2025 TUXUUNGA INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2025
11:30 AM – 4:30 PM
12400 Big Tujunga Canyon Road, Tujunga, CA 91042

How do we honor, celebrate, uplift, and learn from Indigenous Peoples in ways that nurture both community and the land? How can we collectively heal the devastating wounds of colonialism, land and cultural loss, and the ongoing erasure of Indigenous voices?

At Tuxuunga — “The Place of the Old Woman” — we gather for the 5th Annual Indigenous Peoples Day to reaffirm Indigenous cultures, contributions, and visionary leadership. Together, under the mother oak, we celebrate this year’s theme: The Sacred Elements — Water, Air, Earth, Fire. These life-giving forces guide our shared responsibility to the land and connect us through ceremony, song, art, food, and community.

This free, family-friendly event is organized by ST Forward with special guidance from Indigenous Culture Bearer and Advisor Tina Orduno Calderon, and support from the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA).

Our celebration is shaped by these values:

Respect for the land
A focus on reciprocity
Relational educational opportunities
Cultural diversity
Generative dialogue

Presenters and Workshop Facilitators

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TINA CALDERON

Tina Orduno Calderon is a Culture Bearer for her family; the descendants of Komiikranga of the Santa Monica mountains which is shared territory for the Chumash and Tongva. Tina is wife, mother, grandmother, sister and auntie to many.

Tina is a singer who also enjoys creative writing and composing poems and songs. To date she has composed over a dozen songs in her ancestral languages of Tongvé and Chumash.

Additionally, Tina is a traditional dancer and storyteller who strongly believes in honoring her ancestors by sharing their history, educating others about Indigenous truths and inspiring others to respect the land, waters, sacred elements and environment.

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TED AND DENNIS GARCIA

Ted Garcia Jr. and his younger brother Dennis Garcia

(Tataviam/Chumash/Serrano) teach about traditional lifeways through song and storytelling. Enrolled with the Fernandeño-Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, Ted and Dennis Garcia trace their ancestry to individuals who lived at Chaguayabit village (today’s Castaic Junction) and elsewhere in the greater Santa Clarita Valley, southern Antelope Valley and San Fernando Valley at the time of European contact in 1769 and for a thousand years before that.

Ted Garcia, a spiritual advisor to the annual Hart of the West Powwow at William S. Hart Park in Newhall, is also an accomplished stone carver. Dennis Garcia is a traditional native dancer who gives presentations at L.A. area schools, The Autry, Satwiwa Native American Indian Cultural Center in Newbury Park and elsewhere.

VIRGINIA CARMELO

Virginia Carmelo was born in Orange County, California. Her paternal side is Gabrielino/Tongva and Digueno/Kumeyaay tribes. Virginia received her B.A. from CSU, Fullerton, in Ethnic Studies. During that time, being influenced by and involved in the social movements of the sixties, she began dance studies that led her to study indigenous dance with two prominent masters in the Los Angeles area. Currently, they take part in preserving and sharing the Tongva culture. The family endeavors to revitalizeTongva tribal song, dance, and regalia.

Today, the group “Toveema” can be seen performing both ancient and modern tribal song and dance at many prominent venues throughout Southern California. They take pride in the making of all regalia and instruments, using natural indigenous materials.

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LAZARO ARVIZU

Lazaro Arvizu Jr. is an artist, educator, musician, and researcher dedicated to the culture of the first people of Los Angeles. Born in the Los Angeles Basin, he is knowledgeable of the landscape and cosmology of the Gabrieleno culture. He has worked for over 20 years facilitating creative and meaningful cultural experiences to people of all ages and walks of life, in many venues.

JESSA CALDERON

Singer, song writer, emcee (rapper), Poet, Published Author, as well as the Director of Land, Water and Climate Justice for Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples, 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 parts of herself 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 which can offer them the means to encounter self-healing. Since 2019 Jessa has joined the Dream Warriors collective. Together and separately they share music, culture, stories, poems, seminars, workshops and webinars which equate to different means of wellness as individuals and community.

Aside from writing and music, Jessa has also been a Massage Therapist & Energy worker for over 20 years. She is passionate in offering Massage, Energy work, Past Life Regressions, Hypnotherapy and Intuitive practices.

MEZTLI PROJECTS

Meztli Projects is an Indigenous based arts & culture collaborative centering Indigeneity into the creative practice of Los Angeles by using arts-based strategies to support, advocate for, and organize to highlight Native and Indigenous Artists and systems-impacted youth.

Meztli Projects operates out of Apachianga (East Los Angeles) in Tovaangar (Los Angeles County), lands stewarded since time immemorial by families and villages now known as the Acjachemen, Chumash, Tataviam and Tongva Tribal Nations.

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CHEF LOUIE

Raised in Boyle Heights, Chef Louie's journey is deeply rooted in his Navajo and Apache heritage. His grandmother (age 103) is a living repository of Navajo tradition and boarding school stories, and has been a guiding light in his life. Inspired by his grandmother's resilience, Chef Louie, along with his son, embarked on a culinary journey by attending culinary school. Through his passion for food, he keeps his family's heritage close to his heart. Despite never venturing beyond the borders of the United States, Louie is a champion for refugees and asylum seekers, understanding the displacement they face from their indigenous lands.

Chef Louie's journey is a testament to the power of heritage, family, and resilience. His story is one of cultural preservation, empathy, and using one's platform to make a positive impact on the world.

XIOMARA DURAN

Xiomara Durán works as a Community Forestry Coordinator for urban greening projects in the San Fernando Valley. She loves volunteering especially when it helps to address climate change and environmental justice. She is mixed with European and Pipil (El Salvador) heritage.

DYANN DOMINGUEZ

A proud member of the Chumash community, Dyann is also known as Wyann Womin, or Smuwič in her native language. Her ancestral villages are in Santa Barbara and Ventura. She is a member of the Chumash Cultural Collective, where she works with Indigenous sisters to preserve traditions and culture through Indigenous language, song, and dance. As a Certified California Naturalist and Climate Steward, she dedicates herself to protecting the land and water entrusted to by her ancestors, passionate about passing on Traditional Ecological knowledge to the next generation.

GERARDO BARRIENTOS

Mexican Immigrant, Artist, sculptor, ceramicist, muralist, wood carver, activist and community leader. In a journey from survival, to freedom, to make creative contributions.

CHAD S. HAMILL / čnaq’ymi

Chad is director of Indigenous Arts at CalArts. A composer, performer, and ethnomusicologist, Hamill’s scholarship is focused on song traditions of the Interior Northwest US, including those carried by his Spokane ancestors. In tandem with his research and teaching, Hamill is a recording artist and traditional Spokane singer who studied north Indian classical vocal music under Pandit Rajeev Taranath, his beloved teacher of 30 years. In addition to performing within the Indian classical sphere, he has shared the stage with renowned Native American artists R. Carlos Nakai, Keith Secola, and Joanne Shenandoah. He also appeared in the award-winning film Rumble: Indians Who Rocked the World, which provides an historical corrective to erroneous narratives of multiple musical genres that have omitted the essential contributions of Native musicians. His current project, Coyote Makes a World– developed in collaboration with the Brooklyn-based percussion ensemble The Forest– utilizes contemporary Coyote stories within a dynamic rhythmic landscape layered with Native songs and Indian classical vocalizations to confront multiple crises of our times.

ABIGAIL GONZALEZ

Abigail Gonzalez, a first-generation Mexican American, is an primary school environmental educator, artist, and activist from the Southbay, Los Angeles. She works for a non-profit focused on ecological restoration and environmental justice, with a goal to inspire future generations. Though not of Tongva descent, she is dedicated to protecting the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Chumash, Tataviam, and Tongva peoples. She shares ancestral knowledge learned from cultural advisors and feels a strong sense of duty to sovereign tribal nations, honoring past, present, and future generations. Abigail hopes to continue collaborating with Native peoples to uplift their communities.