Fear was still firmly lodged in Lisa Bundgaard Jensen when she woke up from the dream. She immediately called her mother and told her about it.
The nightmare unfolded in a house in a poor village on the east coast, where she was born and raised 46 years ago as the daughter of a Greenlandic woman and a Danish man who had come to work.
Around the house, snow-covered mountains rose in the crisp, frosty air. It seemed like a safe situation. This is where she comes from. This is where the foundation of her life was laid.
In the house were also her eight-year-old daughter Elena and some Greenlandic children she had once taught at a boarding school in Denmark. They were her responsibility. She had to take care of them. Her kids.
But the situation was tense. Outside, camouflage-clad American soldiers snuck around the house walls as if planning a silent attack. She could see them through the windows. It was a scene straight out of a Hollywood movie.
Lisa Bundgaard Jensen had to act quickly. She thought she should lock the door. But she realized they could just kick it in. She told the children to hide. But she knew they would be found.
There was no way out. They were completely at the mercy of the American soldiers, no matter what they did. Right then, she opened her eyes. With a pounding heart and a terrible feeling that lasted all day.
A feeling of being lost
»It was a very real dream. I couldn’t shake it off because I can’t dismiss the possibility that it might happen«, says Lisa Bundgaard Jensen over the phone from Nykøbing Mors in Northern Jutland, where she lives in an apartment with her daughter.
For Greenlandic-Danish Lisa Bundgaard Jensen, the past few weeks have been intense. She has experienced it before, but not with the same intensity. When the debate raged a year ago, she could dismiss President Trump’s wish for Greenland as unrealistic because you can’t just take another country.
She thought it was great that the relationship between Greenlanders and Danes had finally come to the forefront. She contributed by sharing her experiences with racism in Denmark, first in Politiken and then in several other media outlets. She felt she was making a difference.
Since the beginning of the new year, her thoughts have been dark, gloomy, and depressive.
A cautious optimism has given way to a bleak outlook triggered by Trump. The president’s statements about not using force bounce off her because she doesn’t dare to trust a word he says.
»It feels more dangerous this time«, says Lisa Bundgaard Jensen.
It’s the idea that you can buy a country if the price is high enough that haunts her. Because the people and culture she carries in her blood have already been taken over by another nation, Denmark.
»We are not Danes. We don’t want to be Americans. We are Greenlanders. Apparently, many can’t accept that. We are simply disregarded as human beings, and I can hardly put into words what that means. You feel completely worthless«, says Lisa Bundgaard Jensen.
A simmering anger
We talk for about an hour. Several times during the conversation, she has to pause because tears are welling up, and there is silence on the phone before she collects herself, apologizes, and continues talking without me needing to ask questions.
There is a simmering anger in her. At the same time, she feels ashamed of it. As if she doesn’t have the right to feel it. As if her own private feelings also need to be validated by Denmark.
Lisa Bundgaard Jensen spent most of her formative years in Greenland. First as a child on the east coast of Greenland, then as a teenager in the capital Nuuk. In Denmark, she trained as a teacher and has taught both children and adults. She also lived for a year in Germany and four years in Spain.
Recently, she has been teaching adults to speak Spanish. But she is taking a break from teaching and works a few times a week at a café in Nykøbing Mors:
»Students have the right to be taught by a 100 percent engaged person. I am not that at the moment. All my thoughts revolve around the need to do something to ensure reconciliation between Greenland and Denmark. I feel it’s my responsibility to try because I have both countries in me and have gained a voice«.
Over the past year, she has given a series of lectures and presentations as a cultural mediator about what it means to carry Greenland within oneself. She talks about her upbringing in Kuummiit, about experiencing racism in Denmark, about her family, which contains tragedies of the kind that typically find their way into the media. She has felt strong.
When she opens up for questions, there are rarely any inquiries about the beauty of the mountains, the close bonds between people, and the generosity she herself experiences when she returns to the east coast.
»Most people want to hear about social problems. About alcohol, suicide, and neglected children. I ask them to be gentle in their questions to Greenlanders. Because we all, directly or indirectly, have contact with it«, says Lisa Bundgaard Jensen.
It’s the colonial scars of the past that are torn open when yet another country wants to take over Greenland. For example, the spiral case involving Danish doctors who, without consent, inserted spirals in thousands of girls and women. The Thule case, where citizens were forcibly relocated. The case of Greenlandic children who were sent to Denmark for upbringing as part of an experiment and then returned to Greenland as role models.
She says she probably feels like other Greenlanders who struggle with low self-esteem: She just wants to be recognized for who she is.
The Danishization of Greenlandic society from the 1950s onwards extends into most parts of society. Also into families. She often hears that it was done with the intention of creating the best possible life for Greenlanders.
»But an entire people were run over in the process and learned that their own culture is less valuable than the Danes’«, says Lisa Bundgaard Jensen.
That realization bubbles within her when she feels compelled to engage in debates on social media. Because she can’t live with mocking comments. Some demand that Greenlanders be grateful for having access to welfare and ask how you will manage without us. Others write that Denmark should sell Greenland.
Then Lisa Bundgaard Jensen feels her cheeks flush, and anger and sorrow flow through her veins.
»I sit in the middle of the night writing to complete strangers. Trying to explain to them about our colonial scars«, she says.
The feeling is stronger now
Lisa Bundgaard Jensen is personally struggling to find her footing. She wants to make a living by building bridges between Greenlanders and Danes. She has applied for several positions, worked for free, offered herself with a smile, and politely received praise from those she has spoken to.
So far, the door is only slightly ajar. A permanent job in an organization is high on her wish list. Or in a municipality where she could help vulnerable Greenlandic citizens.
»One moment I think my work has to be about Greenland. The next moment I think: ’Fuck it. I don’t want to have anything more to do with Greenland.’ But maybe I could become a flight attendant for Air Greenland. Then I would still have a bit to do with my homeland«, she says.
When a rejection lands in her inbox, she doubts her worth as a human being. It’s not just an application being rejected. It’s her person. She thinks others can probably brush off such things like dust on their shoulders, while she lets it affect her.
»You wrote a year ago that it was my very existence that was at stake. That hasn’t changed. On the contrary. The feeling is stronger now that the threat is so visible with Trump«, she says.
Lisa Bundgaard Jensen thinks Denmark and Greenland have been given a chance to forge closer ties because a common enemy has emerged. But it requires more than an apology and a bag of money for the victims in the spiral case, she says:
»The topic disappeared from the Danish agenda quite quickly. But the abuses still plague the Greenlandic people«.
Similarly with the debate about the Unity of the Realm. It was prominent in the first part of 2025, the media brought reports from Greenland, and readers, viewers, and listeners gained insight into a world that Danes, at least on paper, are connected to.
Then the debate disappeared from the public agenda, but not from Lisa Bundgaard Jensen’s mind. Now the discussion is back. With full force. The day we talk, she has been interviewed by media from Germany and Switzerland.
Her role model is former U.S. President Barack Obama. She volunteered for three months in his campaign in 2012, and twice she has attended his lectures in Denmark, where he talked about his African heritage and the human need to have one’s identity recognized.
She got a hug and a selfie with the president.
»I wish it was Obama who had started the conversation between Greenland and Denmark«, she says quietly.
She doesn’t believe Greenlanders’ scars can be erased, but they can become less visible if their voices are heard. If they get the opportunity to share their joys, sorrows, and pride. Without being interrogated about dependence on Danish welfare.
She mostly thinks about what kind of life her daughter is growing into.
Whether someone will eventually call her terrible names like ’Greenlander whore’.
