The grandchildren generation is coming: Winona LaDuke talks with Nick Tilsen about stepping up as a young Lakota leader.

Nick Tilsen comes from a long line of activists. His maternal great-grandmother was Meridel LeSeur, the renowned writer, poet and political activist from Minnesota. His paternal grandfather is Ken Tilsen, a civil and political rights lawyer who defended activists at Wounded Knee in the 1970s. His mother is Lakota activist JoAnn Tall, the winner of the 1993 Goldman Environmental Prize for opposing a toxic waste dump on Indian lands. Nick's father is Mark Tilsen, a political activist who works behind the scenes raising money, awareness and encouraging activists.

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Now 23, Nick has been raised between two worlds. He graduated from an almost all-white school in Minnesota, while being raised by his father and a large extended family of political activists in the Twin Cities area. He has moved back to the Pine Ridge reservation and is a member of the Lakota Action Network, which is creating campaigns to build and defend the Lakota Nation.

How did being raised by an activist family affect you as you grew up?

There comes a point where you learn all this stuff in your family. You come from the families who are marching, and you wonder why you are marching. And then you see how blind your peers are, because there are not enough activist families. We end up sort of separating ourselves from everyone else because there are no other people like us. And when you see that the things they are teaching in school are just totally opposite to what we are learning at home and in the rest of the world, and you see that everyone else is buying the lics, you get so angry. You ask yourself, "Am I going to become numb to it?" or, "Why should I have the responsibility to do anything about it?" That's the point I came to in high school, like, "Why is this my responsibility?" You either become numb or really angry and then get active.

How did you become politicized?

I was already there. Three years ago, I was in my house in Minnesota, and I had this dream. I dreamed that I was a little baby, like three years old, and I was in this black van. And there were people all over the place, and there was a stage, and my mom and dad were talking. I hated the fact that they locked me in this van. There was all kinds of confusion in the crowd, and someone came in and a tear gas canister, filled up the entire van with gas, and they couldn't get me out of my seat belt.

I told that story to my dad, and he said, "That wasn't a dream; that was a memory. That happened to you at Sioux Falls State Penitentiary. There was a demonstration there, and they tear gassed us." I remember my mom was holding me, and my whole face and my eyes were puffed up. They said it could have killed me, because I was only a baby. So what I am saying is that my road was chosen before I decide to walk it, and these struggles have been a part of my life since birth.

After your experiences and upbringing, what triggered you to get active?

I was so angry when I was in high school. Played hockey, partied and wrote letters for the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. We partied just like everyone else did, but I was always ranting and raving and showing other kids maps of the treaties. Maps of the 1868 treaties, then how it got broken down to the checkerboard reservation. One kid said, "You guys owned all of this land." I said, "We still own all of this land."

Who do you admire most in the world?

My dad. Throughout our hardships as a family, he has always stayed real and stayed true to his three kids and himself, as well as everybody with whom he worked. He has shown me what respect means, what love is and what family means. He has made sacrifices when they needed to be made. He raised three kids on his own, something that many men don't do. He was essentially both my mom and dad; he played both roles and he did it so well.

He raised us three kids and managed to create positive change on so many different levels. He coordinated, fundraised, participated in and organized countless protests and benefits for a number of different causes. He's not a talker, but a doer.

How was it that you became involved in youth organizing?

I have always been the only young person and about two and a half or three years ago, Tony Black Feather from the Lakota Treaty Council said, "We're getting old. All the elders are dying off. When we die off, we're taking knowledge with us. This work has to continue. This treaty council was formed in 1894 and has to continue, and one of the things that we've been bad at is getting young people involved." So I said, "Of course I will help." I am learning, myself.

How did youth get involved with the work of the councils, and what was the purpose of the [recent] youth gathering?

By and large, Indian Country is young. Fifty percent of the Pine Ridge Reservation is under 24. That means that there is a lot of potential in youth organizing work. We have one treaty council, and then we have eight meetings on each of the reservations. That's where our constituency comes from ... so we said that we'll put together a youth gathering. That'll be just young people who are involved in the communities. Not so much politicizing kids, but taking kids that are already politicized and introducing them to these different areas of work. And saying that this work needs to continue, this work has been here for over a hundred years, and this work needs to continue.

What about spirituality?

The one thing that I give one hundred percent to is my pipe. And if there's a protest going on, or if I have to go help out a ceremony, then I'm going to go help out the ceremony. Because I believe that there are not enough people who stick with the spirituality. You've got to help with the altar all year, because all of the stuff we are doing is for this. And because of that, there are times that the activism work is put on the back shelf. This is hard ... being at an altar at a Sundance--I used to separate it. This pipe is about humility, about being humble, and when the people need to walk on top of you, you do it. You lay down.

How can you be that humble, when the U.S. government or the state of South Dakota is oppressing your people?

Remember that pipe is right here. That's been my biggest battle, because I give everything to this altar. I believe in being there. I'm not the person who has to get tied up in that ceremony. There's a leader that does that. I'm there just to help that leader help the people. That's my role in this whole struggle--just to help the people who are there to cure the people or who are there to help the people.

Winona LaDuke (Ojibwe) is the executive director of Honor the Earth, founding director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project and has written extensively on Native American and environmental issues.