Anawakalmekak

06/01/2026

contributes to uplifting Indigenous student visibility, support for AB1581 -

“AB 1581 would require schools and the state to collect and report the tribal affiliation of every student who identifies as American Indian or Alaska Native, including those who also identify as another race or ethnicity.
When Native American students are undercounted, schools may not receive federal or state funds meant specifically for Indigenous students, such as for Native American language classes and tutoring, or Title VII, to boost Native American students’ academic achievement and make sure their classes are challenging and high quality, Ramos said. 
In addition, an undercount makes it hard to track how schools serve these students. For example, California reports how American Indian and Alaska Native students perform on standardized tests, graduation rates and suspension rates, all of which may be inaccurate if not all students are counted.
Collecting tribal affiliations would also show educators the diversity of Indigenous cultures among their students. California is home to 109 federally recognized tribes, and many more petitioning for recognition. In addition, there are thousands of students in California schools whose families are from Indigenous communities from Mexico and Central America.
“Indigenous students are ‘invisibilized.’ Any major school you go to in Los Angeles Unified, or across L.A. County, if you ask any college counselor if they have American Indian students, almost 100% will say no,” said Marcos Aguilar, project director of the American Indian Resurgence Initiative and co-founder of a Los Angeles charter school that teaches students in Nahuatl and Spanish in addition to English. “

https://edsource.org/2026/california-native-american-student-undercount/759343

05/23/2026

"Native languages are American languages. They were spoken here before the United States existed. They survived colonization, boarding schools and federal policies explicitly designed to erase them."

Read more in this is commentary by Anawakalmekak's Marcos Aguilar about our work to help expand bilingual education to include indigenous languages and treat it more than just an elective but "rather as core languages of learning, culture and community."

Link in Bio or by going to https://edsource.org/2026/multilingual-education-native-languages/757838

05/01/2026

A wonderful day celebrating our Earth and Traditional Ecological Knowledge during our Tlalilwitl / Tovaar Taamet Ceremony 2026. For indigenous peoples, every day is Earth Day!

Thank you to all of our community partners, families, students, and tribal leaders who came out!

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04/22/2026

Donate to Indigenous Self-determination through Education
Anawakalmekak is dedicated to student academic excellence, education rooted in Native wisdom, advancing the cultural and intellectual heritage of Indigenous Peoples, and promoting positive social awareness.

The multigenerational work of Indigenous regeneration, resurgence and reparations rooted in Native autonomy over education has not stopped since we founded our school in 2002 - and you have been part of this movement!

Whether you have contributed to us in the past or are currently contributing to us through monthly donations or if you plan to support us in the future, we want to extend this thanks / tlasokamati and recognize how important you are to this mission. We encourage you to recommit to helping us advance educational autonomy and self-determination in our community by donating here.

Thank you for supporting our mission, your support is a powerful commitment of community-rooted support for our schools.

Anawakalmekak is dedicated to student academic excellence, education rooted in Native wisdom, advancing the cultural and intellectual heritage of Indigenous Peoples, and promoting positive social awareness. The multigenerational work of Indigenous regeneration, resurgence and reparations rooted in N...

04/16/2026

🧑🏽‍🏫 📚 Wednesday 4/22: Indigenous Pedagogies Speaker Series

Join the U of A Indigenous Teacher Education Program - ITEP virtually on Wednesday, April 22, 2026, from 5:30pm-7:30pm (MST) for their next Indigenous Pedagogies Speaker Series (IPSS).

Theme: Justice. Storytelling, and Ceremony
Title: “Water Remembers Us: Southwest and México.”

Use QR code on flyer to register! or

Contact ITEP Coordinators for questions or comments, Dana Wilcox-Frago: [email protected] or

Ingrique Salt: [email protected]

Thank you to our sponsors: the Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry and PUIC at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)

🔗 Register for the zoom here:
https://shorturl.at/oB36M

04/16/2026

Many thanks to for the honor and invitation to join you for the closing ceremony. We are so proud of the collaboration and powerful vision of is . We are humbled by the presence and power of our youth leaders tonight starting with ’s for representing her tribe and our living ancestral ties. Our students sang our retelling of ihkwik a retelling of a poem-song over 500 years old that tells of catastrophe and regenerative healing. was so gracious to join us in uplifting our youth and shared powerful words con hechos no nomas palabras…Xtlaxtlawi Lindsay!

04/11/2026

The inequities of funding for public education continue to deepen. As the cost of education workers certificated by the state continues to outpace state per-pupil school funding levels and the costs of living inflate at every metric and the governments invest in policing and war, a perfect storm is brewing. To paint the government’s divestment from public education as American social justice and the democracy of a republic is the norm. While private schools charge $40-$80k per year plus all the extra fees charged for every little thing extra, our schools are offering $2 lunches and $5 afterschool programs for free. If every TK or kinder student that is admitted to our school represents a 12 to 13 year educational commitment on the part of our indigenous community organization, then we can estimate that the cost of public education at the end of that period will have been about between $300,000 to $500,000 (accounting for future dollar value) per student. Yet, our school lives underfunded on a year to year basis usually on a 1 to 2% cost-of-living increase in state revenues and increasingly dependent on philanthropy for program enrichment. The only major public investment in education recently made was because of the pandemic. And now that’s gone. Should we hope for more catastrophe? At we seed hope, but our school design will be forced to change by the failed social economy and the crisis constructed by a settler state bureaucracy. The land teaches how to survive. As we seed white sage and compost school lunch leftovers today, the morning breeze reminds us to look into the earth deeply. Our young ones merit education beyond smiling assimilation & caring colonization in govt schools. Sowing self-determination through the educational decolonization of our youngest generations is a kind of composting itself, where we take the blighted buildings and abandoned lots and convert these into beautiful learning communities. Speaking with a parent paisano from Tlalnepantla, we reasoned, systems impose crisis designed by those who plan to profit from our pain. We need to design liberation. -

04/11/2026

It’s ! honored the week by gathering at with parents, students and volunteers learning the process of composting and planting native trees! Thanks to our partners, families and friends as we spent the morning working the land!

04/11/2026

Public education is becoming more underfunded as the cost of education workers increases by 10-30% and the cost of living increases and governments invest in war. A perfect storm is brewing. To paint the government’s divestment from public education as American social justice and the democracy of a republic is the norm. If every TK or kinder student that is admitted to our school represents a 12 to 13 year educational commitment on the part of our school, then we can estimate that the cost of public education at the end of that period will have been about between $300,000 to $500,000 per student. Yet, our school lives underfunded on a year by year basis usually on a 1 to 2% cost-of-living increase in state revenues and increasingly dependent on philanthropy for program enrichment. The only major investment in education recently made was because of the pandemic. And now that’s gone. Should we hope for more catastrophe? Here we seed hope, but our school design will be forced to change. Where once tule was abundant, mustard weeds now dominate. As we seed white sage, the morning breeze reminds us to look into the earth deeply. Our young ones merit a movement beyond smiling assimilation and caring colonization in public schools.
…Marcos Aguilar

12/14/2025

Today we planted over 100 native trees, including Engelmann Oak, Ceanothus, and Blue Elderberry. Indigenous Youth Climate Resiliency Corps students made 18 adobe bricks guided by Ya’anna Village steward Zion Rodriguez.
We are slowly restoring our hillside with biodiversity and paying attention to ecological lines of succession to inform our best practices led by Indigenous Lands Stewardship Manager Tecpatl Kuauhtzin and Village steward, Hannya Ortiz Caldera.
Volunteers today included Anawakalmekak parents and students, Rico Ramirez, Tribal Council member of the Gabrielino-Shoshone Nation, volunteers and Shawn Sweeney of the Jane Goodall Institute USA.
Special thanks to the Hispanic Access Foundation with support through the Nuestros Bosques grant supporting the reforestation of Otsuunga at the Village.
Many thanks to our volunteers, staff, students and parents.
Video by Marcos Aguilar