Our Mission
This founding vision endures: to heal fractured connections, ensuring clean waters, thriving soils, and sovereign futures for the Muwekma Ohlone People and beyond.
A Foundation with Purpose
Established in 2021, the Muwekma Ohlone Preservation Foundation emerged as a vital extension of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe's enduring fight for sovereignty and cultural continuity in their unceded San Francisco Bay Area homelands. Initiated by dedicated tribal members amid renewed calls for federal recognition and land repatriation, the Foundation was supported by the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), which recognized the Tribe's ancestral ties to the region's conserved landscapes. This collaboration birthed an independent Indigenous land trust, designed to bridge colonial dispossession with restorative justice, enabling the Tribe to reclaim stewardship over sacred sites disrupted by missions, ranchos, and urban expansion.
Under the leadership of President Charlene C. Nijmeh, Muwekma Chairwoman from the Marine-Sanchez lineage, the Foundation's mission centers on fostering resilience through cultural revitalization, community education, and permanent access to ancestral territories. Its board unites tribal voices—Richard Torres, Thomas Martinez, Corina Arellano, Joseph Torres, Bernadette Quiroz, and Julie Dominguez—with allied experts like ethnohistorian Alan Leventhal, anthropologists Dr. Mike V. Wilcox and Dr. Lee Panich, biologist Dr. Tadashi Fukami, and ecologist Aaron Hébert. Together, they protect natural and cultural resources, host awareness-raising events, and champion rematriation initiatives.
From its inception, the Foundation has amplified Ohlone voices and traditional thinking about land management into conservation work and weaving Chochenyo language, dances, and crafts back into daily life. By 2026, it has secured partnerships for youth campouts at Jasper Ridge and exhibitions at New Museum Los Gatos, transforming underutilized lands into vibrant hubs for ceremonies and native gardens.
Our Mandate
Letter from the Tribal Council
Horše túuxi ’aččokma ~ Good day friends,
The Muwekma, which means ‘the people’ in our Chochenyo language, are the descendants of the resilient survivors of Missions San Jose, Santa Clara, and Dolores. Our tribal territory includes the contemporary counties that are in the East Bay, South Bay, and Peninsula and represents the villages where our people lived prior to the mission system.
Our people have lived here for tens of thousands of years and had sophisticated ways of living in relation to the land. With each year, our Tribe activates this knowledge through language, dance, and stewardship practices. But like all people, we have jobs, families, and have to navigate the contemporary world as survivors of violent and traumatic histories while doing the work of being tribal leaders, council members, and tribal members.
Some of our Tribe live in the Bay Area while others have had to relocate because they cannot afford to live here. Our Tribe faces many challenges and we need your help!
The Muwekma Ohlone Preservation Foundation was started in 2020 by a vote of our Tribal Council as a way to support the Tribe and to connect our friends, supporters, and our neighbors in the Bay Area with the important work of the Tribe. As a non-profit, MOPF can raise funds, work with volunteers, and tap into the community of like-minded people that support the sovereignty of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe and it can help our Tribal Government connect its 600+ members to our ancestral territory.
The vision of the Tribe and MOPF is audacious, but it is also necessary for all of us, Tribe and residents of the Bay Area, to not just heal but thrive.
Our Tribe has been petitioning the Federal Government for over 30 years to affirm our status as a Federally Recognized tribe. Our message to them is that we are here now, we have always been here, and we will always be here. Denying our status is a grave injustice with tragic consequences for our people. Our members often call us as tribal leaders asking about the basic necessities of survival: healthcare, childcare, education, and housing.
All people are entitled to basic human rights and now is the time to begin to repair from the brutal history of colonization in the Bay Area.
Due to the actions of the Federal Government, we are a landless tribe and have created MOPF to realize the vision of connecting with the land as we have always done. Our vision is to build a Tribal Village as a center of life for our people. To get there, we hope to grow MOPF into a non-profit that excels as an organization and connects with our Tribal membership.
MOPF is a tribal organization that is supported by volunteer Board members, granting foundations, and individual donors across the Bay Area and we could not do it without them.
Makkiš horše mak-hinnan ~ We thank you.
’Uni ~ Respectfully,
The Muwekma Ohlone Tribal Council
Charlene Nijmeh
Tribal Chairwoman
Charlene C. Nijmeh is the Tribal Chairwoman of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area. From the Marine-Sanchez lineage of the region's first peoples, she succeeded her mother's 43-year tenure in 2018. A mother of five, environmentalist, and businesswoman, she leads advocacy for federal recognition and cultural revitalization.
Our Tribal Council
Anthony Acosta
Anthony Acosta serves as Tribal Secretary and Council Member for the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area. He actively engages in cultural preservation, including ancestral burial recoveries and reburials. Residing in San Jose, California, Acosta champions Ohlone heritage and resilience.
Tribal Secretary and Council Member
Richard Massiatt
Richard Massiatt is a Council Member and recently retired Executive Director of Cultural Resource Services for the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area. With 37 years of leadership experience, he formerly served as Senior Pastor of True Vine Christian Church and owned a landscaping business. A passionate advocate for Ohlone heritage, he resides in Manteca, California.
Council Member
Council Member
Joanne Massiatt-Brose
Joanne Massiatt-Brose serves as Councilwoman and Elder for the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area. She descends from the Marine-Muñoz and Guzman lineages as granddaughter of Victoria Marine Munoz. She champions tribal enrollment and cultural preservation.