Indigenous Transportation Knowledge with Adonia Lugo

Local Indigenous groups have shaped the Los Angeles region’s landscape and mobility for over 10,000 years, a stark contrast to the brief, yet transformative, period of colonial settlement marked by intensive resource extraction and sprawling road networks. To envision alternative transportation futures, Adonia Lugo has collaborated with stewards of traditional Indigenous knowledge. This talk highlights their knowledge of the past and perspectives on how indigenous knowledge can shape the future of LA’s transportation systems.

Cultural anthropologist ADONIA E. LUGO was born and raised in traditional and unceded Acjachemen territory and now lives and works in traditional and unceded Tongva territory in Los Angeles. Adonia began investigating transportation, race, and space during her graduate studies at UC Irvine, when she co-created the Los Angeles open street event CicLAvia and the organization today known as People for Mobility Justice. Since receiving her doctorate in 2013, Adonia has applied her research on “human infrastructure” in sustainable mobility advocacy and helped to define the concept of “mobility justice.” Adonia is Equity Research Manager at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, a core organizer of The Untokening, and a recent appointee to the California Transportation Commission.