community Activated Medicine & Red Sand Events on Nov. 14. HIR Wellness, located at 3136 W. Kilbourn Ave., was founded in 2017 by Leah Denny, who serves as CEO. The organization provides a range of free mental health, wellness services and additional programming for the Indigenous community.

The Electa Quinney Institute, where the event was held, was founded in 2010 to support the Native American community on campus at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Started in 2017, the event has provided a sacred space for community grief and collective healing in honor of MMIWR through art, storytelling and community care.

Each year, the HIR Wellness Institute collaborates with the Red Sand Project to host the event. The Red Sand Project was designed to raise public awareness about human trafficking and modern slavery, using the red sand to represent those who have fallen through systemic cracks. 

A person walks down a path in between posters that have statistics about missing and murdered Indigenous women. One poster stated that 45.6% of American Indians/Alaska Native women in Wisconsin have experienced sexual violence.
Analia Ninham, a member of Daughters of Tradition, an Indigenous youth group at the HIR Wellness Institute, offers attendees a cleansing sage.
Malia Chow blows into a conch shell in all four cardinal directions as part of a Native Hawaiian tradition.
The RedNationBoyz, a Milwaukee-based youth and community drum group, performs.
Marla Mahkimetas, a Menominee water educator and artist, speaks about losing her daughter-in-law to human trafficking and her family’s healing journey since.

“Trauma is not a life sentence.”

Marla Mahkimetas

Dr. Jeneile Luebke, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing, speaks to attendees about her research on gender-based violence in the Indigenous community.

“We got to cry and say her name.”

Malia Chow 

Malia Chow, community healer with the HIR Wellness Institute, speaks about losing her twin sister to violence.
Shanna Hickman and her daughter, Ziraya Sunn, listen to a woman tell the story of how their sister was killed due to domestic violence.
Hanna Jennings, an intern with the HIR Wellness Institute, hands out a bag containing red sand, tissues and community resources.
The RedNationBoyz, led by one of the founders, Isiah Nahwahquaw (second from left), performs.
Monique Valentine writes the name Anacaona, a ruler of Jaragua (modern day Haiti), who was executed by the Spanish in 1503 and has become a symbol of Indigenous resistance.
Flower Harms pours red sand from the Red Sand Project, which was started by Molly Gochman in 2014 to bring awareness to human trafficking and modern slavery.
Red sand fills a crack during the ninth annual Community Activated Medicine & Red Sands Event.
Rachel Fernandez, co-chair of the Wisconsin Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Relatives Task Force, pours red sand along a crack in the sidewalk.

Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

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Jonathan Aguilar is a photojournalist as well as a Report for America corps member and Catchlight Local fellow. Before coming to Milwaukee, he spent two years as a photographer at one of America’s oldest daily newspapers, The Blade, in Toledo, Ohio. Aguilar grew up in the Chicago suburbs. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from DePaul University and his master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism.