Cindi Moar Alvitre is a mother and grandmother and has been a cultural/environmental educator for over three decades. She is descendant from the Tongva, the original inhabitants of Los Angeles & Orange Counties, and the four Southern Channel Islands, and served as the first woman chair of the Gabrieleno/Tongva Tribal Council. In 1985, she and Lorene Sisquoc co-founded Mother Earth Clan, a collective of Indian women who created a model for cultural and environmental education. In the late 1980s, she co-founded Ti’at Society renewing the maritime culture of the Tongva.
Cindi is currently a PhD candidate at UCLA, Department of World Arts and Culture and a lecturer at California State University Long Beach in the American Indian Studies. Her specialties are California Indians, traditional medicine, cultural identity, revitalization, and cultural trauma.
Cindi is a Board member for the State of California, California Indian Heritage Center, and an alumna of the California Council for the Humanities. As a social-political activist she has represented her community domestically and internationally including opening for Nobel Laureates, Rigoberta Menchu Tum and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She is one of the original plaintiffs in Puvungna case during the two year occupation of this sacred site. She continues to dedicate her life to the preservation and protection of California Indian culture.