María F. Rocha is of Coahuiltecan and Comanche heritage and is a member of the Miakan-Garza Band, a state-legislature-recognized tribe of Texas. She is a co-founder of the Indigenous Cultures Institute, a nonprofit organization in San Marcos that preserves the culture of Native Americans indigenous to Texas and northern Mexico, and has been the executive director for 15 years. At the Institute, she established the Indigenous Arts Summer Encounter for youth, which uses an Indigenous-based pedagogy and multidisciplinary arts to teach Hispanic students about their Native identity. Prior to her service at the Institute, Rocha worked for eight years as administrative director of Teatro Humanidad, a bilingual theatre company in Austin. Yana Wana’s Legend of the Bluebonnet has toured live and virtually throughout Texas, reaching thousands of students and families with the sacred story of her people’s history in Texas.
