Activist brings 30 years of experience to the environmental crusade

Since her teen years, Winona LaDuke fought for the rights of her Native American people and lobbied for reform of environmental regulations. She wrote numerous books and organized countless protests on these issues.

But she still balks at being called an activist.

"I'm considered to be an activist, but I consider myself to be more of a responsible parent and a responsible human," she said. "We live in the richest and most powerful country in the world, and that should have certain responsibilities along with all those rights."

LaDuke visited Wilkes University from January 29-31 as part of Focus the Nation, a nationwide program aimed at teaching students the information, civic responsibility, and leadership needed to fight global warming. Along with a formal lecture to the community, LaDuke also met with students in their classrooms and hosted an informal question and answer session with students, faculty, and community members.

At her informal discussion, LaDuke talked about civil responsibility, and the need for Americans to become active participants in their own lives. She said the duty of responsible citizens is to learn what they can about where their water, food, and resources come from and how that can affect their well-being.

Peter Bush, a freshman pharmaceutical science major, decided to attend LaDuke's discussion session after seeing video clips of her past lectures online. Interested in both her cultural and environmental work, Bush thought her take-charge, no-nonsense approach to these issues reflected his own beliefs.

"For me it's a moral issue, and it should be common sense," he said. "We have to take an active part in it because it affects our lives and who we are."

Bush was hooked right from LaDuke's opening when she likened personal responsibility for environmental issues to being a good parent. Just like parents want to know what additives are included in their children's cereal, they should also question what chemicals are in their drinking water or their food.

"I really loved how she immediately started talking about being a mother, about how we need to take responsibility for our own actions," Bush said. "Her entire presentation jumped into two words for me: common sense."

LaDuke, 48, grew up watching her Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) father and Jewish mother speak out on racial and environmental issues. She discovered her own passion for the issues as a high school student arguing national energy policy on her debate team.

While studying at Harvard University, LaDuke worked on researching the injustices in Navajo uranium mines, where miners were exposed to unhealthy amounts of radiation.

In 1977, LaDuke was asked to present her research at the first United Nations forum on the rights of indigenous people. At 18 years old, LaDuke traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, to represent indigenous people throughout the Western hemisphere.

"Indigenous people went to the United Nations and said, 'We believe that we have rights to determine our destiny, basic human rights to speak our language, not to be sent to boarding school, not to have our land taken away, and not to have our economy controlled by someone else,"' she said. "So they asked me to do this research paper on it, and, being really nerdy, I said yes. Someone had to present it, so I presented it."

After she presented her paper at the United Nations forum, LaDuke started working at the Navajo reservations. Her main job was to translate government documents.

Many Navajos on the reservations did not speak English, but even the ones who did had difficulty understanding the government documents, which were written in a scientific vernacular. LaDuke believes that using that kind of language prohibited the residents from having clear knowledge of what was happening in the uranium mines where they worked.

"We have an individual responsibility to understand things, but we also have a responsibility to hold institutions accountable, not to get to the point where only they have full knowledge," LaDuke said. "We're talking like the Middle Ages, where only some people have the knowledge."

LaDuke said that working on the Navajo reservations was an epiphany for her. It made her aware of the control corporations have over communities, especially ones where English is not predominantly spoken.

"How could you make an informed decision like that? How can you send a Navajo down to an underground uranium mine when there isn't even a word in Navajo for radiation?" she asked. "How can you get informed consent?"

She began testifying at hearings and conducting research on companies before they moved into communities. She organized demonstrations in nuclear power plants across the United States.

As a way for her message to reach a greater number of people, LaDuke began writing as a journalist on the issue of informed consent. While writing for magazines described as "politically progressive," LaDuke discovered they weren't covering the kinds of issues she believed necessary.

"I remember saying I wanted to write an article on the Navajo uranium mines, and they told me, 'We covered Indian people last month,'" she said. "Do they have some kind of quota, like Indian people get covered once a year?"

After conducting research, organizing protests, and writing articles, LaDuke decided that her next form of action would be running for public office.

In the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections, LaDuke ran as Ralph Nader's vice-presidential running mate for the Green Party.

"You don't necessarily need to be in office for things to change, but you do need to engage," she said.

At her home on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, LaDuke devotes her time, energy, and skills to help better the quality of life. She describes the reservation as troubled, with two-thirds of the residents living below the poverty level, one-third afflicted with diabetes, and "arrest and abuse rates through the roof."

One of her main goals for the reservation is to make it more self-reliant. She encourages using wood from the abundant trees on the reservation for heat and energy, and growing food locally.

Her latest project on the reservation was to revamp school lunches. Obesity is a big problem on the reservation, and the breakfasts and lunches filled with corn syrups, fats, and dyes students eat every day at school don't help. LaDuke worked for federal grants and donations to serve organic, locally-grown food at the school.

"We now serve a chili with locally-grown kidney beans, tomatoes, and buffalo meat," she said. "We have to get these kids to decolonize their tastes. A corndog doesn't have to be their future."