Now, Kunesh is the first Native woman to serve in the Minnesota state Senate.

Last year, she authored legislation that returned sacred land to the Upper Sioux community, and this year she successfully pushed through a bill to give land back to the Mille Lacs Band of the Ojibwe. She is also working on two bills to return state land in White Earth State Forest back to the White Earth Nation and land in Upper Red Lake back to the Red Lake Nation. The latter two bills died this year after generating lots of pushback locally, but Kunesh said she doesn’t plan to give up.