TERMS OF SERVITUDE BOOK TALK with author Omar Zahzah + Visualizing Palestine Exhibit Opening
2026-04-09 18:00 - 20:30 (America/Chicago) | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
Thursday, April 9th at 6pm at the East Side Freedom Library
BOOK TALK: Join ESFL in welcoming writer, poet, and journalist, Dr. Omar Zahzah to discuss his new book, Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital Settler/Colonialism in the Palestine Liberation Struggle. Zahzah illustrates how big tech has leveraged massive power to spread propaganda, silence criticism of Israel, and smear dissenters. Zahzah calls this “digital settler colonialism” and shows how it operates in both subtle and overt ways—from shadow banning to blacklisting to paid trolling—across platforms. Talk will be moderated by the Palestinian Feminist Collective.
EXHIBIT OPENING: On the same night we will be celebrating the opening of the exhibit, Why We Record: Defying Fragmentation and Erasure in Palestine, a joint exhibit curated by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and Visualizing Palestine (VP). The exhibit includes a collection of VP’s visuals, AFSC’s photos, and excerpts from published stories on the themes of fragmentation, displacement, return, and future visioning. The exhibition will be in our downstairs gallery space throughout the month of April during our regular Open Hours and on special weekend hours.

A Community Conversation: Anti Black Hatred Awareness
2026-04-11 12:00 - 15:00
Saturday, April 11th from 12-3PM at the East Side Freedom Library.
This is a BLM MN Reparations Advocacy event to educate the community about the anti-Black Hate resolution the Commission passed in February. All are welcome to attend!
Come join a community conversation about Anti Black Hatred on Saturday, April 11th from 12-3pm at the East Side Freedom Library, The recent vote by the Saint Paul Recovery Act Community Reparations Commission to advance an anti-Black hate crime resolution represents more than a policy step—it is a necessary response to both historical injustice and the realities of today. Saint Paul’s reparations work exists because the harm is real and documented. From the destruction of the Rondo neighborhood to discriminatory housing practices, systemic racism has shaped the city’s present. But this resolution makes one thing clear: anti-Black harm is not just history—it is still happening.

JOB SEEKING 101: RESUME & INTERVIEW PREPARATION
2026-04-16 18:00 - 20:00
Level up your job search …. for FREE.
Join us April 16th, 6–8 PM at East Side Freedom Library for a hands-on job readiness workshop designed to help you show up confidently and strategically in today’s job market.
Here’s what you’ll walk away with:
A stronger, ATS-ready resume
Strategies to communicate your skills with impact
Interview tools to help you walk in prepared & walk out confidentWhether you’re entering the workforce or making a career pivot, this space is for YOU.
April 16th | 6–8 PM
East Side Freedom Library — 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN
Light food & refreshments provided
FREE to attend
Register Here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeuuKM-Q2ziEWYXeL0P2N_NOUlyK_nxvJIf7xwmXNgEa8FGIQ/viewform

Freedom to Breathe: Conversations about Environmental Justice in the Twin Cities
2026-04-19 17:30 - 19:00
Please register (not required!) ahead so we know numbers and can stay in touch about this event.
In our pursuit of solidarity, justice, and equity for all, fights for environmental justice illuminate collaborative paths toward a better future. Twin Cities environmental justice leaders across St. Paul and Minneapolis will lead a conversation about using our collective power to hold industrial polluters accountable.
This event takes place on the tenth day of a hunger strike led by the Zero Burn Coalition to catalyze the closure of the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, a trash incinerator in North Minneapolis that has harmed residents for nearly four decades.
We will also hear from community members on the front lines, including activists fighting Northern Iron, an industrial foundry located next to residential homes in a low-income, racially diverse neighborhood on Saint Paul’s East Side.
Our borders do not define us. We all share a common struggle against environmental injustice. Join us for an evening of conversation, solidarity, and action.

Indigenous Short Film Festival!
2026-04-26 10:30 - 12:00
Indigenous Short Film Festival!
April 26th, 11:00am
TriLingua Cinema @
East Side Freedom Library
1105 Greenbrier Street, St Paul
TriLingua Cinema in collaboration with Z Puppets Rosenschnoz presents 45 minutes of free, family-friendly short films by local Indigenous artists.
See animation, puppetry, comedy and drama on screen through a Native lens.
Hosted by Dagsi Turtle & Jisdu Wabbit, the dynamic duo from Z Puppets’ musical adventures into Cherokee Futurism.
FREE admission and FREE popcorn!
Recommended for ages 6-adults.
NOTE:
Space is limited. Please arrive early to get a seat.
Doors open at 10:30 a.m.
This same program will also be screened a day earlier at 11a.m. & 7:00 p.m. @ Z Puppets’ Studio in Minneapolis
This event is made possible with support by Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.
Thanks also to the City of Minneapolis Arts & Cultural Affairs Department.

Book talk with author Scott Kurashige, with Bao Phi and Bo Thao-Urabe - AMERICAN PERIL: THE VIOLENT HISTORY OF ANTI-ASIAN RACISM
2026-05-17 13:00 - 15:00
SUNDAY, MAY 17th from 1PM to 3PM
at the East Side Freedom Library
Please register (not required!) ahead of time so we know numbers and can stay in touch about this event.
Join East Side Freedom Library, the Minnesota Historical Society, and the Japanese American Citizens League for a powerful conversation between American Peril author Scott Kurashige and local luminaries Bao Phi and Bo Thao-Urabe.
Copies of the book will be available for sale via the XIA Books mobile bookstore!
American Peril is a probing account that shines a new light on the problem of anti-Asian violence and inspires us to build lasting solidarity.
Award-winning scholar Scott Kurashige presents an expansive dive into anti-Asian violence and connects domestic and global events that have been erased from the official record. Going beyond victimhood, the book also traces the rise of Asian American community protest and activism and argues that hope lies in grassroots activism for multiracial solidarity.⁠
Scott Kurashige is the author of The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles and coauthor, with Grace Lee Boggs, of The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century.
“American Peril will become a mainstay in classrooms and libraries, and on the shelves and nightstands of any who want to understand the pernicious role that white supremacy has played in shaping what it means to be American: carving off, cutting out, excluding and sometimes executing those who it judges do not belong in this nation.”—Jeff Yang, author of The Golden Screen and coauthor of New York Times bestseller Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now

The First Rainbow Coalition - Film Screening
2026-05-21 19:00 - 21:30
This film will be screened for free as part of our Reel Stories: Housing Justice in Film series, presented in collaboration with Trilingua Cinema, East Side Freedom Library and East Side Housing Justice.
May 21st, 7:00pm
East Side Freedom Library
1105 Greenbrier Street, St Paul

“You can kill a revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution.”
-Fred Hampton
Join us with our partners at East Side Freedom Library for a free screening of The First Rainbow Coalition about Fred Hampton and the Chicago Black Panther Party. Then stick around for a post-screening discussion about what lessons might be drawn from the film with present day Twin Cities tenant organizers.
Synopsis
In 1969, the Chicago Black Panther Party, notably led by the charismatic Fred Hampton, began to form alliances across lines of race and ethnicity with other community-based movements in the city, including the Latinx group the Young Lords Organization and the working-class young southern whites of the Young Patriots. Finding common ground, these disparate groups banded together in one of the most segregated cities in postwar America to collectively confront issues such as police brutality and substandard housing, calling themselves the Rainbow Coalition. The First Rainbow Coalition tells the movement’s little-known story through rare archival footage and interviews with former coalition members in the present-day.
This film is rated TV-PG.
This film will be screened in English with English subtitles.
Trailer

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
