Professor DeAnna Rivera

“Indigenous communities are fighting right now with such passion to maintain these ways of knowing and it will disappear if the work isn’t done”

University of California, Los Angeles
Director, Tribal Learning Community & Educational Exchange

DeAnna M. Rivera is the Director of the Tribal Learning Community & Educational Exchange (TLCEE), a program associated with the Native National Law and Policy Center at the UCLA School of Law. She teaches the American Indian Studies Working in Tribal Communities Series and assists with the Tribal Legal Development Clinic.  TLCEE creates partnerships between traditional knowledge-bearers from various Native communities and UCLA classroom professionals to bring students unique perspectives on contemporary Native nation-building. DeAnna teaches the series of courses crafted to train students for work in Native communities locally, nationally, and internationally. She began a career as a writing professor prior to attending law school in Arizona where she became the coordinator for the Tucson Indian Center Legal Referral Program. Some of her most rewarding work is with her own Taíno community in Puerto Rico on their cultural resource management issues, including repatriation and sacred site protection.