
The People's Theory
"Individualism, loss of community, and loss of culture, makes you sick. This is the only problem CWC is solving in every class, coaching session and activity we do."
At the Cultural Wellness Center our research shows sickness begins with individualism (loss of connection), loss of community, and loss of culture. When individualism takes over and people are disconnected from their roots and each other, it creates disharmony that shows up as illness—whether physical, mental, or emotional. Conditions like diabetes, mental health challenges, and other diseases are often symptoms of this deeper issue. That’s why our classes, coaching, and programs focus on one goal: restoring health by rebuilding connections to culture and community. We see health as more than the absence of sickness—it’s about living in harmony and belonging.

The Cultural Wellness Center's research identified a downward process that makes us sick and a upward process that leads to optimal health and wellness.
The Story of The People's Theory
In 1994, Medica and the Allina Health Foundation funded community organizers to examine why public-health strategies failed to reverse chronic health conditions among African Americans. Of major concern was the finding that showed Black babies died at higher rates compared to white babies. There was back then, as there is today, an emphasis on why babies die instead of why they live, resulting in exaggerated viewpoints (outsider vs. cultural) that left the assets of the community necessary to improve their health significantly unexplored. Their deaths became the story and preventing these deaths became the focus of investment strategies, public health initiatives, and university research and publications.
Instead of focusing on the health institutions’ original question of examining why Black babies died, we reversed the question to be strengths driven: the Cultural Wellness Center explored why a measurable number of Black babies lived. What were the conditions surrounding their pregnancies and babies’ births that led to their staying healthy themselves and in turn delivering healthy babies? Black mothers and grandmothers ourselves, we were redefining the problem, focusing on opportunities, and establishing new answers to old questions. Through door-step conversations with Black mothers, grandmothers, and elders — our data and story collection process — we found that babies born in ways that honored community connections and African cultural traditions — doulas, birthing teams, elder guides, and breastfeeding — thrived. We listened, valued their lived experiences — and learned with our community, turning what they told us into knowledge. This process of having community members like ourselves speak to our fellow community members about an issue that affects us became our knowledge-production strategy. It is a research process that encompasses culture and community-context and one that we have repeatedly employed since our entrée into public health matters including education, domestic violence, and HIV/AIDS.
The lessons learned from this research process are that all people have knowledge, stories to tell, and a set of beliefs and values. With Indigenous people, including people of African descent, that knowledge and value has been denied over centuries, and our work over the last 25 years has been to create space that allows people to see their experiences as a powerful, instructive story and intellectual practice. Indigenous people through this approach are therefore being involved, consulted, and empowered to address issues and reveal cultural ways of healing themselves and their communities. The stories shared are therefore extremely valuable and can be used as practice-based evidence.
The early work on the doorsteps of our community was called Healthy Powderhorn, the strategy of deeply engaging and consulting with community members and Elders, listening, connecting experiences, investing time, energy and supplying needed resources and creating a system where those who received Cultural Wellness Center services were watched over and helped in order to help others. This principle of living, learning, giving, and receiving defined our community-engaged research; Cultural wellness field of study; and our Center’s approach to community health, unveiling that individualism, loss of culture and loss of community make you sick. This downward spiral process, the Cultural Wellness Center has articulated as our People’s Theory of Sickness and Disease. This sickness is now widely known for compromising the immune systems and creating chronic conditions. This includes diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, food insecurity, homelessness, drug addiction, and violence — manifestations of internalized oppression, historical trauma and biased neglect and racism in our systems. These disconnections and manifestations are so severe, especially racism, that it has been declared a public health emergency across the country by state and local leaders. For example, the Minneapolis City Council approved a resolution declaring racism as a public health emergency on July 17, 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s death and with inequities for Black, Indigenous, and people of color further exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.