SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of Native Americans gathered at the Yerba Buena Gardens in downtown San Francisco Monday to celebrate the city's second Indigenous Peoples' Day.
The celebrations, which were held as part of the 2019 Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, featured Native American art, music, singing and dancing, and vendors who sold artifacts, handicrafts, leather-made souvenirs and hand drums used by indigenous people.
The event was staged in partnership with the San Francisco Arts Commission, American Indian Contemporary Arts gallery and International Indian Treaty Council, a UN-recognized non-governmental organization that advocates the rights of indigenous people.
Barbara Mumby-Huerta, director of community investments of the San Francisco Arts Commission, told Xinhua that this year's celebrations of Indigenous People's Day, which falls on the second Monday of October, were "bigger and more intentional" than the event of 2018.
"It's important that people realize that indigenous people are still here and still living," she said.
"The part of the city-wide initiative that we're taking at the Arts Commission is to raise the visibility of indigenous people and to highlight the contributions that they make to our city and our society today," Mumby-Huerta added.
She noted that it's "a beautiful thing" for people from different backgrounds and cultures to witness the "original people of this land" and to interact and learn about "the original people that were here from time immemorial."
Earlier in the day, more than 1,000 people from at least 15 different Native American tribes and organizations ferried in canoes to a journey around Alcatraz Island, a famous tourist attraction in San Francisco Bay and about 1.25 miles (2 km) offshore from San Francisco.
The journey aimed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Occupation of Alcatraz by Native American activists in 1969 to press for the island's return to Native American control.
