White Earth tribal member Winona LaDuke says all of this can be traced back to what happened more than a century ago -- "the fact that we lost all our land, our people were forced into poverty." A 1867 federal treaty sought to concentrate the Lakota and Ojibwe bands in White Earth, but many wanted more autonomy. Over time much of that allocated land was lost to tax forfeit, sales, and other means. LaDuke says this has left the real Natives of Minnesota reeling from "the shame of having lost everything, and now living with the consequences of that, after all those years -- the reality that, because of the dispossession of our people, we end up in a situation where we are the poorest of the poor."

Driving up Route 59, frozen cornfields and prairie are met by an endless horizon. It seems like a quintessential Midwestern scene. But at a certain line invisible to the eye, a border is crossed, and the region people on the coasts like to refer to as "flyover" is transcended. The signal from 89.9 FM, Niijii radio comes in, and a beating drum fills the car. Then, there are cries from a powwow song. Audibly, it is clear that this is no longer just Minnesota, the Midwest, or even the United States of America. This is the White Earth Reservation, a sovereign territory that belongs to the 20,000 enrolled tribal members of the White Earth Nation, descendants of the Anishinaabe (original people) of Minnesota.

LaDuke, the creator of Niijii radio, is one of the best-known native activists in the U.S., in part due to her consecutive bids as a vice presidential candidate to Ralph Nader in 2000 and 2004. She runs two non-profits based on White Earth. Those organizations, and the radio station, are all housed in the old public elementary school in Callaway.

LaDuke says the radio station promotes an assertion of identity that creates joy in an otherwise challenging environment. "The difference between us and other folks is we know who we are. We know the issues we want to talk about. We know how beautiful our music is, how amazing our stories are, how rich and deep our history of 7,000 years right here is."

KKWE Niijii radio -- "friend" in the Anishinaabe language -- is one of the newest of 69 tribal community stations in the U.S. In regions that are often remote, and complicated, these stations serve a purpose that goes far beyond entertainment. Tribal radio operators are developing the resource as a way to speak to their people, often in their traditional languages. And, LaDuke, the stations provide a way for Indians to talk to and educate the world outside reservation boundaries.

"The biggest thing that I want to see happen is self-sustainability," says the program director. "That's what I truly want to endorse."

"Non-Indian people stop me in the store and say, 'We like your radio station ,Winona.' They say, 'We like listening to your powwow music -- we never heard that before. We like that you have Anishinaabe Mowen, or your language, on there.' For me that's a good thing to have this pride, and for the non-Indian community that's our neighbors to get an opportunity in the safety of their own homes or cars to hear our people."