This summer, the East Side Freedom Library is welcoming two incredible research interns!
Yamalí Rodas Figueroa is an organizer, archival researcher, and library worker studying Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Macalester College. Mihailo Vucetic is a rising senior at Macalester, double majoring in Political Science and History. Both are bringing energy, curiosity, and heart to their work uncovering East Side history and organizing all summer long!
Meet Yamali
Yamalí Rodas Figueroa is an organizer, archival researcher, library worker, and aspiring librarian pursuing a B.A. in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Macalester College. Their work brings together community organizing, public history, and research, with particular commitments to immigrant justice, educational equity, youth leadership, and the preservation of histories that institutions have overlooked.
At ESFL, Yamalí is developing Rose Mary Freeman and a Black Feminist Counterhistory of Morrill Hall, a StoryMap centering Freeman’s role in Black student organizing during the 1960s and 1970s. The project explores “nerve juice” as a Black feminist tradition of courage, community defense, and refusal, while examining what Black women carried and sacrificed in the struggle for Black freedom.
Meet Mihailo
Mihailo Vucetic is a rising senior at Macalester College, double majoring in Political Science and History. He grew up in Belgrade, Serbia, attended United World College of the Adriatic in Italy, and studied politics of divided societies at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. His research focuses on social movements, diplomacy, youth organizing, and community resistance to political violence and state repression.
At the East Side Freedom Library, Mihailo is exploring what happens when the state comes directly into a neighborhood, and how people learn to protect one another. His project, When the State Comes to the Neighborhood: Community Resistance and Organizational Learning Across Global Contexts, examines community responses to the 2026 federal immigration enforcement surge in the Twin Cities, with a focus on the East Side of Saint Paul. Through interviews and archival research, he is documenting how organizers, mutual-aid networks, and neighborhood organizations transformed everyday relationships into systems of care and resistance.
Feel free to stop by and see what our interns are working on and visit us at the library!
Our library hours are Tuesday–Thursday, 10:00 AM–3:00 PM.
Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays are available by appointment.