CISA Board Members

Paul Kealoha Blake (Hawaiian) is a videographer, musician, and cultural activist. He has worked within the Native Hawaiian community for more than 20 years. He has collaborated with CISA for 8 years as an organizational and cultural advisor, as well as a videographer and documentarian.

Kat High (Hupa) is a Native California Indian videographer and storyteller. Ms. High has produced 5 documentaries on Native culture and history, and uses various art forms to illustrate oral histories, creation stories, and contemporary events. She has taught a video production workshop called "How to Shoot Like an Indian" to Native youth, and worked with AICLS to teach master/apprentice teams in video documentation of language and culture.  

Ernest Siva (Serrano/Cahuilla) Chair
Ernest Siva is co-founder of CISA. A tradition bearer, storyteller, ethnomusicologist in American Indian music, he hails from the Morongo Reservation in Banning, California. He is one of the founders of the Maki Museum at Morongo and has worked to preserve Cahuilla Bird Songs and the Serrano Language. 

Georgiana Sanchez (Chumash)
Georgiana Sanchez is a storyteller, poet, writer and professor of Native American Literature at California State University, Long Beach. She works extensively in the community as a cultural tradition bearer, language learner and activist. She has previously co-directed the CISA's Storytellers' Retreats since January 2002. 

Lauren Teixeira, Executive Director
Lauren Teixeria is the Executive Director and founder of CISA and of the California Indian Storytelling Festival, an annual CISA event since 1995. She is a librarian, storyteller and author of The Costanoan/Ohlone Indians of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area: A Research Guide (Ballena Press 1997). Ms. Teixeria has presented workshops on storytelling techniques and California trial history research at conferences throughout California since 1995.