Los Angeles Indigenous Peoples' Alliance (LAIPA)

We are Indigenous families from Turtle Island, living in Tovaangar. We are community.

LAIPA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit grassroots organization founded in 1991 by a collective mobilization of Indigenous families and organizations. We were born from resistance—specifically, to block the quincentennial celebrations of colonial violence and offer an alternative vision rooted in our own truths. Since then, we have worked tirelessly for Indigenous human rights, cultural preservation, and the continual development of our peoples living in Tovaangar.

Our Mission

We fulfill our commitment by promoting and facilitating the creation of centers of resistance—spaces where oppression, racism, xenophobia, and cultural genocide can be challenged, and where Indigenous women and their families can organize and create solutions from within. We take a holistic approach to community organizing, advancing unity among diverse Indigenous peoples on the basis of a fundamental principle: One Continent, One Peoples.

Cultural Preservation as Healing

For Indigenous families from Turtle Island living in Tovaangar, reclaiming our cultural identity is not a luxury—it is a political act of self-empowerment and a vital part of our healing process. Pride in our traditional ways and worldview goes hand in hand with developing leadership and skills that lead to family health and community empowerment.

In Tovaangar, where rates of severe depression are alarmingly high among our Raza populations, LAIPA is dedicated to demystifying mental health through culturally responsive, gender-responsive, and healing-informed strategies. We recognize that kinship circles, traditional medicine, rites of passage, and ancestral food systems are not relics of the past—they are our most urgent tools for survival and well-being.

How We Work

All LAIPA efforts are based on:

Collective decision‑making
Holistic and culturally appropriate approaches
Celebrating Native culture
Facilitating leadership
Building from within to create solutions

Our focus is equity and empowerment through Indigenous human rights‑centered strategies. We believe that self-advocacy skills increase when we embrace our traditional ways—and those skills are essential for individual, family, and community well‑being.

Our Commitment to Indigenous Families in Tovaangar

Over three decades of grassroots work, we have remained accountable to our own community. Our commitment is not theoretical—it is built project by project, circle by circle, family by family.

1990s – 2000: Building Foundations of Resistance

In 2000, LAIPA expanded the Calmecac Project, which continues to host and promote cultural education, ceremonial spaces, community gardens, murals, and conscious street art. That same year, we facilitated stationary and mobile Census assistance centers, helping reveal that over 50% of all Native Americans in California are from Mexico—a reality still reflected in today's data, which shows over 211,000 Indigenous Mexican nationals now call California home, representing at least 29 distinct pueblos including Mixteco, Nahua, Zapoteco, Tsotsil, and Purépecha peoples.

Also in 2000, LAIPA established the first community cyber center for low-income families in Maywood, California, through collaboration with the American Indian Opportunities Industrialization Center. This center provided six years of computer literacy and housed our third women's health and leadership program, Tonatzin.

Women's Health & Traditional Care

The Cihuatl Women's Health Project and the Xinachtli Mujeres Circle in northeast LA conducted seven years of culturally based health education and women's circles. Through Xinachtli Mujeres, we supported Zapotec elders to teach and provide traditional post-partum care for women in Southern California—keeping ancestral medicines alive for our newest mothers.

Youth Leadership: Xinachtli Rites of Passage

In 2001, LAIPA established the Xinachtli – Germinating Seed Rites of Passage Project, a comprehensive youth rites of passage and leadership development project for teen girls. This work has grown transnationally: after five years of training, there are now 12 active Xinachtli sites in Maryland, Texas, Colorado, and California. To date, we have trained over 800 facilitators, and our youth members have successfully organized five teen-led conferences and four retreats focused on culture, higher education, Indigenous rights, parent-child communication, and dating violence.

Redefining Masculinity: Project Fatherhood

In 2008, LAIPA integrated Project Fatherhood, based on the Cara y Corazon/Itzli-Yolotl Philosophy. This project critically analyzes forms of colonization and their effect on male identity. Led by men, the curriculum works with men to decolonize, redefine masculinity and fatherhood roles, challenge chauvinistic attitudes, and develop a true hombre de palabra—a man of his word, embodying the traditional role of balanced manhood, respectful of Mother Earth.

Building on this foundation, our Macehual Leadership Program aims at strengthening the relationship between parents and their adolescent children, with an emphasis on re-establishing connections between them and ensuring the continuity of cultural traditional values and practices.

Why this work is urgent: Our communities are plagued with single-parent homes where the mother is the sole caretaker, provider, and character builder for her children and adolescents. This has contributed to cycles of self-destructive behavior due to the fact that fathers are absent and there is a void of a male role model who can set a positive example. Youth find themselves with a host of confusing attitudes and values—needing their fathers to help guide them through this labyrinth called life. Young adults, and males in particular, then turn to each other for guidance and end up making decisions that lead them to unhealthy behavior, practices, and values. These young Native men and women become parents and pass on these practices and values of negligence or abuse (or both), thus ensuring that a cycle of self-destructive behaviors is passed on to another generation of Native youth.

Our response: Through Project Fatherhood and the Macehual Leadership Program, LAIPA works to break these cycles by reconnecting fathers to their children, re-establishing traditional male roles of protector, teacher, and balanced leader, and ensuring that our young people have the guidance they need to thrive.

The Impact

Through these projects, LAIPA has worked with over 1,400 families across a decade of direct service.

2010: Strategic Refocusing

In 2010, facing a difficult economic environment, our members made a collective decision to decrease fundraising efforts and consolidate projects. We chose to focus on two volunteer-based strategies that remain our pillars today:

The Calmecac Project – Continuing to facilitate cultural and ceremonial gatherings, organizing three cultural gatherings per year
The Xinachtli Rites of Passage Training – Expanding our facilitator network and supporting sites nationwide

Past funders who have supported this vision include the California Wellness Foundation, The California Endowment, the Ford Foundation, the City of Los Angeles, the California Women's Foundation, and the LA Immigrants Health Collaborative, The California Endowment, The California Women's Foundation, and Grantmakers for Girls of Color.