Executive Director

Lourdes Escalante (Yaqui Nation, She/Her)

Executive Director

Lourdes Escalante is a proud Yaqui woman and mama from South Tucson, Arizona. She is a first-generation college graduate and the first graduate of the American Indian Studies Bachelor’s Degree Program from the University of Arizona, along with her second major in Political Science with an emphasis in Law and Public Policy.

Lourdes is passionate in uplifting awareness and healing for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relations (#MMIR) globally. Her interests are also in Indigenous-Centered Reproductive Justice, Indigenous Human Rights, Federal Indian Law and Policy, and Indigenous Nation-Building through Rematriation and Re-Indigenization.

Lourdes’ roots in the community stem from various parts of her life. She has served the Yaqui ceremonial community in Tucson, AZ, and she has served in leadership positions in Native American extracurricular programs and clubs at the high school, college and university spaces.

Under Lourdes’ leadership, there are new efforts to actively maintain community harmony and safety protocols in 2024 as the AISF has transformed and is further evolving to become a 501c3. The City of Tucson is #4 in the nation for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relations (#MMIR) and the AISF is a trauma-informed organization that is accountable to the Indigenous communities on both sides of the border.

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Lourdes is grateful for the privilege to serve the community and help lead the AISF in fulfilling the organization’s mission and purpose.

Director of Development

José Rodriguez (He/Him)

Director of Development

With a background as a project manager and co founder of a community- based café / coffee roaster, José aims to help people and projects thrive.  He strives to center his work on empathy, reciprocity and “cultura cura”.

Theater has also been a powerful form for José throughout his career and has served as a medium to foster empathy and healing in the community.

He studied applied anthropology and holds a B.A. in political science and economics from San Francisco State University.

Project Coordinator

JS Torres (Tlingit & Lakota, They/Them)

Project Coordinator

JS Torres is a Digital Media Specialist working on their BA in Film and Television with a minor in Journalism at the University of Arizona. JS uses their acquired skills to enhance social media platforms that benefit Indigenous focused programing in Pima County. Their specialty is audio and splicing together podcasts as they have acquired a certificate in Radio from Rio Salado Community College in 2019.

Co-Director, ILO

Joel A. Saldaña Pérez (he/him)

ILO Co-Director

Joel (he/him/él) has been involved with the Alianza since 2018 as a Graduate Research Associate (2018), Projects and Programming Intern (2019-2024), and Archival Fellow for the Indigenous Archives Without Borders (2021-2024).  He is currently serving as ILO Co-Director.

In addition to his work with the Alianza, he has worked, interned, or volunteered with multiple non-profits and social services organizations, including: 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) as part of an internship program through the Southern Arizona Area Health Education Center (SEAHEC).

Joel is an immigrant from Guanajuato, Mexico and a first-generation college student at the University of Arizona, where he is a Ph.D. candidate in Mexican American Studies with a minor in Library and Information Science.  His academic interests include Mexican and Mexican American foodways, Mexican Traditional Medicine, Oral Traditions, Decolonial Archival Spaces, and Storytelling and Oral Histories. In his free time, Joel performs with Grupo Folklorico Miztontli and Compañia de Danza Folklorica Arizona (CDFA), two Mexican folklorico dance organizations in Tucson, AZ.

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.

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.