Karen Rodriguez is a Guatemalan woman raised in Venice Beach. She is a food lover who got her food education in kitchens of great restaurants in Southern California and a few in NYC. In these roles, she opened teams, served, managed and occasionally cooked. Her love of the culinary arts led her on the journey to learn an incredible amount from chefs, farmers and all of the people connected to our food.

She loves to connect with nature through healing, herbs, and gardens and is always excited to share a meal and feed loved ones. Following the thread of where our food comes from has made her passionate about teaching both children and the adults who teach children about tending to our soil and our earth because that is where all food begins. She is excited about regeneration and supporting healthy humanity, through food education, regenerating soils, restoring systems and kissing the ground.

Beata Tsosie-Peña, is from Santa Clara Pueblo and El Rito, NM. She is a mother, poet, advocate, seed keeper, and is certified in Infant Massage, as a Developmental Specialist, an Educator, A Lactation Counselor, a full-spectrum Birthworker, and in Indigenous Sustainable Design (permaculture). She led the creation of the Española Healing Foods Oasis demonstration garden and Seed Library with the local nonprofit, Tewa Women United. She is currently on the steering committee for the Traditional Native American Farmers Association and is a board member for Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute. She is a Pueblo representative for the New Mexico Governor’s task force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives serving a second term. She has been working to address impacts and advocate for environmental and reproductive health and justice for over a decade. She is the Organizational Director for Breath of My Heart Birthplace in traditional Kha’p’o Owingeh territory in Española NM.

I am Navajo and my clan is Tl’aashchi’I, Red Bottom clan, born for Tachii’nii, Red Running into the Water clan. Hashk’aa hadzohi, Yucca fruit-strung-out-in-a line clan, and Naasht’ezhi dine’e, Zuni clan. Growing up on and off the Navajo reservation near Farmington, New Mexico our traditional healing practices have always been apart of my life.  I attribute my accomplishments to the many prayers and ceremonies done on my behalf as I was growing into the woman I am today. 

I received my Bachelors degree in Nursing and a Masters degree in Nurse Midwifery from the University of New Mexico. I have had the pleasure of being involved in several community projects since the completion of my education as well as being invited to serve on several health panels emphasizing cultural diversity in midwifery.  In addition to my community service I have served as a mentor for emerging Native American midwifery students at the University of New Mexico and continue to support future midwives.

Singer, Song Writer, Emcee (rapper), Poet, and Published Author Jessa Calderon is of the Chumash and Tongva Nations of Southern California. Jessa also identifies with her Yoeme and Mexican roots. Jessa is a natural born singer who truly found her voice in hip-hop. As an emcee, poet and published author, Jessa is able to share her culture and truth in a way that keeps the crowds intrigued. Not only does Jessa bring pictures to life through the minds’ eye with her writing, she also brings her listeners enlightenment and healing. Since 2019 Jessa has joined the Dream Warriors collective with Tanaya Winder, Frank Waln, Lyla June, Tall Paul, Mic Jordan and Gunner Jules. Together they share, music, culture, stories, poems, seminars, workshops, webinars which equates to healing as a community.

Aside from writing and music, Jessa is also very passionate in Massage Therapy, Energy work, Past Life Regressions, Hypnotherapy and Intuitive practices.

Hopi dryland famer, traditional weaver, and culture bearer of his people.

Corrina Gould (Lisjan Ohlone) is the chair and spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan​— she was born and raised in Oakland, CA, the village of Huichin. As a tribal leader, she has continued to fight for the protection of the Shellmounds, uphold her nation’s inherent right to sovereignty, and stand in solidarity with her Indigenous relatives to protect our sacred waters, mountains, and lands all over the world.

Her life’s work has led to the creation of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, a women-led organization within the urban setting of her ancestral territory of the Bay Area. Sogorea Te’ Land Trust works to return Indigenous land to Indigenous people. Based on an understanding that Oakland is home to many peoples that have been oppressed and marginalized, Sogorea Te works to create a thriving community that lives in relation to the land.

Trisha Moquino is a member of the Cochiti, Kewa, and Ohkay Ohwingeh Pueblo Nations. She is a wife, mama, auntie, niece, daughter, community member and holds a BA from Stanford University in American Studies and an MA from the University of New Mexico in Bilingual and Elementary Education. She is the Co-Founder/Education Director and Elementary Keres Speaking Guide at Keres Children’s Learning Center (KCLC), an Indigenous Language Immersion Montessori school, located in Cochiti Pueblo, NM. One of the blessings she is grateful for is being able to work with children from her tribe in their Indigenous language of Keres every day. Her Montessori Teaching credentials include: AMS (Elementary I) and UMA & AMI (Early Childhood). For the last 3.5 years, she has been working with her KCLC colleagues and partners to develop the Indigenous Montessori Institute- an anti-racist teacher training program (a program of KCLC).

Marcus Briggs-Cloud (Maskoke) is a language revitalizer, scholar, and musician. He is co-director of Ekvn-Yefolecv, an Indigenous ecovillage community comprised of Maskoke persons who have returned to their ancestral homelands for linguistic, cultural, and ecological sustainability. Marcus is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and a doctoral candidate in ecology at the University of Florida. He is partnered to Tawna Little (Maskoke) and they have two children, Nokos-Afvnoke and Hemokke, with whom Marcus enjoys speaking exclusively in the Maskoke language.

h@lA (Halay) Turning Heart is Project Administrator for the Yuchi Language Project. h@lA holds a Linguistics degree from Dartmouth College and attended the University of Auckland-New Zealand and Charles University in Prague. She has served her Yuchi people for over ten years as a language educator and established shtahaê Ô’wAdAnA Yuchi immersion school in 2018.  She has been learning to speak Yuchi from her elders since childhood and is now raising her three young children solely in the Yuchi language. She mentors other parents in decolonizing their home language and reclaiming Indigenous lifeways. h@lA is the 2021 NDN Changemaker Fellow representing the Great Plains region, USA. She is an enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and a member of yUsûnûnû Yuchi Ceremonial Ground. can we raise our children to be fluent speakers of our endangered languages? In this episode, we interview three people who have accomplished this task! Trisha Moquino, H@la Turning Heart, and Marcus Briggs-Cloud  present on how language fluency has been passed onto children through communal immersion rooted in Indigenous cosmologies