Union workers rallied in downtown Minneapolis on Saturday, days after an international graduate student was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

United Electrical locals from across the country had already gathered for a conference this weekend when they heard the news. United Electrical represents several graduate student unions including those of Stanford, MIT and the University of Minnesota.

Around 100 members marched to Marquette Plaza, adjacent to a federal immigration field office.

“An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. As a union we remain committed to protecting our international graduate workers,” said Abaki Beck, president of GLU-UE Local 1105, the union of graduate employees at the University of Minnesota.

Carl Rosen leads the union that represents many graduate school student workers across the country. He said international students play a critical role at their institutions and in the national economy, and he’s worried they’ll be discouraged from applying to U.S. schools.

“What they’re going to do is cut all these folks off from coming and frankly who would want to come here?” said Rosen, president of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. “What does that say about America that people aren’t going to want to come here? It’s just shameful.”

No information has come out publicly about the University of Minnesota student or why they were taken into custody on Thursday.

University leaders on Friday shared only that the student was at an off-campus residence when ICE removed them. A college dean reported the individual studied at the Carlson School of Management.

“As we would in any situation, we are following the lead of the student and respecting their request for privacy,” said University spokesperson Jake Ricker. He added the University of Minnesota cannot share more because of state and federal student privacy laws.

Ricker said the U of M is providing support to the student, without specifying the type of support.

UMN Graduate Labor Union president Abaki Beck speaks as members of the UMN Graduate Labor Union and other unions as they gather to protest the ICE detainment of a U of M graduate student on the steps of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services building in downtown Minneapolis on Saturday, March 29. As a union we remain committed to protecting our international graduate workers,” said Beck. (Nicole Neri for MPR News)

“There’s an increased number of international workers who have been detained or who are facing deportation orders and are choosing to self deport so that they don’t have to be detained in ICE facilities,” said Beck.

Attendees at the Saturday protest chanted the names of other students recently detained by ICE who include Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University, and Rumeysa Ozturk.

Ozturk is a Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University who was detained by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents earlier this week. Her lawyer said the arrest came without explanation.

At a separate rally at Minneapolis’ Powderhorn Park commemorating Land Day, U of M senior Noora Ahmed said the backlash against international students who have expressed solidarity with Palestine is creating fear among student organizers.

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“It’s really worrisome because we want everyone to show up for human rights, to show up and speak their mind,” she said. “At the same time, they fear for their safety, of getting deported, of getting suspended, of getting their degree revoked.”

Ahmed is involved with Students for Justice in Palestine and the divest coalition at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. She wants to see U of M leadership better defend students’ right to speech.

“We’re trying to protect ourselves as much as we can, trying to have ‘Know Your Rights’ campaigns and teach-ins, yet there’s only so much that we could do on our end,” she said.

Around 500 Minnesota state employees protested Saturday in St. Paul, calling on DFL Gov. Tim Walz to reverse course on a policy to require more in-office work. The governor says having more employees spend at least half their time at their workplaces will improve communication and collaboration.

State employee unions oppose the policy, saying it will require many people to reorder their lives after five years of pandemic-imposed remote work habits.

The Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 5 together represent around 40,000 employees. MAPE organized the protest outside the governor’s official residence on Summit Avenue.

Lee and Joe Sullivan are tax auditors at the Department of Revenue and live in Little Canada. Lee Sullivan says her department has a different office configuration now.

“We rented half of it out and we also changed our parking ramp and so we never thought they would be going back to the office,” she said. “And so to suddenly come of the blue and give us no warning at all and demand that we go back to the office, that’s going to disrupt a lot of things.”

The Sullivans say working out child care before the policy goes into effect June 1 will be challenging. It’s a problem for Katie Fountain of Woodbury as well.

An employee at the Department of Corrections, Fountain said the governor’s policy will force her to pay unexpected child care costs over the summer, when she could be home working and lightly supervising her school-aged kids.

“What that would cost me is actually more than I would make. So at that point it’s not working anymore, and I know a lot of other people are in the same exact situation.”

Walz estimated around 60 percent of state workers have been in the office full time and others are on hybrid home and office schedules.

Minnesota state employees protest new work rules outside of the governor’s residence in St. Paul on Saturday, March 29. (Anne Guttridge / MPR News)

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Minnesota Management and Budget guidance says that workers who live less than 75 miles from their state offices would have to work a full day from their principal office location, or another qualifying office, for the time to be counted toward their 50 percent target.

Some workers can apply for reasonable accommodations to continue working remotely.

Dana Ferguson, Peter Cox and Clay Masters contributed reporting for this story.

Hollywood got a lot of mileage out of World War II, spinning stories for decades after the last shot was fired. But those movies didn’t tell you everything. For one thing, few addressed the reality that the U.S. government rounded up American citizens of Japanese descent, took away their homes and property and consolidated them in camps.

Perhaps silence on the subject shouldn’t be surprising, for aversion to shame can be powerful. But playwright R.A. Shiomi has created a tremendously compelling drama that digs deeper into the lives of some of those Japanese-Americans and finds that there were among them war heroes with fascinating stories to tell.

Erik Ohno Dagoberg, from left, Clay Man Soo, Tony Larkin, Stephanie Anne Bertumen and Kendall Kent in the premiere of R.A. Shiomi’s “Secret Warriors” at History Theatre in St. Paul. The story of a group of Japanese-American soldiers who aided the U.S. Armed Forces in the Pacific during World War II, the show runs through April 19, 2025. (Rick Spaulding / History Theatre)

“Secret Warriors” premiered this weekend at downtown St. Paul’s History Theatre in one of the most powerful productions in the company’s 47-year history. Serving as a timely exploration of what defines American-ness, it’s a captivating play that’s not only enlightening in the tales it unveils, but is richly entertaining as well, thanks to the efforts of director Lily Tung Crystal, an excellent nine-person cast and an imaginative design team.

You may not know that several key figures in World War II’s final battles in the Pacific and the island-by-island negotiations of Japan’s surrender were heroic young Japanese-American men who studied the language of their ancestors at a military base in Savage, Minn. The program later moved to Fort Snelling, and had graduated over 6,000 student soldiers by 1946.

Erik Ohno Dagoberg, from left, Tony Larkin and Paul LaNave in the premiere of R.A. Shiomi’s “Secret Warriors” at History Theatre in St. Paul. The story of a group of Japanese-American soldiers who aided the U.S. Armed Forces in the Pacific during World War II, the show runs through April 19, 2025. (Rick Spaulding / History Theatre)

For “Secret Warriors,” Shiomi has created composites of several soldiers from the program, its focus swiftly turning to two: a shy California farm boy and a cocky street tough from Seattle. They become friends despite their differences and soon find love at Minneapolis U.S.O. dances, meeting the young women who help unspool the story as correspondents.

While the first act is an enjoyable and educational slice of life about these clearly conflicted soldiers — dedicated to the U.S. war effort while their families sit in internment camps — the play’s second half is a magnificent piece of theatrical storytelling. One of the two has become an instrument of peace as he negotiates hard-won surrenders, the other a clever daredevil on the frontlines. Erik Paulson’s set revolves as we go between them, the tensions of waging war and creating peace equally intense.

The production is propelled by two brilliant breakout performances from the central soldiers, each of them undergoing a fascinating transformation. Clay Man Soo brings subtle shadings to Koji as he blossoms into a brilliant diplomat, empathy his superpower, while Erik Ohno Dagoberg takes the American archetype of the snarky soldier in unexpected directions as Tamio.

While the whole cast is strong, Paul LaNave is a standout as the commanding officer who becomes a friend and ally, while Rich Remedios commands the stage in two incarnations as the soldiers’ hot-tempered instructor and the Japanese captain who engages in a battle of wits with Koji.

Kudos are also due the lighting of Wu Chen Khoo, Meghan Kent’s costumes and Kathy Maxwell’s video designs of wartime footage, which are projected onto a wall with a big circular hole in its center. Perhaps that design was intended to underline the idea that there might be a big hole in your understanding of how that war was won.

‘Secret Warriors’

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When: Through April 19

Where: History Theatre, 30 E. 10th St., St. Paul

Tickets: $64-$15, available at 651-292-4323 or historytheatre.com

Capsule: Enlightening and entertaining, it’s a landmark in History Theatre’s history.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.

ST. LOUIS — The Twins kicked off their season on Thursday in St. Louis, falling 5-3 to the Cardinals on Opening Day. Things didn’t get much better over the weekend. They finished with three hits in Saturday’s game and got romped on Sunday, swept by the Cardinals to begin the season.

Here’s three takeaways from the Twins’ season-opening series:

The Twins’ preferred infield defense

Through the first three games, the Twins’ preferred infield configuration while Royce Lewis and Brooks Lee are both on the injured list has Willi Castro at second base and Jose Miranda at third along with Ty France at first and Carlos Correa at short.

While Castro can play almost anywhere, manager Rocco Baldelli seems to prefer his defense at second base, where he said he believes the utilityman has good chemistry with Correa.

Castro will see at-bats in other spots — he’s the only back-up shortstop option and the only other third base option currently, too — but when he’s at second and France at first, that limits the potential at-bats for Edouard Julien and Mickey Gasper. Gasper started one game during the series at DH and Julien came in late in Sunday’s blowout and did not see an at-bat in the series.

Bader seems to be in line to get plenty of at-bats

The Twins used the same lineup twice in their three-game opening series. That lineup had Harrison Bader in left field with Trevor Larnach serving as the team’s DH.

Bader was brought in this offseason as the team’s fourth outfielder. He’s a Gold Glove defender, winning the award in 2021, and will back up Byron Buxton in center field when he needs a day off. But it also seems apparent that he’ll get plenty of at-bats even when Buxton is in the lineup. Those, Baldelli said in spring, would likely come with him in left field.

With both corner outfielders — Larnach and Matt Wallner — left-handed hitters, many of those will come against lefties, but it seems as if a good number could come against righties, as well.

“That was the biggest thing coming into the new year and going through the free agency process: just finding, first and foremost, a competitive organization to play with and play for,” Bader said. “And beyond that, is to have an important role in that.”

Twins already in hole

The Twins aren’t panicking about three games, but it goes without saying: This wasn’t the way they were looking to start the year. There was plenty of hard contact in the series and not a ton to show for it offensively as the Twins finished the series in St. Louis with just six runs in three games.

“I don’t think anyone’s worried in this clubhouse,” catcher Ryan Jeffers said. “I think going into the game … we (led) MLB in exit velocity by like three-plus miles an hour and last in (batting average on balls in play). Like that does — that’s not sustainable.”

No, it isn’t.

Some bad luck and good Cardinals’ defense has surely played into it. Now, the Twins get to play the Chicago White Sox, the perfect team to get back on track against.

“We just have to stay true to what we know we’re trying to do at the plate,” Baldelli said. “We just need to keep having good at-bats, keep barreling balls up and things are going to work offensively. It was actually not a bad offensive display.”

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