MANKATO — Jessica Potter knew changes were heading her way in 2025, as the executive director of the Blue Earth County Historical Society weighed growing challenges set forward by the Trump administration.
“By the end of 2025, we received notice from our County Board of a 10% cut across the board,” Potter recalled, as federal cuts and that philosophical federal shift hit Minnesota county budgets. The historical society, a nonprofit, is not a county department but receives grants from the county.
Even more cuts are possible, said Potter, who had to eliminate one full-time position at the BECHS. “It will be a long time before we hire another staff person.”
But beyond the financial picture, Potter and others at a Minnesota Public Radio News forum on Wednesday spoke openly about the importance of history professionals holding firm to their mission.
“The work we do matters,” Potter said. “This has been my job for 25 years and there’s always been dark days. But there’s always been sunny days, too.”
Still, this past year was different, Potter admitted. “Our world is a little on fire right now.”
In response to these monumental changes, Angela Davis of MPR News facilitated the session “North Star Journey Live: Erasing Minnesota History.” The forum partnered with the annual conference of the Minnesota Alliance for Local History Museums at the Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center this week.
Davis, host of “MPR News with Angela Davis,” questioned Potter, and three other history and museum professionals for the live taping, which is expected to be aired 9 a.m. May 19 on Davis’ radio program.
How is Minnesota’s history holding up? Are parts of our state history being erased from public view?
Davis and MPR News set the table: “Here in Minnesota, the ripple effects were immediate. Museums and historical sites lost grant money, and corporate donors grew skittish.”
Potter was joined on the panel by Dave Nichols, executive director of the Rice County Historical Society; Txong Pao Lee, executive director of the Hmong Cultural Center in St. Paul; and Minnesota State University history professor Kyle Ward.
That Trump administration executive order issued in March 2025, titled “Restore Truth and Sanity to American History,” hasn’t made their jobs any easier.
“History has to be seen through different perspectives,” Ward said. “We’re trying to make better citizens by doing that … to get away from that 1950s Disney version of American history.”
He added: “We’ve had history wars before. This is nothing new.”
Preserving today’s history
Davis asked how history professionals, tasked with preserving and telling today’s stories: “How will this moment in time be preserved?”
“It’s not going to change us as an organization,” Potter said, although she’ll have to rely more on a 100-plus volunteer list. “I believe in our volunteers,” she said.
“Mankato has a really tough story to tell,” Potter added, noting the 1862 mass execution of the Dakota during the Abraham Lincoln presidency. “ And it’s an important story to tell.”
Nichols agreed.
“My policy has been instead of holding back, I like to push forward,” he said, noting the Faribault community has the second-largest Somali community in Minnesota. “Now’s the best time to amplify those voices. We want all of our community represented. This is their home as well as ours.”
But for Pao Lee, while Minnesota was bearing the brunt of Operation Metro Surge, she was asked by national Hmong leaders to avoid “certain key words” in hopes of not bringing undue attention to her cultural center and community.
Pao Lee said the last few months prompted many within the Hmong community to focus on basic needs, as “rising expenses in everybody’s pockets” prompted a loss in center revenues and the early 2026 ICE surge forced program cancellations.
“For us, everything was kind of delayed,” she said.
Welcome the debate
MPR News launched its North Star Journey series in 2022, with this message: “Minnesota doesn’t have just one story or one history. It never has. Minnesota’s stories are a constellation of experiences, histories, moments and journeys that shape our lives today. Many of these stories are difficult to hear and untold. Others are beautiful and heroic …”
With the country’s 250th anniversary celebration, historians will continue to wrestle with these stories, Potter said. Her BECHS programming this year will focus on the Indigenous people who were among the country’s earlier residents at its founding in 1776.
Nichols says it’s critical to test the limits, for “America is an unfinished story.”
Pao Lee said many Americans are still learning about the Hmong culture and its now 50-year presence as refugees in Minnesota
“There are people who are completely new to the Hmong experience,” Pao Lee said. “American history doesn’t operate in a bubble.”
Ward hopes the nation’s birth and its founding documents will be part of the 250th story and “the global impact of that Declaration of Independence.”
These diverse perspectives serve communities and “in museums, we think in decades and centuries,” Nichols said.
“What makes a good citizen?” he asked and then answered. “It’s the ability to question. People are messy. Our history is the same way.”