L. FRANK MANRIQUEZ is a Tongva/Ajachmem artist and tribal activist. She is Board Member of the California Indian Basketweavers Association, the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, and the Native California Network, organizations that are involved in the preservation and revival of Native Californian languages and cultures through conferences, workshops, traditional arts practice, language immersion camps, travel to collections of Native Californian art, etc. She has won several awards for her activities, including from the Americal Association of University Women, the James Irvine Foundation, the Fund for Folk Culture (travel to the Native Californian art collection at the Musée de l' Homme in Paris). In 1995 she was featured as a "Local Hero" in KQED-TV/Examiner Newspaper's Native American Heritage Month series. In 1990 Manriquez was Artist in Residence at the Headland Center for the Arts in Sausalito, CA; her artwork has been exibited widely throughout California and appears in several publications, including a regular column/graphic, "Acorn Soup", in the quarterly newsletter News from Native California.
With the California Indian Basketweavers Association we address issues of land usage for basket materials and food and of governmental usage of pesticides. We are weaving and visiting Washington D.C. I am founding board member of the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, where we work on bringing our world view into play through language. I am on the Native California Network board, which funds California native projects. Projects range from Mohaves visiting museums to relearn their traditional bead work to teach their tribe, to the Karuk running a week-long language immersion camp, to funding for five tribal members to travel to the Smithsonian to photograph artifacts from their people.