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Winona LaDuke

Winona LaDuke Books

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“There are many histories of North America. The experiences of successive waves of immigrants are distinct, as are—to a large degree—the histories of the different classes compromising the immigrant waves. The histories of the various peoples native to the continent are also quite distinct within themselves. The story of each of these groups holds a rightful claim to its own integrity, to its own place and fullness of meaning within the whole. To deny this is to distort.”

HistoryImmigrantsNorth AmericaSocial ClassesNative Peoples
Author:Winona LaDuke
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“The idea is the least labor and capital and resources you put together and the more you accumulate the better capitalist you are. So the suggestion I will make to you is that the idea of constant accumulation, which is what America is about, what consumerism, NAFTA are about, means that you always take more than you need and you don't leave the rest. So I suggest that it is possible from an indigenous world view that capitalism is inherently out of order with natural law.”

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Author:Winona LaDuke
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“The reality is that the founding fathers were land speculators. The fact was that you couldn't vote in this country if you did not own land, and that was basically you had to be a white man who owned land. Now how did they get that land? They basically had to steal it from someone, and that would be probably the Indians. And so most of the initial founding fathers were, while they may have had some really nice ideas about democracy, they had a lot of issues with people of color. They had a lot of issues with people who held things that they coveted.”

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Author:Winona LaDuke
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“In the end, there is no absence of irony: the integrity of what is sacred to Native Americans will be determined by the government that has been responsible for doing everything in its power to destroy Native American cultures.”

Has BeensEndsGovernmentCultureIntegrityResponsibleSacredDeterminedAbsenceIronyNativeNative AmericanAmerican CultureNative American Culture
Book:Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming
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“Water is life. We are the people who live by the water. Pray by these waters. Travel by the waters. Eat and drink from these waters. We are related to those who live in the water. To poison the waters is to show disrespect for creation. To honor and protect the waters is our responsibility as people of the land.”

PeopleShowsWaterResponsibilityLandCreationPrayingHonorDrinkProtectEnvironmentalRelatedPoisonLive ByDisrespectWater Is Life
Book:The Winona LaDuke Reader: A Collection of Essential Writings
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“The Lockean assumption that if we put our labor to it then it becomes our own is totally fallacious. We have to figure out how to leave things alone, and build an economic system that's not built on a linear model, but instead on a cyclical model, because that's the natural world - it's cyclical and not linear. That is going to take a lot of transformation.”

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Author:Winona LaDuke
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“Across the continent, on the shores of small tributaries, in the shadows of sacred mountains, on the vast expanse of the prairies, or in the safety of the woods, prayers are being repeated, as they have for thousands of years, and common people with uncommon courage and the whispers of their ancestors in their ears continue their struggles to protect the land and water and trees on which their very existence is based. And like small tributaries joining together to form a mighty river, their force and power grows.”

PeopleYearsTogetherFormForceGrowsWaterPrayerCommonExistenceStruggleTreeLandProtectMountainShadowRiversEarsSafetySacredEnvironmentalWoodsShoreAncestorContinentsStewardshipJoiningUncommonPrairieExpanseLand And WaterJoining TogetherForce And Power
Book:The Winona LaDuke Reader: A Collection of Essential Writings
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“Brothers and Sisters: Our ancient homeland is spotted today with an array of chemical dumps. Along the Niagara River, dioxin, a particularly deadly substance, threatens the remaining life there and in the waters which flow from there. Forestry departments spray the surviving forests with powerful insecticides to encourage tourism by people seeking a few days or weeks away from the cities where the air hangs heavy with sulphur and carbon oxides.”

PeopleTodayWaterPowerfulCitiesAirWeekBrotherFlowRiversEnvironmentalAncientSeekingHeavyForestsSubstanceDepartmentChemicalsPollutionCarbonBrothers And SistersSurvivingHomelandTourismDumpSprayNiagaraInsecticides
Author:Winona LaDuke
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“The insecticides kill the black flies, but also destroy much of the food chain for the bird, fish, and animal life which also inhabit those regions. The fish of the Great Lakes are laced with mercury from industrial plants, and fluoride from aluminum plants poisons the land and the people. Sewage from the population centers is mixed with PCBs and PBS in the watershed of the great lakes and the Finger Lakes, and the water is virtually nowhere safe for any living creatures.”

PeopleBlackWaterAnimalLandSafeCreaturesBirdPlantFingersEnvironmentalPopulationFishesChainsPoisonLakesRegionsPollutionLiving CreaturesMercuryAnimal LifeFood ChainAluminumSewageWatershedsPbsGreat LakesInsecticidesFluoride
Book:All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life
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“The military is the largest polluter in the country, and so you have a lot of military waste contaminating reservations - as, for example, on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, where 5,000 sheep died in some kind of experimental military nerve gas test 10 years ago. Many of our communities are dealing with that kind of waste, and an absence of political will to clean them up.”

YearsKindCountryPoliticalCommunityMilitaryExampleWasteYears AgoTestsDiedCleanEnvironmentalAbsenceGasNervesValleysSheepPollutionSkullsOur CommunityReservationsPolitical Will
Author:Winona LaDuke
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“Uranium mining in northern Canada has left over 120 million tons of radioactive waste. This amount represents enough material to cover the Trans-Canada Highway two meters deep across the country. Present production of uranium waste from Saskatchewan alone occurs at the rate of over 1 million tons annually. Since 1975, hospitalization for cancer, birth defects and circulatory illnesses in that area have increased dramatically - between 123 and 600 percent in that region.”

TwoCountryEnoughLeftMillionsMaterialsAmountBirthWastePercentAreasEnvironmentalRateCancerIllnessProductionsCanadaRegionsPollutionDefectsHighwaysTransMeterMiningUraniumBirth DefectsUranium MiningSaskatchewanRadioactive Waste
Author:Winona LaDuke
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“Post office closures in the Dakotas and Minnesota will impact many communities‚ but the White Earth reservation villages‚ and other tribal towns of Squaw Lake‚ Ponemah‚ Brookston in Minnesota‚ and Manderson‚ Wounded Knee and Wakpala (South Dakota) as well as Mandaree in North Dakota will mean hardships for a largely Native community.”

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Author:Winona LaDuke
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“I don’t understand all the nuances of the women’s movement. But I do understand that there are feminists who want to challenge the dominant paradigm, not only of patriarchy, but of where the original wealth came from and the relationship of that wealth to other peoples and the earth. That is the only way that that I think you can really get to the depth of the problem.”

ThinkingWayWantProblemEarthChallengesWealthMovementOriginalsDepthFeministDominantPatriarchyParadigmNuance
Author:Winona LaDuke
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“Another thing is, people lose perspective. It is a cultural trait in America to think in terms of very short time periods. My advice is: learn history. Take responsibility for history. Recognise that sometimes things take a long time to change. If you look at your history in this country, you find that for most rights, people had to struggle. People in this era forget that and quite often think they are entitled, and are weary of struggling over any period of time”

PeopleIfsThinkingLooksLongCountrySometimesAmericaTermLosesForgetResponsibilityStruggleRightsAdvicePerspectivePeriodsLong TimeErasTraitsEntitledWearyTaking ResponsibilityRecogniseShort TimeTime Periods
Author:Winona LaDuke
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“One of our people in the Native community said the difference between white people and Indians is that Indian people know they are oppressed but don’t feel powerless. White people don’t feel oppressed, but feel powerless. Deconstruct that disempowerment. Part of the mythology that they’ve been teaching you is that you have no power. Power is not brute force and money; power is in your spirit. Power is in your soul. It is what your ancestors, your old people gave you. Power is in the earth; it is in your relationship to the earth.”

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Author:Winona LaDuke
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