About Xochiquetzal Council
Who We Are
Xochiquetzal Council, Inc. is an Indigenous-led community organization rooted in living Indigenous knowledge, cultural continuity, traditional healing, intergenerational leadership, and community care.
We create spaces where Indigenous and immigrant communities can reconnect with ancestral knowledge, cultural traditions, ceremony, and collective forms of care.
Our work is grounded in the understanding that culture is not something that belongs only in the past. Indigenous knowledge is living knowledge. It is carried through families, relationships, ceremony, movement, food, birth, healing, language, community, and the responsibilities we hold toward one another and future generations.
We work to keep that knowledge active, accessible, and connected to the realities of our communities today.
Our Approach
We believe strong communities are built through relationships, cultural identity, knowledge, and collective responsibility.
Our approach brings together cultural practice, traditional healing, community organizing, education, leadership development, and culturally grounded perinatal care.
We do not see these as separate areas of work. They are interconnected expressions of community well-being.
When people have access to their cultural knowledge, meaningful relationships, spaces for healing, and opportunities to lead, communities become stronger and more resilient.
Cultural Continuity
For Indigenous communities, cultural continuity is a form of resilience.
Colonization, displacement, migration, assimilation, and institutional exclusion have disrupted many Indigenous systems of knowledge and community life.
Our work creates opportunities to reclaim, practice, teach, and transmit cultural knowledge across generations.
Through Danza Conchera Nativa de México, ceremony, traditional healing, community gatherings, education, and leadership development, we create spaces where culture is not simply remembered—it is practiced and lived.
Community Care
We understand care as something that extends beyond the individual.
Families and communities need spaces where people can gather, share knowledge, support one another, and build relationships.
Our work includes circles, cultural gatherings, traditional healing practices, perinatal support, doula education, and community organizing because each of these strengthens the network of relationships that allows a community to care for itself.
Intergenerational Leadership
Knowledge survives when it is carried forward.
We create opportunities for elders, adults, youth, families, practitioners, and emerging leaders to learn from one another and participate in the transmission of cultural knowledge.
Our leadership development work is therefore also cultural continuity.
We are building pathways for community members to become practitioners, educators, organizers, and future leaders who can continue serving their communities.
Our Community
Xochiquetzal primarily works with Indigenous and immigrant communities, particularly Mexican and Latin American families.
Our community extends across New Jersey and New York, reflecting the reality of communities whose relationships and cultural networks are not defined by state borders.
We are building our organizational home and long-term infrastructure in New Jersey while continuing to nurture the relationships and communities that have shaped our work across the region.
Our Vision
We envision a future where Indigenous knowledge is respected as living knowledge, where communities have spaces to practice and transmit their traditions, and where families can access culturally grounded care and community support.
Our long-term vision is to establish a permanent community center in New Jersey—a place where cultural knowledge, traditional healing, education, birth and postpartum care, leadership development, community organizing, and intergenerational connection can exist together.
We are not simply building programs.
We are building the foundation for a lasting community institution.
Our Commitment
Xochiquetzal Council is committed to strengthening community through cultural continuity, Indigenous knowledge, traditional practices, collective care, and intergenerational leadership.
We honor what has been carried before us.
We work with what exists today.
And we build for the generations that come next.
