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VP hopeful started her road to politics in Ashland By Dani Dodge Winona LaDuke, the Green Party vice presidential candidate, has gained political prominence as a voice for American Indians and environmentalism. It�s a voice that spoke its first words of justice here in the Rogue Valley. LaDuke, 40, moved to Ashland as a 4-year-old when her mother, renowned artist Betty LaDuke, took a position on the faculty at Southern Oregon University. From the beginning her life was steeped in politics. Betty LaDuke�s art ranged from subjects such as civil rights and Martin Luther King Jr. to portrayals of Barbie as an ironic cultural icon. In California, Winona�s father, Vincent LaDuke, started one of the first American Indian journals. And Winona LaDuke�s stepfather, Peter Westigard, is a well-known Rogue Valley entomologist. Winona LaDuke � now a mother of three who plans to take her 5-month-old infant on the campaign trail � remembers attending a peace rally in Medford when she was 10. Peace advocates circled the U.S. Courthouse holding hands. "This carload of guys circled really slow then cracked an egg on this (peace demonstrator�s) head," LaDuke said in a phone interview from her home on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. "The egg just ran down his head. I was looking at this guy and thought he must be really mad, but he isn�t saying anything." And he didn�t break the circle of hands to wipe his head. LaDuke attended Ashland High School, where she was inspired by speech and debate coach John Tredway. "I was a total social outcast, but I was smart," LaDuke said. "John Tredway takes a lot of kids who aren�t the prettiest or most athletic or most popular and a lot of those kids have amazing gifts that he brings out." She wrote for the school newspaper and won speech and debate awards. LaDuke went to Harvard, immediately becoming involved in American Indian issues. She wrote scathing editorials for the university paper denouncing racial stereotyping in textbooks and investigated mining practices on Indian lands. "She became immediately politicized," Betty LaDuke said. A member of the Mississippi band of Anishinaabeg Indians, LaDuke has become one of the country�s foremost Indian activists. She founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project to buy back culturally significant sites on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. She was Ms Magazine�s Woman of the Year in 1997, and made Time�s 1995 list of the 50 leaders for the future. She turned down a request to be the vice presidential candidate for a little-known third party in 1992. But four years later, it was Ralph Nader asking. After initial hesitation, she agreed. When he asked again last year, she was reluctant. Only when he threatened to get on his knees and beg did she agree to be his 2000 running mate. She�s working hard to live up to the responsibilities of being a national candidate. She said solutions to the world�s problems are fairly evident; the problem is lack of political will. Global warming? Stop burning combustible fuels. War deaths? Stop selling arms. "It�s not that there�s not a solution to the problems of distribution of wealth: You have to increase the bottom wages to a living wage, and remove corporate welfare," she said. "Politics has become the purview of the privileged," she said. "And the political policy has been written for the richest Americans, and not for the poorest." "There�s something ultimately wrong with that." She hopes her candidacy and campaigning will energize non-voters. "I know what it is to be disenfranchised. I didn�t actually vote until 1996," LaDuke said. What changed her mind? "Ralph." Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA