Anna Rondon

woman with glasses and wearing earrings, smiling

Anna Rondon

(she/her)

Grassroots Representative

New Mexico Social Justice & Equity Institute

Anna is Kinya’aa’aanii Clan and born for Nakai Dineh and whose grandparents are Tabaaha and Nakai Dine. She is a dedicated lifetime advocate for the rights of Indigenous people, which began from her late mother, who is Kinya’aa’aanii.

Anna was involved in many community events and Indigenous gathering in the California Bay Area because like so many other Dine’ people, her mother left her home community of Chichiltah, New Mexico, to seek work on the railroad in 1943, which resulted in the family traveling each summer to Two Wells, the place where her mother and siblings were born. Anna experienced first-hand this diaspora of Indigenous women and their families from their ancestral homelands to urban cities to work for the railroad, which naturally resulted in negative cultural impacts but which also strengthened the endurance of the Indigenous people to continue successful nurturing of the survival of their cultural roots.

For the past 50 years, Anna has worked alongside many influential Indigenous leaders and her own spiritual advisors, which has deeply rooted her, educated her in how to navigate movement-building at the various levels of organizing for change and justice.  And for the past 40 years, she has worked in various leadership positions.

She has also worked for the Navajo Nation government as a Navajo Nation, Land Use planner across the vast Navajo reservation and for the Eastern Navajo Agency-Local Governance Office and as an office manager for the Navajo Nation Chichiltah Chapter, New Mexico. Her work with the Navajo government also involved employment with the Navajo Nation Department of Health, where she was the Project Director and Co-Principal Investigator for the Navajo Birth Cohort Study, which was conducted in partnership with the University of New Mexico-Community Environmental Health, the Navajo Area U.S. Indian Health Services, and the Southwest Research and Information Center. And since the focus of her work is Indigenous rights, she has also worked as the Native Outreach Director for the Southwest Research and Information Center and with New Energy Economy, the New Mexico, Installation of Solar unit at the Crownpoint, New Mexico, Chapter, as an advocacy for the closure of San Juan Generating Station, and supporting environmental public health protections through pressuring the New Mexico Public Regulatory Commission and Public Service Company of New Mexico.