Biography

Layel Camargo is Yaqui and Mayo of the Sonoran Desert born on unceded ancestral lands of the Kumayaay now known as San Diego, CA. As a child they loved writing telenovelas and forcing their parents and cousins to watch them perform the scripts they wrote. While attending the University of California, Santa Cruz, Layel began an acting career that led to commercials and theater performances after graduating. Layel graduated with two bachelors in Legal Studies and Feminist Studies. However, at the time Layel’s acting career was cut short due to theaters’ industry lack of inclusion of transgender roles. Since coming out as transgender and gender non conforming, they have dedicated their life to ending gender based violence, transformative justice, environmental justice, zero waste initiatives and climate justice. As a transgender and gender non-conforming person they’ve dedicated the last 15 years to advancing climate justice through storytelling, cultural strategy, art making and leadership coaching.They founded ‘Climate Woke’ a storytelling platform in collaboration with The Center for Cultural Power. Under ‘Climate Woke’, Layel organized 500+ artists of color for climate justice, influenced 10+ cultural strategy departments across movement organizations and produced, directed and hosted 120+ original media and visual art pieces, films and campaigns. After joining forces with Movement Generations’ Justice and Ecology Project, they served as an Impact Producer for the web series ‘The North Pole’ with Executive Producer Rosario Dawson. Also with Movement Generation they produced and hosted the podcast ‘Did We Go Too Far’, inaugurated the artist fellowship ‘Creative Wildfire’ and developed their cultural strategy department. In 2020, they co-founded a 900 acre forest restoration project Shelterwood Collective. As co founder and co executive director, Layel contributed and led in an overall organizational budget of $13M which included the acquisition of a $4M 900 acre forest, and a $2.5M annual organizational budget. At Shelterwood Collective, Layel commissioned 4 artist pieces including two murals, and retained one artist in residence and two artist fellows in collaboration with Yerba Buena Center of the Arts.

Additionally, Layel supported the stabilizing of artist employment through a $9M effort with Tribeworks Cooperative. Layel was named a Fixer on the Grist 2020 Fixers List, co- awarded a Humanitarian Award by the international association of sufism.

Layel has done public speaking at the University of Montreal, UC Santa Cruz, U Penn, and many more!

Layel is recognized as an indigenous storyteller that is advancing narrative and cultural change through organizing, storytelling and filmmaking. They have contributed their leadership skills in organizational development, programmatic development, and organizational culture to many organizations.