Trini Rodriguez (Tlazohteotl), Executive Board Member, Secretary, is co-founder of Tia Chucha’s and served as Executive Director until February 2018. A graduate of CSU, Northridge, she has experience as an educator, editor, writer, interpreter, business manager, and mentor. Adopted by a Navajo Nation Dine family, Trini conducts women’s sweat lodge ceremonies and healing circles for personal and collective transformation. She views the arts and the recovery of ancestral knowledge as necessary to reconnect people to their natural creative capacities as artists and thinkers whose combined gifts can help realign our world to its most caring possibilities. Active all her life, she writes, speaks and strives to impact systemic social change so that we may fully express our authentic selves and live the lives we were born to lead. Awards include: 2003 Local Hero of the Year, Hispanic Heritage Month KCET/Union Bank of CA; 2010 Mujeres Destacadas, Arte y Cultura Award, La Opinion; 2014 Mujeres de Corazon, Comision Femenil/San Fernando Valley; 2016 Community Hero Award, Los Angeles Dodgers; 2017 Maestro Award, Latino Arts Network; 2018 Outstanding Achievement Award, Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore. She and husband Luis J Rodriguez produce “The Hummingbird Cricket Hour” podcast to explore thoughts and move hearts on pressing matters of life, social change, and philosophy.