As a kid growing up in the Twin Cities, one day Brandon Baity announced his future plans to his mother: “I told her I was going to move to Seattle, live on the streets and play music.”
Her reaction? “She was horrified!”
Fortunately, those were the fleeting thoughts of youth. Brandon says he struggled to find his way in life until he found a mentor who challenged him, showed him a path to a better life, and how to make it all happen.
Today, Brandon Baity is the interim Executive Director of the Indigenous Association of Fargo-Moorhead. He lives in Moorhead with his wife Tanya and their three children.
“I’m one of the founding members of the Indigenous Association,” Brandon says. “Our goal is to unite, connect and strengthen the Indigenous community in the Fargo-Moorhead area. We really want to do is be a place, a hub for Indigenous activity in the area.”
Brandon admits that he wasn’t really connected to his culture while growing up.
“I was always curious what my culture meant, what it meant to be both Ojibwae and white. What does it mean to have family who grew up on the reservation while I grew up in the suburbs?”
“My Ojibwe ancestry just wasn’t part of me,” he continues. “I knew my grandma was Indigenous. She grew up on the White Earth Reservation. My grandmother made me learn some words in her native language. She made me say “Miigwech” instead of “thank you.” I was curious what it meant; it really didn’t make much sense to me since I didn’t have any other connections to it.”
His first job out of college with a bachelor’s in social work was in a charter school in south Minneapolis, where most of the population was African-American, New American, or Indigenous. “There was only one white kid there, surrounded by 140 students from different cultures and backgrounds,” Brandon said.
There was a Dakota teacher and an Ojibwe teacher at the school, too. Being surrounded by such diversity and seeing how people embraced their identity are was eye-opening. “I saw how connected these kids were to their culture. I saw what a strength that was to embrace it, learn about it, really connect to it, and how much meaning they got out of it. I always felt that was missing for me.”
That started the exploration of “what does that mean to me, Brandon. What am I going to do with this in my life?”
Today, Brandon continues to learn and explore. “I find great strength in my culture and in my understanding, of things that have happened to my ancestors and my family and how it affects family dynamics now. I’ve learned spiritual and ceremonial practices, just some cultural practices, and it’s been a huge strength for me to hold on to and use as a way to focus my life and how I am in the world.”
He describes himself as a helper, someone who cares about people and their needs. “What I love about where I’m at in life now is my community is my work, and my work is my community. My work and my community are my families; these are all my friends, and we are all connected.
“I’m always open to making things better for people.”
The path Brandon and his family took to Moorhead had a few twists and turns. In fact, they moved for a job and rented an apartment in West Fargo but they weren’t sure they wanted to stay in the Moorhead-Fargo area.
But they made a discovery: it’s a pretty cool place to call home.
“When we decided to stay here, we looked for a place in Moorhead. Moorhead public schools have a Spanish Immersion program, and our daughter was just going into kindergarten. She’s been enrolled in that program for three or four years now, and really enjoys it.”
And Brandon says Minnesota just feels like home.
“There’s a lot to do in the Fargo-Moorhead area, lots of parks, outdoor activities, and music. We like to hike, camp, and get outside. And there are lots of places to meet people.”
He says that it’s sometimes hard to meet people as a newcomer to a community, Was that the case here?
“I’ve really found like-minded people here who want to build community together. And this is a great place to build community,” he said. “I could go anywhere in Fargo-Moorhead and always see someone I know.
“This feels like home. It’s starting to feel like the place I grew up.”
