MSU prof publishes book on St. Peter woman's involvement in SLA

Dec. 29—What started out as one newspaper article transpired into a 23-year-long journey of uncovering the truth about Camilla Hall, a St. Peter woman who, for a brief moment, became one of the most wanted domestic terrorists in the U.S.

It was 1999 when Rachael Hanel, of Madison Lake, came across a news story about a woman in St. Paul who got arrested for her involvement in the Symbionese Liberation Army — the first terrorist organization to rise from the American left.

The story was a huge one in the paper, said Hanel, but off to the side of it ran a smaller story that caught her attention.

The sidebar story gave background to the SLA, including information on its members.

When Hanel saw Hall's picture with the information that she had been born in St. Peter, her journalistic instincts kicked in.

"I wanted to know more about this woman," she said.

As a reporter for The Free Press at the time, Hanel took the information to her editor.

"I said, "Here's a local angle to this bigger story that's going on. Can I write something about her?' which they said yes to, and so, right away, I was able to dig into her story a little bit," she said.

But as Hanel continued to dig, she fell deep into a rabbit hole, and that one newspaper article she wrote about Hall 23 years ago has turned into her second book, "Not the Camilla We Knew: One Woman's Path from Small-town America to the Symbionese Liberation Army."

The book explores why a seemingly ordinary and sweet woman from Minnesota joined the SLA, a group that believed in uniting the oppressed into a fighting force that would destroy the capitalist system and all others like it.

The reasonings that Hanel uncovered — such as how Hall became frustrated over an unjust system, which drove her to the SLA — is how Hanel believes people should view radicalization today.

"I've worked on this for a long time and for most of that time, to me, it was just hidden history," she said. "It was just a story that was waiting to be uncovered."

But in the last couple of years of putting the finishing touches on the book, Hanel had found that Hall was very active in protests and anti-war movements.

"With what we've seen here in the U.S. for the past two years, I feel like her story has more relevance than ever. No longer is it just this history story, but people feel passionate and frustrated and angry today, too," she said. "So I think that people could relate to her story a little bit more than if it had been published 10 years ago."

Hanel's book is now available to the public, and she said she's most excited about the ongoing conversations she's able to have about it with those that read it.

"I'm just really, really grateful to be at this point and be at this phase because now it's out there, and I love getting feedback from people," she said. "I just love that piece where it's out in the world and I can engage with people about it. It's really gratifying."

No doubt that Hanel will soon have conversations about the book with her students at Minnesota State University, where she works as an associate professor in the English department teaching creative nonfiction.

Prior, Hanel sat as department chair for the Department of Mass Communications. While she said she loved it, she found English to be a better fit.

"My career has just taken a shift," she said. "I have that journalism background, but in the last 10 years with my memoir, which was published in 2013, and now this book, I definitely am more in that creative nonfiction mode and more in that creative nonfiction community than I am in journalism."

Hanel also noted that students studying mass communications are now more interested in specializing in things she's not passionate about.

"Writing is my strong suit. I know how to teach writing. I know how to teach journalistic writing," she said. "But most of our students at MSU, they want to go into PR, they want to do social media, and that's just not what I do. So going into English was just such a great fit."

Hanel graduated from MSU with a bachelor's in journalism and history herself. Upon graduating, she landed a job as a reporter for The Free Press.

During that time, she went back to MSU for a master's in history.

She gave a nod to both disciplines, saying her background in both journalism and history helped her write "Not the Camilla We Knew."

"I tell students all the time, if you want to go into journalism, it's great to have a mass communications degree, but you can also go for a history or political science degree, because you can always be taught those journalism skills in the field," she said. "Getting a liberal arts education is just so valuable."

When asked what advice she would give to her students who are looking to write a book of their own, Hanel said it's all about trusting your gut and persevering.

"I knew this was a story that other people would want to read. I was interested in it. If you're interested in something, then other people will be, too," she said. "So just by knowing that, it'll get out there. Just try to be patient with it and believe in it."