Unidos MN: Recent Awards Recognize the People Power Minnesotans Built Together
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 20, 2026
Contact:Luis Argueta Jr., Communications Director
Unidos MN || press@unidos-mn.org
National and international honors highlight the distributed leadership behind Minnesota’s organized, nonviolent response to injustice
MINNEAPOLIS — Over the past several months, Unidos MN has been humbled to accept a series of local, national, and international awards recognizing organizing, peacebuilding, human rights advocacy, and the defense of democracy. While we are deeply thankful for these honors, we have remained focused on the work and on the Minnesotans whose courage, care, and leadership made this recognition possible.
These awards do not belong to Unidos MN alone. They belong to the community leaders, constitutional observers, responders, organizers, faith leaders, workers, small-business owners, and neighbors who stepped forward during an extraordinarily difficult year.
Minnesota’s resistance was not leaderless, nor did it arise organically or by accident. Our people powered infrastructure was built over decades of community and labor organizing. Unidos Mn has intentionally tested distributed leadership since 2015. Monarca is the result of that. People across our state were trained, trusted, and supported with capacity and infrastructure to lead where they live, organize their neighbors, and act together. While we still have a lot to learn and our capacity was tested attack after attack, we are proud of the work we continue to deliver.
As longtime Minnesota organizer Doran Schrantz wrote with political scientist Hahrie Han in Our Power Is Organized People, “There are lots of ways you can have power in the world, but the currency of our power is organized people.” The relational power Schrantz describes is sustained by multiple layers of leadership, shared responsibility, political formation, trusting relationships, and the organizational infrastructure that allows people to navigate uncertain and hostile conditions together.
That framework helps explain what Minnesotans made visible this year. Mass participation mattered, but it became a coordinated action because people had relationships, organizations, training, shared values, infrastructure with capacities accountable to them and clear ways to step into leadership. What these awards recognize is people power: what regular people made possible when they were prepared to meet the moment.
2026 Kettering Democracy Prize
Today, the Charles F. Kettering Foundation announced that the people of the Twin Cities are recipients of the 2026 Kettering Democracy Prize, alongside Hong Kong political prisoner and free speech advocate Jimmy Lai. Each recipient will receive the Kettering Democracy Prize medal at an event in Washington, D.C., this November.
The Foundation is recognizing the people of the Twin Cities for demonstrating the power of everyday people to organize, protect one another, and demand accountability from the government during Operation Metro Surge.
This recognition belongs to the Minnesotans who built a broad, nonviolent movement of mutual aid and civic resistance; supported targeted and vulnerable neighbors; documented ICE and CBP activity; and refused to be isolated by intimidation, violence, arrests, or fear.
On September 1, Unidos MN will receive the Aachen Peace Prize in Aachen, Germany, jointly with the collective of The Smitten Kitten. The award recognizes the nonviolent civil resistance and grassroots solidarity Minnesotans built in response to state violence and the militarization of everyday life.
This international recognition reflects the many forms grassroots leadership took across Minnesota: strategic organizing, political education, mutual aid, constitutional observation, advocacy, and neighbors refusing to abandon one another.
50th Annual Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Domestic Award
Unidos MN has also been selected to receive the 50th Annual Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Domestic Award from the Institute for Policy Studies on October 8 in Washington, D.C. Unidos MN will be honored alongside La Liga Sindical Obrera Mexicana as part of a 50-year tradition of recognizing often-unsung human rights defenders across the Americas.
We accept this honor in the legacy of people who have risked everything to defend democracy and human rights, and on behalf of the Minnesota leaders who continue that work today.
During its August 8-9 national conference in Minneapolis, US Servas presented Unidos MN Education Fund with its 2026 Peace Award. The award recognizes peace not as a passive ideal, but as an active, courageous, and community-rooted practice.
This recognition lifts up the work of Monarca Rapid Response and Democracy Defense, and the Minnesotans who used nonviolence, education, constitutional observation, collective care, and neighborhood organizing to protect one another during moments of crisis.
2026 Tortuga Award
In July, Unidos MN received the 2026 Tortuga Award from Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social. The award recognizes organizations that support Chicana, Latina, and Indigenous women and celebrates the leadership of women who organize, care for their communities, and fight for a better future.
We accepted this award in solidarity with every woman whose leadership has sustained our movements, strengthened our families, and built the community power that makes lasting change possible.
In June, Unidos MN was among several organizations honored with the Hubert H. Humphrey Award at the DFL Dinner. This recognition belongs to Minnesota’s courageous constitutional observers and rapid responders, who took what they learned in trainings back to their neighborhoods, organized their streets, documented abuses, and helped build networks of protection and care.
They demonstrated what distributed leadership looks like in practice: everyday people taking responsibility for one another and becoming leaders in their own communities.
Puffin Prize for Creative Citizenship
On May 18, 2026, Unidos MN Education Fund accepted the Puffin Prize for Creative Citizenship alongside Hands Off NYC. Presented by the Puffin Foundation and Type Media Center, the prize honors courageous, imaginative, and socially responsible work that challenges the status quo and empowers communities.
We accepted this award on behalf of Minnesotans who refused to allow fear to isolate us, and instead organized across race, class, zip code, and immigration status to protect our neighbors and defend our democracy.
Omar Bonderud Human Rights Award
In December 2025, the Bloomington Human Rights Commission presented its Omar Bonderud Human Rights Award to Unidos MN and Normandale Community College Equity and Inclusion. The award recognizes individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to ensuring and advancing the human rights of people in Bloomington.
For Unidos MN, the award reflected years of relationship-building and organizing with immigrant families, working people, students, and neighbors in Bloomington, and the local leaders who continue building a community where everyone can live safely and with dignity.
Conclusion
As Minnesotans continue to receive recognition across the country and around the world, we must be clear about what the world is recognizing: people power. It is recognizing what became possible when regular people refused to look away, stepped into leadership, and organized with discipline, courage, and love.
The awards may carry Unidos MN’s name, but the honor belongs to the people of Minnesota. Our work now is to keep investing in the relationships, political formation, organizational infrastructure, and distributed leadership our communities will need for the challenges and opportunities ahead.
As an organization born out of the immigration justice and Dreamer movement, we remain clear: the greatest recognition is seeing everyday people step into their power and watching immigrant and multiracial leaders lead and win powerful campaigns.
We hold these honors as we hold our accountability to our members: as a responsibility rooted in close relationship, unwavering commitment, and trust that must never be taken for granted.
Not everyone who built this movement will have the opportunity to stand on a stage or be named in a program. This honor belongs to the mother who showed up to every organizing meeting after her shift; the young person who translated for their parents at a hearing no one else saw; and the organizer who worked in the shadows so others could stand in the light.
This honor is theirs, too, even when no one calls out their names. We carry them with us, and we will keep building a Minnesota worthy of all of them.
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About Unidos MN
Unidos MN is a grassroots organization building power with Minnesota’s working families to advance social, racial, and economic justice for all. Through community organizing, leadership development, political education, advocacy, and collective action, Unidos MN supports everyday people to become leaders and shape the decisions affecting their families and communities.
Luis Argueta, Jr. / Unidos MN