American Indian Cultural District Staff

Executive Director & Co-founder

Sharaya Souza (Taos Pueblo, Ute, Kiowa) is an ambassador for promoting equitable resource distribution to American Indian communities, increasing Native visibility and political representation, and protecting and preserving American Indian cultural resources in the San Francisco Bay Area.

She currently serves on Board of Directors for San Francisco Heritage, Reimagining SF, and the Aquatic Park Pier Planning Committee. Previously she has served on several groups in San Francisco including the Presidio Activators Council, the Climate Action Plan Environmental Justice Working Group, SFAC Monuments Memorials Advisory Committee, Climate Council, Housing Policy Committee, and the HRC Racial Equity in the Arts Working Group.

Sharaya’s previous experience included elevating Native voices in tech, Native youth retention, institutional and nonpartisan research, tribal cultural resource protection, environmental review, land use mediation, tribal consultation, helping tribal groups gain recognition as non-federally recognized tribes, and identifying Most Likely Descendants to repatriate Native American human remains.

Community Voices Intern

**Sequoya Cante Waukazoo Nakai** (Navajo/Lakota) was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is an honor roll high school student at ICA Cristo Rey Academy and is a Junior class officer. She is the granddaughter of Helen & Martin Waukazoo, two prominent figures and leaders known throughout the American Indian communityIndian country for their transformative work and lifelong commitment to improving the lives of American Indian people. Their legacy organizations are the Friendship house Association of American Indians and the Native American Health Center.
Ms. Nakai has been involved with both organizations since an early age. Sequoya is following in her grandparents footsteps, and wants to continue to help her community. She has future aspirations to study journalism in college and is well on her way by being the first Community Voices Intern with the American Indian Cultural District.

Lead Operations Admin

Coming soon!

AICD Community Ambassadors

Rodney Little Bird/Johnson Livingston

Programs & Projects Administrator

Caelum Peyron (Tule River Yokuts) has dedicated over five years to building relationships with Native and Tribal communities across California.

As an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, he coordinated events and managed social media as an intern for the Native American Student Development Office. Since then, he has worked with California Indian Manpower Consortium, Inc. (CIMC) as a Project Coordinator, where he accomplished a variety of projects that supported Native communities across over 30 counties in California, which included hosting testing sites for COVID-19 vaccine pop-up events and developing public health messaging in conjunction with the State’s Office of Community Partnerships and Strategic Communications.

In his role with the American Indian Cultural District (AICD), Caelum aspires to aid in current projects and programs in the Cultural District and learn how he can best support the Bay Area urban Native community.

Policy & Research Intern

**Ian De Vaynes** (Oglala Lakota) currently studies Political Science at the University of California Berkeley with a minor in Ethnic Studies and Public Policy. He hopes to use his studies to help further the advancement of the district and Native community in San Francisco. In his freetime, Ian likes to participate in social justice events in the Bay Area and is an avid Giants fan. Ian has a passion for policy and looks to incorporate more policy initiatives in the district in order to uplift the Native voice.
Raised in San Francisco, Ian has been deeply involved in his community. Ever since Ian was young, he participated in many urban native events. These events have included the Stanford Powwow, Dancing Feathers Powwow, Indigenous Peoples’ Day Gathering, Annual Wisdom Moving Forward Program, and the Annual Alcatraz Occupation Anniversary. Growing up, baseball, wrestling, and skateboarding have always been a constant in his life. He has always had a drive for learning about his culture and staying connected to his community.

Projects & Program Administrator