Our Staff
Plant Cruzer Herbalist & Advisor
Patrisia Gonzales, PhD (Kickapoo, Comanche and Macehual, She/Her)
Plant Cruzer Herbalist & AISF Community Advisor
Patrisia belongs to three generations of traditional healers and has taught about Indigenous medicine and Indigenous knowledge at the University of Arizona. Dr. Gonzales has recently retired as a professor from the UArizona. She is a traditional birth attendant and herbalist and has authored several books, including Red Medicine: Traditional Indigenous Rites of Birthing and Healing. She is former national columnist and has won several awards for her writings, including human rights awards. She has worked on Indigenous language policy and planning. As a 2018-2020 Faculty Fellow in the Agnese Nelms Program in Environment and Social Justice, she is engaging the next generation of Indigenous advocates with elders and Native rights activists associated with the Alianza.
Dr. Gonzales or “Dr. P” is the key contact for the AISF’s Plant Cruzer project. Dr. P can also be contacted in relation to grant funders, donors, philanthropic endeavors, and those seeking to collaborate with the Alianza. Regenerative relations reflect collaborations and relationships that are generative for Indigenous peoples and Indigenous rights.
Executive Director
Lourdes Escalante (Yaqui Nation, She/Her)
Executive Director
Lourdes is a lifelong resident of Barrio Libre located in South Tucson, Arizona. She is a first generation-college student and the first to earn the Bachelor’s of Arts in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona – alongside her second major in Political Science with an emphasis in Law and Public Policy. She has a background in tribal gaming with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and Tohono O’odham Nation. Lourdes has an extensive background engaging the Indigenous-college and university communities while at Pima Community College and at the UArizona. Since 2019, Lourdes has been a part of the Healing Our Nations, Offering Resiliency (H.O.N.O.R.) Collective which collaborates with the Alianza, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona’s Sewa Uusim Division, and various other partners in the Cukson community to bring awareness of issues such as #MMIW (#MMIWG, #MMIP, #MMIR) and Orange Shirt Day to the local Tucson community. Lourdes is an ever-growing advocate for Indigenous Rights and collective healing for Indigenous Peoples. Most importantly, Lourdes is a mama to two beautiful Yoeme suns (sons).
Co-Director of Fiscal Health
Mónica Denowh Carrasco
Co-Director of Fiscal Health
Mónica is a Yaqui/Xicana with over 15 years’ experience in community activism, organizing, promoting human rights, social justice and Peace. She majored in Anthropology and Women’s Studies at California State University Fullerton. She also studied Latin American Literature and Meso-American Archaeology at the Autonomous University in Guadalajara Mexico. Mónica works to build consciousness about sacred site preservation and the infringement of Indigenous peoples rights along the southern US border with Mexico. As a mental Health Advocate she fights against the stigma of mental illness and works directly in the community to make sure the community has equitable access to safe and appropriate mental and physical health care.
Email:monica@indigenousalliance.org
Alianza Member
Kathryn “Kat” Rodriguez
Member of the Alianza since 2000
Kat is a Tejana/Chicana with 20 years years working in the border justice movement. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University- Sacramento and a Masters of Public Administration from the University of Arizona. She has worked with farmworker struggles in Immokalee, Florida and Woodburn, Oregon. Most of her social justice work has centered on issues faced by the (im)migrant communities, specifically related to the deaths of migrants on the U.S.-México border. Kat is a longtime friend and ally of the Alianza Indígena Sin Fronteras and its work of promoting Indigenous border issues since 2000, and joined the staff in 2013.
Project Coordinator
JS Torres (Tlingit & Lakota, They/Them)
Project Coordinator
Archival Fellow / Projects & Programming Intern
Joel A. Saldaña Perez (he/him)
Archival Fellow / Projects & Programming Intern
Joel (he/him/él) has been with the Alianza since 2018, first as a Graduate Research Associate and then as a Projects and Programming Intern. He has also been serving as the Archival Fellow for the Indigenous Archives Without Borders project since 2021.
Joel is a first-generation college student and immigrant from Guanajuato, Mexico. He is a Ph.D. candidate in Mexican American Studies with a minor in Library and Information Science at the University of Arizona. His interests include Mexican and Mexican American foodways, Mexican Traditional Medicine, Mexican Folklorico Dance, Oral Traditions, Decolonial Archival Spaces, and Storytelling and Oral Histories.
Additionally, Joel has worked, interned, or volunteered with the following organizations: Emerge Center Against Domestic Abuse (since 2015); Casa Alitas (2017; 2023-2024); Resplandor International in Guanajuato, Mexico (2013, 2014, 2018); the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona and Las Milpitas Community Farm (2019-2020; 2023) and the Kino Border Initiative (2013) and the Flying Samaritans of Tucson (2014) through the Southern Arizona Area Health Education Center (SEAHEC).
Former Director of Development
Office Sloth
Former Director of Development
The Sloth (they/them) was Interim Director of Development from 2023 to 2024.