Adriana Espinoza

Adriana A. Espinoza, 78,  passed into spirit on July 31, 2024. She leaves behind inconsolable and heartbroken family members: Richard, her husband; Dionne, her daughter; Sonny, her son; and Sonny Blaze, her grandson. 

She was born on April 04, 1946 in El Paso, Texas, a place she loved and often talked about. The Franklin Mountains and desert landscape of El Paso were the background to her childhood memories of being raised by an Apache grandmother and grandfather. After she moved to Los Angeles in her late teens, where she graduated from Garfield High School, she met her husband Richard to whom she was married for 58 years. She and her husband worked side by side as a team, with her in the lead, to build a beautiful life together.

She was an L.A. city employee for many years, moving from a clerk typist position at a community library to a key punch operator in City Hall. As the computer age dawned and with a high school education, she showed an aptitude for learning computer languages that enabled her to become a computer programmer and, eventually, a manager at the Department and Water and Power. After retiring from the city, she wrote a whole new chapter in her life: She returned to earn her A.A., B.A., and M.A. degrees becoming the third “first-generation” college student in her immediate family. Throughout these years after retirement, she devoted herself to research and advocacy for issues of Native American cultural preservation and celebration. She traveled throughout New Mexico and to parts of Arizona organizing with and building connections with the Apaches in these areas. More recently, she was a key person on the team that conducted in-depth research to petition for federal recognition of the Chihenne/Mimbres band of Apaches. 

She resided in Claremont, CA at the time of her passing. Arrangements are under the care of Forest Lawn, Covina Hills, CA.

Feel free to send flowers and/or to make a donation to City of Hope in memory of Adriana Espinoza.  Please select "ovarian cancer" from the drop down menu on the donation page: https://www.cityofhope.org/giving/give-honor-or-memory. You can send an email to inmemoryaudrey@gmail.com to notify us of the donation.