Directions to 523 International Blvd.
Intertribal Friendship House
In 1952 the Bureau of Indian Affairs established the Urban Relocation Program to encourage Native Americans to settle in urban centers with the promise of housing, job training, and employment. Many of those promises were unfulfilled. Just as earlier assimilation efforts (e.g., Indian removals, boarding schools) led to broken pledges and broken cultural ties, the relocation program resulted in ruptures and distrust with Native Americans trading one type of poverty for another.
To assist Native Americans moving from reservations to the San Francisco Bay Area, the American Friends Service Committee and local residents established Oakland’s Intertribal Friendship House (IFH) in 1955. IFH was one of the first community centers in the country helping American Indians adapt to life in an urban environment. The organization’s stated mission is “to promote the ability of Native people to thrive in an urban environment through ceremony, traditions and cultural connection, to provide a safe environment to strengthen cultural identity, promote health, inter-generational healing and support the development of extended family.”
Today the organization serves people representing many tribes across America and throughout the Western Hemisphere. According to IFH board member Lisa Dodson, about 8,000 people a year are directly served by the organization. Sixty thousand people in the greater Bay Area partake of IFH’s services and programs which include powwows, beading circles, classes on Native languages and Native food traditions, craft fairs, drumming sessions, weekly food giveaways, social gatherings, ceremonial events, and more recently, land trust initiatives to reclaim Native lands. Land acknowledgements are now a fairly common exercise in the Bay Area which helps the entire community, both Native and non-Native, understand the long history and presence of Native American culture in our region.
Award-winning novelist Tommy Orange and chefs/ restaurateurs Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino of Cafe Ohlone have credited the Intertribal Friendship House as being a positive influence in their lives. IFH is a family-oriented center. Alice Sanchez grew up at IFH, attending its preschool, volunteering there as a teen, and watching her grandmother Alice Carnes (one of IFH’s co-founders) work to support and strengthen the Native community. Alice Sanchez now proudly sits on the IFH board.
In 2019, the Oakland Heritage Alliance honored the Intertribal Friendship House with its Partners in Preservation Award for Stewardship and Education. IFH, known nationwide as a place of refuge, community, and service, welcomes volunteers to become involved with the community.
Listen to an interview with IFH board members Lisa Dodson and Alice Sanchez.