Author: natalie102701

1. Dear mentors, teachers, elders, and my friends,

You have impacted my life greatly. The memories I created in this program will be memories that I will cherish forever and hold dearly to my heart. I appreciate all the knowledge we exchanged, which I will take back and apply to my advocacy for my community. I wish the very best for all of you, thank you.

2. My biggest takeaway from this experience was the knowledge and emotions I developed at the Chumash village, Wishtoyo. I learned how to love, laugh, and learn for myself. I developed self love, which I will take back to my family, school, and community and show them how to spread kindness and love to one another.

I chose to do these images as my native portrait because this Mayan pyramid is Chichen Itza which is one of my favorite pyramids from the Mayan civilization. With this photo I want to convey the message that I’m an urban indigenous youth with Mayan roots. Most people who are not knowledgable on indigenous people tend to have a stereotype for Mayans. Through this photo I want people to see that I am not just Mayan, but I’m also an urban indigenous youth who advocates for her community, Los Angeles.

Today I learned how to play a Mexica game in which communication and community were important skills in order to achieve victory. Earlier in the day I also talked about environmental and Indigenous rights issues. Communication and community are both concepts that can be used in a way to tackle these issues in a way of promoting love and not hate. A lot of times, violence and hatred for one another are outcomes of issues that lack communication and community between both parties. To sum things up, concepts of unity can be used to overcome issues that effect the environment and Indigenous rights.