Community Leadership
Indigenous Cultures Institute
The Indigenous Cultures Institute was founded in 2006 by members of the Miakan-Garza Band, one of the over six-hundred bands that resided in Texas and northeastern Mexico when the Spaniards first arrived. The 83rd Legislature recognized the Miakan-Garza Band as a Texas Indian tribe with “immeasurable contributions to the State of Texas”. Members of the Miakan-Garza Band still practice their traditional ceremonies and maintain long held family ties.
The Indigenous Cultures Institute produces an annual summer camp which invites young people in Central Texas to participate in an indigenous arts-based learning environment. Through community-building activities and hands-on learning, participants learn about the arts of their ancestors and reconnect with their indigenous heritage. By the end of each week, participants have devised an original interdisciplinary event that highlights their newly learned indigenous arts practices, including Native flute, ceremonial dance, and identity performance.
I served as a teacher in the camp beginning 2012, then as camp director, and finally as Education and Outreach Director of the Institute through 2016. In this role, I worked with elders, teachers and artists to create a culturally-sustaining and creatively engaging curriculum for indigenous youth.
To learn more about the Indigenous Cultures Institute, visit:
Indigenous Cultures Center Initiative
I am the Indigenous Cultures Center Coordinator for the Indigenous Cultures Institute, leading our multi-million dollar initiative to establish an Indigenous Cultures Center in Hays County, TX.
This center would be the first of it’s kind in the state of Texas, and would conserve our lands, protect our waters, and provide a permanent educational and ceremonial space for our community and future generations.
Beginning in 2020, my elders asked me to lead this initiative among our people. With the collaboration of many, we created a formal proposal for County bond funding to be presented in front of the Parks and Open Spaces Advisory Commission. You may read the proposal we created and submitted HERE.
Be sure to also read about our initiative to establish an Indigenous Cultures Center in the press.
Repatriation
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) databases list more than 7 million Culturally Unidentifiable Inventoried (CUI) Native American remains of our ancestors that have been unearthed over the years and are kept in “collections” by universities, museums, and federal and state departments. This has happened in a country where it is against the law to disturb a human grave.
As of 2015, the remains of 3,454 ancestors were removed from our Texas sacred grounds. Over 2,400 of those ancestors are at the University of Texas at Austin. The Miakan-Garza tribe is seeking three of those remains for reburial. “Our obligation, as native people, as Texas Indians, is to obtain possession of these ancestral remains and rebury them as close as possible to where they were unearthed.” — Dr. Mario Garza
Public Campaign
On June 3, 2020, UT denied the tribe’s request to rebury their ancestors. The Miakan-Garza appealed to President Jay Harzell to overturn this decision and gave him until August 17th to respond. No response was received. On August 20th the tribe issued a press release targeting the university’s unwillingness to turn over the ancestors for reburial. By this time, my elders gave me permission to lead an intergenerational and intertribal public campaign to pressure UT Austin to return our ancestors’ remains. September 7th, the community gathered and united with students at UT to launch a campaign for the ancestors’ release.
Our work on this issue was guided by Dr. Mario Garza and Maria Rocha, our elders who have led the repatriation efforts for our people for over 30 years. In November, we will present on this issue at the 7th Annual Repatriation Conference for the Association on American Indian Affairs. You can find the conference draft agenda HERE and register to attend HERE.
