Born 1959
Los Angeles, California

Environmentalist, Native American rights activist, and writer

Winona LaDuke is one of the nation’s foremost Native American environmental activists. She combines her mission of protecting the land with the promotion of economic and cultural viability of Indian communities. As LaDuke stated in a 1995 interview with The Progressive, the focus of her work is to change society “from the synthetic reality of consumption and expendability to the natural reality of conservation and harmony.”

Raised to respect Indian heritage

Winona LaDuke was born in 1959 in an Indian neighborhood in East Los Angeles, California. Her parents were Vincent LaDuke, an Ojibwa Indian, and Betty Bernstein, a Jewish woman. Vincent was an Indian-rights activists and an actor who had small roles in numerous films. Betty was an artist from New York City.

Both of LaDuke’s parents were supporters of human...