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Charlene (Dolly) Delaunay is a member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe and an educator. She formed Wind River Publishing to share her story Bitter Water: A Memoir of Discrimination in Indian Country.

Dolly is currently available for speaking engagements.

Bitter Water: A Memoir of Discrimination in Indian Country is a rare first-hand look into tribal institutions of the modern-day west through the eyes of a Northern Arapaho woman.

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“Fear is a shape shifter, which too often makes it hard to recognize. I doubted that any of the cowboys on the Water Board would have thought of themselves as fearful, but they were. Prejudice establishes a barrier in your mind that prevents new information from entering. And what is dangerous about blocking new data is that it leaves you ill equipped to make good decisions.” 

— Charlene Delaunay
from Bitter Water

Bitterwater

Bitter Water: A Memoir of Discrimination in Indian Country is a timely memoir as tribes across the American West battle in court to secure their historically granted water rights. Marginalized people forcibly relocated during the nineteenth century—their cultures and populations nearly decimated by the westward expansion of Manifest Destiny—no longer defend their land and water with bows and arrows but with the skill of lawyers.

“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”
–Sun Tzu

About the author

Charlene (Dolly) Delaunay is a member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe and an educator who has lived and worked on three Indian reservations. She also taught in Taiwan for five years  through a fellowship program under the United States Information Agency, a branch of the State Department. She and her husband are advocates for sustainable housing alternatives on reservations that will provide Indians comfortable and affordable homes made with alternative building materials.

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