Book ID: CBB167777364

The River Is in Us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk Community (2017)

unapi

Hoover, Elizabeth (Author)


University of Minnesota Press


Publication Date: 2017
Physical Details: 360
Language: English

Winner of the Labriola Center American Indian National Book Award 2017 Mohawk midwife Katsi Cook lives in Akwesasne, an indigenous community in upstate New York that is downwind and downstream from three Superfund sites. For years she witnessed elevated rates of miscarriages, birth defects, and cancer in her town, ultimately drawing connections between environmental contamination and these maladies. When she brought her findings to environmental health researchers, Cook sparked the United States’ first large-scale community-based participatory research project.In The River Is in Us, author Elizabeth Hoover takes us deep into this remarkable community that has partnered with scientists and developed grassroots programs to fight the contamination of its lands and reclaim its health and culture. Through in-depth research into archives, newspapers, and public meetings, as well as numerous interviews with community members and scientists, Hoover shows the exact efforts taken by Akwesasne’s massive research project and the grassroots efforts to preserve the Native culture and lands. She also documents how contaminants have altered tribal life, including changes to the Mohawk fishing culture and the rise of diabetes in Akwesasne.Featuring community members such as farmers, health-care providers, area leaders, and environmental specialists, while rigorously evaluating the efficacy of tribal efforts to preserve its culture and protect its health, The River Is in Us offers important lessons for improving environmental health research and health care, plus detailed insights into the struggles and methods of indigenous groups. This moving, uplifting book is an essential read for anyone interested in Native Americans, social justice, and the pollutants contaminating our food, water, and bodies.

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Reviewed By

Review Ashley E Reis (January 2019) Review of "The River Is in Us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk Community". Environmental History (pp. 190-192). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB167777364/

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Authors & Contributors
Rider Foley
Mart, Michelle
Tomasz Kalinowski
Newman, Richard S.
Richard Rushforth
Spears, Ellen Griffith
Concepts
Environmental pollution
Pollution
Toxicology
Social justice
Chemical pollution
Public health
Time Periods
20th century, late
20th century
21st century
19th century
18th century
20th century, early
Places
United States
France
New York (U.S.)
Great Britain
Love Canal
Baltimore (Maryland, U.S.)
Institutions
United States. Environmental Protection Agency
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