In the Twin Cities, indie bookstores are stepping up to ICE.

As ICE agents continue to terrorize the Twin Cities, indie bookstores are stepping up.

As Claire Kirch reported in Publishers Weekly last Friday, booksellers in Minneapolis and St. Paul have joined community efforts to fight the feds. As the cities roil in the wake of poet Renee Good’s murder, some stores are handing out free whistles to abet the ad-hoc neighborly alert network. Others are giving away anti-ICE protest materials—that is, when staffers aren’t “participating in patrolling and protesting” themselves.

In Northeast Minneapolis, Inkwell Booksellers is providing space for delivery drop offs and pick ups, as part of an ongoing citizen-run effort to protect the city’s most vulnerable communities from raids. So far, the administration has made a special target of the city’s Somali residents.

Such neighborly efforts persist despite the fact that foot traffic is down in many parts of the Twin Cities, affecting sales at stores like Big Hill Books, Moon Palace Books, and Uncle Hugo’s and Uncle Edgar’s.

Children’s stores, like Wild Rumpus and Red Balloon, told Kirch that the surge has caused crucial calendar disruptions. Citing ICE fear, a few unnamed authors have canceled scheduled in-store appearances.

Despite threat to business, many indies—like Comma, Wild Rumpus, and author Louise Erdrich’s store, Birchbark Books—have announced plans to participate in the economic blackout planned for this Friday. To protest the ICE raids that have seen more than 2400 people arrested and dozens wounded in recent weeks, labor groups are urging Minnesotans “not to work, shop or go to school” on 1/23 to fight the siege.

Angela Schwesnedl, co-owner of Moon Palace, told Publishers Weekly that her store has been preparing for this moment. For one thing, many Minneapolis indies have recent experience with civil unrest. In 2020, Moon Palace stood with Black Lives Matter protestors during weeks of demonstration. At one point, an Abolish the Police sign helmed the window display.

And last October, Schwesnedl left the Heartland Fall Forum—the premiere gathering place for Midwestern indie bookstores— equipped with anti-ICE strategies sourced from peer booksellers in Chicago. The second city’s mutual aid network continues to weather an ICE surge of its own, and the lessons are portable.

Said Schwesnedl: “This is a bookselling community that takes care of each other, you know?”

If you’re looking for ways to support ongoing ICE resistance efforts in Minnesota, here’s a good resource. And while you’re in the neighborhood, buy a book.