Before dawn on Thanksgiving, dancers in regalia adorned with feathers, sequins, and beads stepped onto ferries bound for Alcatraz Island. Among them were Leticia Bustos-Mosqueda, 44, and her daughter, Ysaiya Castaños, 17, joining one of San Francisco’s most enduring celebrations of Indigenous culture: the annual Sunrise Gathering.
“What brought us to Alcatraz was definitely our ancestors,” said Bustos-Mosqueda, who is Mexican with Aztec heritage. Dancing alongside her daughter as part of Xiuhcoatl Danza Azteca, a Mission District-based group, she sees the gathering as a way to honor her roots and show solidarity with Indigenous struggles around the world. “[It’s also] for all of the Native Americans fighting the resistance right now, and for all of our ancestors who were colonized.”
For Joaquin “Kalito” Cruz Chavez, 45, the gathering is both a continuation of tradition and a powerful act of solidarity. “It’s about supporting battles across the globe,” he said. “And it’s always the natives of the land who are being hurt.”
A leader of Danza Xitlalli, a San Francisco-based group founded by his mother in the 1980s, Cruz Chavez has been attending the Sunrise Gathering for decades. “I’ve been doing it since I was born,” he said. “These traditions are passed down from generation to generation.”
Organized by the International Indian Treaty Council, the ceremony drew thousands of participants to ancestral Ohlone land to commemorate Indigenous resilience and the 1969 Native American occupation of Alcatraz. It challenges the Thanksgiving narrative, spotlighting the historical violence endured by Indigenous communities while linking their struggles to global issues like Palestinian resistance.
For Bustos-Mosqueda, the event is deeply symbolic and personal. In recent years, she has faced profound losses: her child, her mother, her brother, and most recently, her father. Becoming a danzante, she said, offers a sacred space to reconnect. “To be able to reconnect with [my loved ones] in a way that I didn’t know was possible is priceless,” she said. “I’ve opened up my spiritual world so much and feel them. It feels amazing to pray for them any chance I get.”
The ceremony began with dancers representing the Miwok and Muwekma Ohlone, followed by performances from the Yuki Resistance Dancers of the Round Valley Reservation and a prayer dance by Mexica dancers. Cruz Chavez noted that more than 50 groups from across the Americas were represented at the gathering.
As the sun rose over the Bay, the gathering became a powerful reminder of unity and resistance. “It’s always a blessing to gather with our northern and southern native people,” said Cruz Chavez. “These ceremonies remind us that we are stronger together.”
“With the politics that are happening nowadays, it’s a really scary place,” Bustos-Mosqueda reflected. “So as many voices as possible need to say, ‘Hey, let’s stand together. This is our land as well. Let’s not get pushed out.’ … It’s about coming together versus being divided.”
Here are portraits by Alexa Treviño, a R.A.I.C.E.S. art fellow, of the dancers who brought the Sunrise Gathering to life:
