✅ Are you a property owner who wants to return Lisjan Ohlone land back to Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, now or in the future? 
✅ Are you a legal, real estate, or tax practitioner seeking to support land rematriation? 
✅ Or are you a community supporter interested in using your skills and relationships to help build this movement?

Join us for an introduction to the nuts and bolts of returning land to Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, with insight from the Land Trust and practitioners in the field. 

They will provide valuable insights into the frequently asked questions of property owners (and the practitioners advising them):

✅ Is my property suitable for donation?
✅ How can I donate my home through a living trust?
✅ What are the tax implications of donating my land?
✅ What is a conservation easement and how can I give one?
✅ How do I do my relationship due diligence?
✅ How can I become part of a larger community working to rematriate the land?

Our Panelists

Inés Ixierda is an interdisciplinary Mestizx artist and media maker with a background in youth work, decolonial nonprofit administration, and community organizing. She leads Sogorea Te’ Land Trust's art and media, coordinates projects, organizes events, and works on the land with plant medicines. Sogorea Te' Land Trust is an urban Indigenous women-led land trust that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people.

Alma Soongi Beck is a partner in the Trusts and Estates Group and is certified by the State Board of Legal Specialization as a specialist in estate planning, trust and probate law.  Alma’s law practice focuses on trusts, charitable planning, gift and estate tax planning, and post-death administration including trust administration and probate.  She also offers consultations on the legal and tax implications of domestic partnership, marriage, and property co-ownership. Alma also serves as Climate Justice Co-Chair for the Climate Reality Project Bay Area Chapter, which hosts an Indigenous Voices project and facilitates the Chapter’s involvement in local SF Bay Area environmental justice efforts such as the SF Bay Shoreline Contamination Cleanup Coalition.

Cassandra Ferrera - Cassandra’s dynamic real estate career and community activism has focused on the edge of cultural innovation where cooperation meets land stewardship.  She has provided agency, complex contract design, consulting and cooperative governance support to dozens of mission driven communities and land projects.  A licensed real estate agent in California since 2003, Cassandra works with the progressive Green Key Real Estate brokerage in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a founding board member of CommonSpace Community Land Trust and a multiple term board member of the Foundation for Intentional Community, Cassandra serves as organizational steward and movement strategist.  Along with her collaborators, Cassandra is birthing Land Bridge, a non-profit organization dedicated to ethical land transitions rooted in land liberation, relationship repair, social justice, and cooperation. Cassandra has personally lived in land based community projects since 2006 and is prayerfully dedicated to the sacred relationship between humans and earth

Ellen Fred is licensed to practice both in California and Michigan and actively practices in both states and nationwide. Ellen’s experience in the fields of tax, real estate, nonprofit governance, and alternative dispute resolution allows her to counsel her clients in all aspects of their work. Prior to beginning her legal career, Ellen worked for several nonprofit environmental organizations, including serving as founder and Executive Director of the Humboldt Watershed Council in Northern California.

Maija West ​​is a mediator and striving peacemaker who specializes in trauma-informed conflict resolution tools in service of Indigenous-led projects and requests of Indigenous leaders. Her fifteen years as an attorney in Indigenous law, land use, business, philanthropy and non-profit governance largely inform her practice. Her current work is focused on the needs of unrecognized Tribes of California, but she also serves as a consultant, trainer and facilitator for land trusts, agencies and organizations who wish to engage with Indigenous peoples for a specific and needed purpose. She is the managing partner of Maija West Consulting, Inc, as well as the founding board member and acting CEO of the Healing and Reconciliation Institute (“HRI”), a 501c3 sister affiliate. Learn more about her work by visiting the organizations here (Consultancy) and here (HRI).

Alejandra Cruz (she/her) is a staff attorney at the Sustainable Economies Law Center. Her areas of focus include the Law Center’s Land Return, Food & Farm, and Community Renewable Energy Programs. She is passionate about racial justice, immigrant rights, and health equity, and comes to the Law Center motivated to work towards achieving economic justice for the communities that are close to her heart. She has worked for various legal services organizations serving low-income communities of color. Her practice areas include consumer law, medical-legal partnership, and immigration law. Throughout her career, Alejandra has taken great care to provide compassionate counsel to people living with disabilities, including mental health and substance use disorders, chronic illness, and intellectual disabilities.

Yeji Jung (she/they) is a Corean American woman continuously learning their histories and connecting with their ancestors. They connect the land struggle on the Corean peninsula to land struggles everywhere, especially where they reside. For the summer, they are back on beloved Lisjan and Ramaytush Ohlone land in Oakland/SF.  They join movements for liberation with a growing understanding of Indigenous sovereignty as environmental justice in the face of the global climate/capitalist crisis. They strive to show up for their communities in various roles, including artist, organizer, Corean political pungmul drummer, law student, and gardener. At the Law Center, they are working with Sogorea Te’ Land Trust to support the rematriation of Lisjan Ohlone land.