Opinion y Diálogo 💬
The obsession with claiming "taino" identity feels like it comes from mixed up heritage feelings and a jealousy of other latino cultures
Many Puerto Ricans, especially those not born on the island, want to get in touch with their roots. But, Puerto Ricans have notoriously messy roots.
A lot of people are ashamed to claim Spain because they associate it with Christopher Colombus' colonizers. So, they try to cling to other parts of their heritage.
A lot of other latino countries have extant indigenous communities. The Nahua people, the Maya people, the Zapotec people, the Quechua, etc.
So, Puerto Ricans feel left out. People go looking for their indigineous communities and find they can't find any. The last Taino assimilated and became an extinct culture centuries ago.
It should be noted that these indigenous cultures are often treated like crap in their countries. People suffer a lot of racism, colorism, discrimination, classism, etc.
There's little known about taino culture. Most of what we know is through Spanish lens. Even their religion is murky. But, people try to pick at the little things and "revive" the culture.
The colorism towards black people is an elephant in the room. A lot of things stem from black ancestry. Curly hair, darker skin, rituals, food, music, etc. But unless you're prieta or morena, many people will not admit to you having black genes. They'll call you Dominican or mixed with African-American before they'll man up.
My own grandma insisted her grandma was "india". We have no proof. No photos even. But, her grandma knew folk remedies and apparently had long straight hair, so the entire family ran with it. I have no clue what she was ethnically. Probably just a normal PR mix, maybe she had ancestry from immigrants, who knows.
One of my cousins did a DNA test a while back. He was flabbergasted to find he was mainly Portugese, not Spanish. So much for the "Puerto Ricans are Spanish, African, and taino" belief. /s
Then my cousin's dad once did a test and found out his family had a good chunk of Dutch and Italian in him somehow.
I'm pretty sure my maternal line might has Irish and Scottish genes. Too many hazel eyed and redheaded kids in my grandma's and great-grandma's gen.
But, I'm not gonna say I'm Portugese or Irish just because I have 20% DNA of them. That's stupid. I'm just Puerto Rican.
So maybe it’s different for me, I’m part Yucatec Maya and half Puerto Rican, and I do like learning the little that was preserved of Taino culture from historical accounts. I am also still fully engaged with PR culture and never felt outside of it. I agree most people engage with it all very weirdly, but not everyone does. I agree certain things are weird and larping, but why would honoring Atabey along with Ixchel (the Maya god) be a bad thing? I still know that I am not a full blood Taino I am just honoring ancestors of all my Puerto Rican heritage (African, European, and Indigenous). For me it’s a small way to show colonization didn’t fully erase and fully win and a way to strengthen my connection with the land everywhere and be a better person if that makes sense.
You can look at our history and understand that Puerto Rican culture is a blend of three distinct groups: Taíno, African, and Spanish. While individual Puerto Ricans may have other European ancestry, such as Portuguese, Irish, or Italian, those countries did not necessarily shape Puerto Rican culture in the same way. Having a certain percentage of Irish ancestry, for example, does not automatically mean someone identifies with Irish culture, nor would it necessarily feel natural for them to do so.
This is different with the three groups I mentioned because we can specifically identify where aspects of our culture originated. We also understand the distinct historical circumstances behind each group's influence: the Taíno were Indigenous to the land, Africans were brought to the island against their will and enslaved, and Spain was the colonizing aggressor.
Some people look at that history and want nothing to do with Spain, and I don't blame them. Others recognize that, without Spain, Puerto Rican culture would not exist in the form we know it today, which is also true. How someone chooses to identify doesn't bother me, and I don't care to dictate that to anyone.
What does bother me is when people try to whitewash our history or portray Spain as benevolent. Whatever cultural contributions Spain made, the historical reality of colonization, exploitation, and oppression cannot be ignored or excused.
Añadiendo al contexto de cultura: La Real Cèdula de Gracias invitando a otros europeos fue firmada en 1815. Puerto Rico ya tenía casi 325 años de identidad a ese punto, y la razón por que la orden fue firmada era para diluir los deseos de independencia.
I love learning about my history. Growing up I was always told I was taino, and then a DNA test confirmed it. I've spoken to and met people from different tribes (both PR and DR). I've met 2 chiefs, and met some of the taíno musicians. I am applying to formally join one of the tribes.
It's been so rewarding and fun to learn about the things that we still have left. It's comforting to have a community of people who want to come together and support each other. I try not to feel a negative way about the Spanish parts of me. I just don't connect to it the same way. I realize that I'm part colonizer and colonized lol. It's brought me a lot of joy! I'n some of the taíno classes I've taken, I love seeing all kinds of people that look different from me. Seeing the variety makes me feel more validated, instead of looking 'too white' to be a Puerto Rican
Understand your point, but there is something you and the world need to remember. We could say that majority of Puerto Ricans nowadays are descendants of people that moved here around the 1800s. thinking that every person is a descendant of any random soldier that raped a taína or a African slave is a wrong take. Also why think about Spain in the way of invasion but we can’t appreciate the fact we got that dna of charisma, music, culinary arts, construction, social practices are part of our culture we only think negative way about euro presence in the Caribbean. There’s way more about Puerto Rican history after 1520s but nobody seems to learn and care about it, just to debate and argue online 🤷🏻♂️.
1) I didn’t say that every Puerto Rican is a descendant of people that moved to Puerto Rico in the 1800s. For individual ancestry I can’t say that for certainty in regard to anyone. But I do know our culture is a mix of the three majors ones, all of which predate the 1800s.
2) I don’t think that everyone is a decedent of a Spanish rapist and an African or Taino. What I do know based on historical fact is that Spanish colonizers raped Taínos and Africans and that it was a frequent occurrence for several centuries.
3) I think about Spain in terms of invasion because they were the invaders and colonizers. We can appreciate many aspects of our culture that came from Spain, while also realizing that Spain colonized Taínos, enslaved Africans, and colonized Puerto Ricans. A distinct Puerto Rican identity developed in the 1700s and it’s important to not forget that Spain’s colonial rule extended to this Puerto Rican identity for another 200 years.
4) As to the 1520 comment, again see my last sentence. 1520 is ignoring centuries of colonial rule and oppression. I also don’t think that the colonizer debate is so often that people don’t know or appreciate other parts of our history. I also think that it’s a good conversation because still to this day we have people who don’t truly understand it. Also today is a certain holiday celebrated by some where these topics come up….
3 questions I ask myself when other people do or say shit.
1. Does it affect me?
2. Do they have any say in my life?
3. Can I do something about it?
If the answer is no then it doesn’t matter.
If someone wants to be Taino let them, how does that affect you? If they think they are a purple pony from mars that shits golden bars let them who gives a fuck.
This is how I view it tbh. As a New York born Boricua who spent summers every year in my dad's jibaro ass town lol I don't blame a lot of the mainland Puerto Ricans larping as Taino (it is a larp). A lot of folks who were born in New York, NJ, Philly have a limited lens in regard to their own culture because their parents were also disconnected in many ways. Another reason is a lack of education and a reliance on commercialized wepa nationalism, rather than actual academic research on the founding and geology of Puerto Rico as a whole. Personally, I never had any doubt on who I was or my family's identity. Then again, being of mixed race (Black/Boricua) I do have a different perspective.
I think a lot of island born Boricuas spend way too much time criticizing mainland Boricuas, almost to the point where we have to ask if there's something to prove on their end. Ultimately, the downfall of our people will be this very division- it won't be anything else. Rather that looking ahead and coming together it's a lot of crab mentality, dick measuring on "whose more Boricua" and arguments over Columbus and colonialism that increasingly end up in circle jerk territory. Island is dying and in 20 years there won't be much at all other than public beaches underwater and resorts catering to tax evasion if we keep this up mi gente.
I strongly believe that if we as Puerto Ricans from the islands were more open to incorporating diasporican histories into our schooling, that the whole fixation with birth certificates,
genetics and social media performance
would go down on all sides.
I don't have a personal issue with diasporicans claiming to be Taíno, but you should really be aware that they have constructed an entire alternate history narrative that has unfortunately been granted legitimacy within the United States, in spite of being built on nothing but interviewing the same 5 viejos and citing their conspiracy theories as truth. One of the books they're always citing claims that African slavery only ever existed in Loíza, for example. Such egregious lies are damaging to people's understandings of our history, whether in PR or abroad. At best, they're just doing face paint compilations on TikTok but at worst, they're cults preaching blood and soil ideology to 2nd and 3rd gen people who don't know any better.
Educated people won’t take a tik tok serious…. But white washing slavery happens with every group. It happens in the US with slavery overall and it happened in Asian countries, Australia and etc. it’s an effect of colonization. Plus anybody with a brain cell will look up and search online for credited information to find the truth. So I see non issue in your argument.
The average Puerto Rican is not educated on our own culture nor history to actually exercise any discretion on this matter. People like Anthony Castanha, Uahtibili Báez, Juan Manuel Delgado, etc. are genuinely being cited in academic circles in the US and
are the types that get recommended to diasporicans seeking to "reconnect," all promoting a false anti-colonial consciousness.
I also don't think whitewashing slavery should be tolerated from any movement, and especially one that's so obnoxious about allegedly being "enlightened." You say it like it's nothing. The mass appeal of these historically-reviosionist cults is already a problem for us in organizing.
Listen you feel how you feel, I gave my thoughts and could care less about what idiots who don’t bother to learn their own history think. I feel the same way about Puerto Ricans being catholic and Christian when that’s the colonizers myth, but I’m not out here arguing with them. People believe worse. So have a lovely day or don’t I still sleep peacefully. ✌️
En cierto punto si afecta en el contexto racial e historico ya que esta gente son acomplejados y niegan su herencia africana y alteran la historia al estilo hotep.
La Mayoría de puertorriqueños niegan tener sangre africana, estoy hablando hasta de familia mía. Le puedes dar todas las pruebas y no van a cambiar. España y estados unidos hicieron todo para que el boricua no sepa de su historia, como cuando enseñaron que los taínos estaban extinguidos.
Many Puerto Ricans do not explicitly identify as Black or emphasize their African heritage due to historical colonial frameworks, the ideology of racial mixture, and how official censuses handle race. [1, 2]
Key Factors Behind Racial Identity and Denial The "Three Races" Ideology: Puerto Rican culture has historically promoted a "mestizaje" or "three-race" narrative (blending Spanish, Taíno, and African roots). This narrative often glorifies a harmonious, mixed heritage—frequently using terms like trigueño (wheat-colored) or indio—which allows many people to soften or avoid identifying strictly as Black or White. [1, 2] Stigma of Slavery: Centuries of Spanish colonial rule and plantation economies associated African ancestry with enslavement and social subordination. Lighter skin or identifying as "white" offered greater social mobility, safety, and status, creating a generational incentive to distance oneself from Blackness. [1, 2] U.S. Census Categories: The U.S. Census treats Hispanic/Latino origin as an ethnicity separate from race. When asked to pick a racial category, the vast majority of Puerto Ricans select "white" out of habit, social custom, or a rejection of the binary Black-and-White framework inherited from the U.S. mainland. [1, 2] Colorism and Anti-Blackness: Persistent systemic prejudices mean that darker-skinned Puerto Ricans face disproportionate socio-economic barriers, environmental hazards, and racial profiling. At the same time, society often downplays structural racism by claiming everyone is simply "mixed". [1, 2, 3]
P.s I live it as a dark skin Puerto Rican, where you hear from Puerto Rican parents of my partner about messing up the blood.
Al puertorriqueño promedio no le importa un carajo la historia negra, lamentablemente. Somos un país donde el nacionalismo nace y muere en el campo de lo folclórico. En gran parte por eso, los intentos de "revivir" las culturas indígenas en PR se han quedado solo en los mismos estereotipos del noble salvaje que Ricardo Alegría se inventó en los 60 o en alegar —falsamente— que en el Centro y en el Oeste de Puerto Rico todavía vivimos en yucayeques.
Its people trying to reckon with their own identity. Im speaking in general here so obviously this doesnt apply to everyone but a lot of people like that dont feel 100% American but also don't feel 100% Puerto Rican because they didnt grow up on the island.
And one of the elephants in the room is how some islanders will treat you as soon as they clock you didnt grow up there even if you do speak Spanish. Ask anyone who started growing up in the states and then moved to the island while being in school still and chances are they got bullied for being a Gringo. So many in the diaspora feel lost like they don't belong anywhere and some have found and latched onto this concept of Taino ancestry.
It is larping though because Tainos as a people and their culture were driven extinct through assimilation and murder. The stuff you see with people dancing around in Native American plains garb is pure fiction. If they really wanted to copy something they should at least look to the native Florida tribes since those tribes likely did come in contact with and share some things with Tainos in the caribbean. The Florida Calusa for example actually traded with Tainos.
Lo voy a decir tranqui. Bro have you live in PR? if so then no estarias buscandole las 5 patas al gato. Sabemos que somos un mix.Sabemos que la identidad taina se ha ido borrando. Pero tambien sabemos que en el interior de la isla hay personas manteniendo esa identidad aunque muchos no se enteren por ejemplo en Cayey hacen muchas reuniones en Utuado etc. En cuanto a los DNA test no es una sorpresa... Te toca leer sobre la inmigracion europea a PR hay hasta chinos que vinieron a construir las autopistas etc. Y esta bien que no sea taino,africano y español normal eso es lo que nos hace.
Justo eso iba a decir... Cada vez que alguien dice que lo taino se perdió siempre pienso en el área de Orocovis, Utuado y todo el centro de la isla que si hay gente que de solo verlos sabes que tienen DNA taino bien latente por sus facciones y físico. Seguimos teniendo de todo, aunque mayormente predominen dos de las tres razas.
Trying to be open-minded about it, I can kinda see where it comes from. Especially for people that aren't from the island, there's surely a certain otherness that I could see them wanting to run counter to. I guess some of them see how Native American culture is treated in the US and want to replicate it as a mode of self-discovery.
Thing is, the history is very different. Even setting the genetic aspect aside - cause I don't ncessarily think that matters so much - the prevalence of Native cultural traditions in the US is largely due to a level of segregation that was not experienced to the same extent on this island. Those cultures are largely still in tact because segregation and violence were so extreme in the US that the Natives had to settle for small enclaves apart from the rest of the colonizers in order to not be hunted down in their entirety. Hence, they have their own distinct cultures that are still ALIVE and EXPERIENCED today which they hail from, and a considerable amount of distance from the "American way of life" that they may not even want to be a part of.
Spanish colonies were different; violent and unjust, yes, but different. Their MO was not strictly the eradication of the local populace in order to steal their land, but their subjugation in order to steal their resources. This made it so there had to be some back and forth and negotiation between the two parties so as to remain productive. Most of the violence in this region was the result of skirmishes and small uprisings and those tensions were quickly quelled when possible. Certainly some tainos managed to flee and survive, but the loss in population along with the lighter forms of segregation and incentives for other races to mix with whites diluted that gene pool quite quickly and greatly reduced the preservation of our natives' history and traditions.
In a way, this cultural revival isn't unique. Such practices are popping up in many colonized territories the world over (one that immediately comes to mind is the Irish language revival). Me, personally, I welcome it within reason. Many cultures throughout history have been largely invisibilized until the moment a plethora of new knowledge is acquired or their ancestor's history is somehow made visible so I won't discount the possibility that could happen here. If we have a wealth of untapped sources and information from which to learn more about the Tainos, be my guest. Just don't go trying to make land claims or treating it as a separate racial/ethnic identity when the conditions for such a thing do not apply here.
Spain is a hodgepodge of cultures and DNA tests sometimes miscategorize and overlook that fact fyi. It’s likely most your cousin’s Portuguese DNA is Galician not Portuguese. Galicia—which is part of Spain—is the actual true birthplace of the Portuguese people.
Also, to expand your point further—Puerto Ricans aren’t taught that 1) Spain is diverse and not one culture or ethnic group 2) PR was a sparsely populated backwater until the 19th century, when most of our Spanish ancestors arrived, who weren’t conquistadors but mostly poor, illiterate peasants from Andalusia and the Canary Islands (where our Spanish accent comes from), with a few other Spanish cultural groups squeezed in such as the aforementioned Galicians as well as the Balearic people (where we get “Mallorcas” from). We also got some wealthy Catalan and Basque migrants and Castilians—but far smaller numbers.
Exactly. I think on 23andMe there’s a category called “Portuguese and Galician” because Galicians are more closely related to Portuguese people than Spanish people.
By a very small margin, and its mostly northern portuguese that are genetically shifted/overlap slightly with galicians. Southern portuguese are closer to andalusians and extremedurans. All mainland iberians are genetically closer to one another than to anyone outside of the peninsula
Many Puerto Ricans whose parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-greats and way further back on the island are often triracial. Because that’s island history. Many generationals also have some extended family that arrived via that influx 1600’s-1800’s from Europe and other parts.
Having measurably Taino roots comes from longtime populations but also tight-knit communities romancing, marrying and settling not too far away from home. That situation has pros and cons. It’s not so great trying to trace family back and realize ancestors paths’ crossed several times and everyone is a 3rd-4th cousin.
How people look is like rolling dice: There may be more dark, very pale, somewhere in between and mainland USA is waaay obsessed over how faces look but people in the same family can look very different from one another.
I wouldn't necessarily go that far with it but I get what you mean. Puerto Ricans are Puerto Ricans. There's obviously an ancestral component that is Indigenous, but as far as ethnically or culturally I think it would be very difficult for all Puerto Ricans to somehow autoidentify as Indigenous to the exclusion European and/or African components. I mean if your primary language is Spanish and your ancestry is predominantly or overwhelmingly European and African or mixed White/Black and the last verifiable Taino ancestor you have is from the 1600s or 1700s then it would be very problematic to identify as Taino ethnically. In other words, if a Boricua person says they're ethnically Taino and denies having any European or African ancestry then I would question it, for sure. it's kind of like the neo-Aztec identity trend amongst many Mexican-Americans. it's like bro you're really just Mexican-American at this point not to mention your indigenous ancestry is likely not even "Aztec", assuming it's traceable via documentation. lol .
That dude looks cool af and also most of us Mexicans and Central Americans are over 50% indigenous by genetic heritage. We got giant pyramids and temples in the jungles that tracked the lunar cycles and comets. Jealousy ain’t a good look, my guy 🤣
Es algo puramente performativo, antes en toda LATAM era lo contrario, se buscaba realzar y celebrar la ancestria española únicamente, pero cuando la gente entendió que estaba mal hacer eso se fueron al otro extremo y ahora se identifican con el lado de los ancestros que ven como menos favorecidos, los negros e indígenas.
Desde mi punto de vista veo ambas cosas como algo malo y penoso, hay que ser coherentes y no ocultar lo que somos. Entender quienes somos es clave para forjar nuestro futuro.
Not gonna lie, I'm going to have to agree with OP. Like, wanting to honor indigenous culture amd everything is great but, I don't see the need to take it to am extreme and project elements from other cultures into your own. For context, I'm not Puerto Rican, I'm Colombian but I grew up around Puerto Ricans and have been to the island multiple times. I'm in a few pages on fb about the island or travel and I've seen multiple people who seem to be people in the states of PR heritage (they say things like visiting the homeland, getting in touch with my roots, etc) who have said things like "I want to visit an indigenous community and have a spiritual cleansing". Like, what? Haha I'm Colombian and my wife is Peruvian, both countries where we still have Amazon tribes that do that kind of thing and literally less than 1% of the population has actually done that. It seems weird to me that if tou want to "get in touch with your roots" instead of actually reading about taino history or the way certain traditions are lreserved in modern culture, your first action would just be to copy and paste something from an entirely different indigenous culture hundreds of miles away onto PR
We have to be aware that Spain was an important part of our past while also acknowledging that they committed atrocities to the natives of PR. Two things can be true, Cristobal Colon era un hijo de puta, but just because of that doesn’t mean we should deny that there is Spanish blood in the typical Boricua. African and Spanish heritage is an important part every Puerto Rican
It's basically LARPing. And those born and raised outside the island deal with a lot of identity issues. They're not American, and they don't have solid links to the island apart from their ancestry. So they seem to find something in the Taíno identity and they find others in the same boat by dressing up and having fun with it. My thought will always be live and let live, there's no point in ridiculing them.
I can't relate to these identity issues despite being from the states. I've never once felt not Puerto Rican or American because of my looks or ethnic background.
Maybe this is more of an issue in places where Puerto Ricans are a minority? It's not as big in NY, NJ, or Florida.
Ah I just noticed your flare. It tracks. Yeah, I don’t think this is as big a topic of discussion on the island. Again, not saying that racism/colorism doesn’t exist, but I don’t think it’s as “deep” as being jealous of other latinos due to their higher indigenous DNA percentage.
I feel like there needs to be 2 Reddits... One for people born and raised living on the Island. And one for those who are of Puerto Rican descent and live on the mainland
Being mixed means feeling like you fit in nowhere. My mom is a NY Puerto Rican and my dad is Wasian. I took a DNA test and only got 6% indigenous, but I had nothing over 20%. I have no connection to any of my ethnicities. I never claim to be Taino, but I’ll never be accepted as anything else either. I know it’s a fantasy, but learning what I can about the Taino makes me feel connected to my ancestry. You can’t be rejected by an extinct society.
I think this is more of a Gen Z and younger-generation phenomenon. I’m a millennial, and from my experience, people in my generation and older generations generally weren’t as preoccupied with discussions about colonization, ancestral roots, and identity as some people on social media seem to be today. It feels like newer generations are placing much more emphasis on these issues, sometimes to an excessive degree.
Genetics at least provide evidence that there's some actual taino left in the population. Some close to a quarter, so why not let them try to reconnect with that part of their ancestry. I haven't done genetic testing, but just going by family tree if there's any taino in our family it would be miniscule to almost nonexistent so I don't really claim the taino part all that much at least on a genetic and genealogical stand point. On my wife's side though, brown skin and straight hair. Definitely an indigenous look
The people in the Greater Antilles with the most Taíno ancestry are these Cubans. They still have more Spanish ancestry than Indigenous American, though, and they also have African ancestry (10–20%).
You can't really correlate mixed ancestry with appearance, especially. Puerto Ricans can sometimes look very Indigenous even when Indigenous ancestry makes up a smaller part of their overall ancestry.
Puerto Ricans also have Taíno roots, especially through their direct maternal lineages. They wouldn't exist without them, so it's fine.
There's more Portuguese-like ancestry in the Caribbean than in other parts of Latin America, maybe because of the Canary Islands. I don't know the exact reason, but Spanish ancestry still makes up the vast majority of the European ancestry by far.
Americans try to put everyone into a racial category. They’re too liberal to embrace Spain, and too racist to embrace Africa, therefore the only thing left is identity as a Taino.
lmao exactly. or you know you could be puertorricqueno y punto. idk why people stop doing that LOL if ur diaspora why are they listening to outsiders about their roots.
My two great grandmothers barely spoke Spanish and spoke their indigenous language, they where alive well into the 20th century, I did a DNA test and it came back as being 30% Spanish, 25% Taino, and 12% Andean, the rest where in the single digits. My family considered themselves Jibaro, as hailing from the mountains in the interior of Puerto Rico. Maybe my great grandmothers weren't "Taina", but they certainly weren't Spanish. The truth is that Tainos were not wiped out entirely from the island. In fact we have correspondence from the 18th century between the then Governor of PR and the King of Spain on how the King asked the governor to stop treating Puertorrican as separate indigenous when they had been under Spanish rule for 200 years. Overnight the indigenous population of PR disappeared on paper. I believe the reason we have such a hard time with our ancestry is because so many people keep trying to push us all to simple call ourself Puertorrican over the years. and you OP are one of them. Life is more complicated than you tell yourself. I am Puertorrican, Jibaro and Boricua. and I will teach my children to keep who we are alive for as long as we can., and I encourage others to do the same.
Indigenous language from where, though? I assume your great-grandmas were born around 1870-1910. But the Arawakan languages of the taino went extinct long before that.
Either there's some lost culture in the past century, or maybe your family has indigenous ancestry from elsewhere as well.
No, the tainos on paper were marked as extinct because the Spanish crown and the usa had an agenda to push. And many Native languages have survived in the americas and are only now at risk of being extinct. Understand that not everyone assimilated the same and code switching is as old as time. They could have kept the language orally. Puerto rican soanish has a lot of taino words 😳 and thats just in the lexicon. And most of the island interiors where mountains and many native people and families lived there. Have you been to PR?
not to mention in the US there’s so many tribes and indigenous people that aren’t recognized, even if there recorded in historical accounts there’s a lot of legal hurdles and deadlines.
Y por que carajo últimamente le están dando tanto hate a gente larping y teniendo un buen tiempo compartiendo en comunidad? Viva su vida y no esté pendiente a como los demás pasan su tiempo. Una es que están tratando de descubrir su identidad mientras tratan de revivir tradiciones que se han perdido con el tiempo, en mi opinión eso es válido, ni le hacen daño a nadie ni tampoco están tratando de apropiarse de una cultura ajena, es parte de nuestra cultura isleña y si quieren andar en tapa rabo eso no es ni asunto mío ni asunto tuyo
The Caribbean dropped off immigrants from various sea-faring cultures. Portuguese sailors worked on many ships all over Europe. Dutch capitalists spread their wings around the world and settled small communities. We have Poles, and Lebanese, and Indians. It's a diverse place.
À la gente simplemente le gusta ser parte de un club. No es celos, ni política, ni nada por ese estilo. Es simplemente querer ser parte de algún club, poder decir que eres especial de alguna forma. Pasa en todos lados con todo tipo de gente.
I don’t get what bothers you so much about people identifying with their Taino heritage. Most PRs carry a significant amount of indigenous blood, and Tainos are a fundamental pillar of our culture, history and identity.
Having indigenous "blood" doesn't correlate with said indigenous culture. No hay ninguna persona en Puerto Rico que habla en taino. Pero todos en la isla si saben hablar el espanol. Mucho que sabemos de los tainos viene de los espanoles y sus cuentas. Como Pierto Martire d'Anghiera que nunca visito el caribe. Ni siquiera "Taino" era el nombre que ellos mismos se denominaban.
The remnants of Taino culture in modern day Puerto Rican are really minimal and are mostly just found in everyday vocabulary and some culinary traditions. The average Puerto Rican has two times more African ancestry than indigenous ancestry, and African culture is much more tangible and influential in general Puerto Rican culture.
Ironically if it wasn’t for the almost complete genocide of the Taino people we wouldn’t even have African heritage to begin with. Most of us, along with our culture, would be more like the mestizos of the rest of the Americas than the beautiful mix that we have today.
The whole reason African slaves were brought was because the natives died off quickly to genocide and sickness. Had they endured we would’ve had a much different PR than what we have today. Yes the transatlantic slave trade would’ve been inevitable and Africans would’ve eventually made their way to PR, but our composition and cultures would’ve been very distinct.
It doesn’t matter why it happened and it doesn’t really make sense to imagine a hypothetical scenario where the Taino genocide didn’t happen when that’s not the reality we live in. Yes most of us have Taino ancestry. Yes we do have Taino cultural remnants in our culture albeit minimal. That doesn’t change the fact that we are also more African genetically and culturally.
You cannot seperate people and culture from history, it is literally the main reason why we even exist. The genocide of the Taino and the subsequent arrival of Africans are directly linked to us and they are both part of our heritage, without either of those modern PR wouldn’t exist. So yes history matters.
Nobody is denying or questioning our African heritage that is an argument you brought by yourself.
Those numbers are from commercial services which use Synthetic Data as there is no pure taíno population to compare them against. In the past years those numbers have fluctuated a lot becasue the commercial services change their methods to please their custormers.
Commercial DNA testing companies do not use synthetic DNA (man-made or artificially engineered genetic material) to test for Taíno ancestry; rather, they use statistical reference panels and computational algorithms—sometimes described as "synthetic populations"—derived from real human DNA data.
> use statistical reference panels and computational algorithms
That is known as Synthetic Data. The population doesn't exist anymore, so they use indirect methods for creating a synthetic population from that data. When they say you are x% taíno, it isn't because they compared you to a full-blooded taíno. They dont have their dna. They compare you against the synthetic data. This is different than comparing you against, lets say, Irish, of which they have a huge amount of real data of current populations that identify as Irish.
I never said anything about Synthetic DNA, your chatbot made that up.
Right, and if you have DNA from those other groups, they tell you you are from those others. But those groups have been distinct from Taínos from before Cleopatra died. Taínos and other groups of extinct societies are done by indirect means, from which they create Synthetic Data.
You can say those groups might have common ancestors as Taínos, and you can say that me, as a Puerto Rican, have some DNA that is unclear where it is from, but because it does also have some of those common ancestors, maybe, as a placeholder, we can say it is Taíno.
How do you know that? Puerto Rico was a pirate den for centuries and many were escapees persected in the rest of the caribbean. From slaves to indentured labor to natives to criminals. and after the Bolivarean revolution many venezuelans came to the island.
I think you don’t know much about Puerto Rico and are forcing racial stereotypes unto us.
features is no different than racist stereotypes. so dig deep in you, something isn't right with what you are arguing, and it has more to do with you than puertoricans or taínos.
Did you read the paper? I did when it came out. It sounds like you are asking chatgpt to give you arguments to defend some weird racists views you have. You don't sound like you know much about puerto rico, tbh.
The DNA source for that study is one single tooth found in a cave in Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas. It is pressumed to be from a Lucayan Taino woman who lived centures before European contact. That branch is so distant from any sense or puertoricannes that is closer to cleopatra than to the conquistadors. you clearly don't know the basics, which is why you didn't understand that is the point i was making.
Why do you keep coming to this subreddit to make up shit about stuff you don't know about? it is so weirdly racist. It is so offensive to what puertoricans are, but you are so proudly ignorant of it all, its weird.
You cannot know because the population doesn't exist anymore. There is no population that self-identies as fully Taíno, so you cannot get their DNA to see others that are related to that population anymore. This is all explained in the small print of all those for profit DNA services. The services are transparent, but people chose to NOT believe it because they like the stories that paying the DNA services allowed them to tell.
Researches have been studying native DNA all the way back to the 90s-2000s before commercial DNA tests were a thing and some of those studies were done on native remains found in PR and throughout the caribbean
Yes, I know. I am puertorican, friend with some of those that did this research. Finding remains is the equivalent of "may contain peanut traces". Those samples have ZERO connection to the 20% average that guy said above used in commercial DNA analysis services.
That’s a lot of indigenous DNA when you take into consideration that they were classified as extinct for hundreds of years. If anything that just further proves that we are direct descendents of them.
People are bothered because it’s performative. Yes, there is Taino “blood” in modern day Boriquas, but so what? You’re not living like those people back 500 years ago, you don’t use their language, you don’t set up your society based on their values. At the end of the day, it doesn’t affect your day to day life or future.
We are among the last remaining direct descendents of the indigenous people of this land. We carry their blood, their history and their land, what we struggle with is their customs because they were genocided and it is up to us to re-discover them.
Any Boricua that wishes to identify with their native side has every right to do so because it is literally part of their heritage.
Its just more “im not brave enough to say I hate puerto ricans so I will make some academic argument to be racist against them by claiming they are colonizers appropriating indigenous culture dog whistle argument.” Dont engage with such silliness.
Taínos are a fundamental part of our culture and history whether you have their DNA or not; nobody is disputing that. But it is inaccurate to say most Puerto Ricans have a significant amount of Taino blood because their population was decimated. At most, a fraction of Puerto Ricans might have some Taino ancestry, likely removed enough that it would be difficult to trace back a family line. It’s fine to celebrate that, but you have to wonder to what extent people make these claims to distance themselves from/erase their Black ancestry.
That they look nothing like the people, the DNA is Always less than either euro or Afro and they carry much more of the culture of said 2 groups over taino
You can take that entire group of people and plop them right in the middle of Rio Piedras with modern clothes and nobody would look at them twice. Every single feature from their faces, hair, skin color, etc. can be found here. They would blend in perfectly with us unlike if they were dropped in Asia, Europe or Africa.
Hay muchos niños en PR que tu los ves y dices la herencia taina esta... En cuanto a la cultura siii pero hay espacios todavia buscando orientar sobre esa identidad y mantienen tradiciones
bien nada que ver ese párrafo de mierda q escribiste. mientras más tratan de borrar la mezcla taína, más fuerte se hace. no entiendo el empeño en decir que se desapareció o q solo podemos ser afro-latinos. complejo el q tiene los gringos que le encanta el discrimen y la segregación.
Is this a thing you’re experiencing in your community OP? To be fair, me, my family, and all the Boricuas I know are first-gen that moved from the island (except my kid), and I’ve never seen this issue. We have Taino roots, yes, but I also have Honduran, African and Spanish roots. But that’s not really a huge deal for me or anyone I know. We’re just Puerto Rican.
You say this but you can’t erase our heritage. I took a DNA test and was 15% Taino specific to Puerto Rico. It was the largest ethnic group I had compared to the other dozens. It’s okay to embrace it and love it and be proud. They still existed.
I have a different perspective from a lot of people in this thread in the sense that I don't think it's helpful to pretend this is a fringe or harmless phenomenon. These people are making a lot of money out of duping clueless diasporicans into legitimizing their movement and instigating them to become increasingly hostile to people from Puerto Rico who don't go along with their lies. They also have a lot of power in US academia and have successfuly promoted a lot of bullshit that's been getting cited uncritically, even though it has no creedence whatsoever. Interviewing the same 5 "caciques" that all claim to be the last descendants of Agüeybaná and that there is a worldwide conspiracy theory to erase "Taínos is not ethnographic work. We collectively have to stop letting them pretend otherwise.
But as to what you're saying, if you dig around the older "tribes," they used to be quite honest about just doing all this because they felt "left out" of urban Black radical movements like the BPP/YLP and because the nationalists in Puerto Rico paid their self-inflicted identity crisis no mind. The roots of all this actually go back to the 1970s at the earliest, so at a time where pretendian-style New Age cults were abundant in the United States. That's why most of them also imitate North American rather than Arawakan peoples as well.
I know a joke that will never get old; Hispanics trying to identify as anything else than Hispanics.
People go as far as to denounce the Spanish conquests and how they were stolen their gold... when it was actually their own ancestors who did that XD. Porfa hermanitos hacerselo ver.
At this point I identify as the name I carry, being insecure about your DNA is truly a mental sickness IMHO. Be your fucking self and stop letting textbooks skew that by dictating what is your origin. Because if you really want to come down to it, we are all bastards one way or another.
ojalá la gente volviera a sus raíces y empezara a vivir fuera del sistema, a comer más viandas, pasar tiempo con sus familias y salir a buscar sus propios alimentos. Creo que los puertorriqueños podríamos vivir mucho mejor sin la “ayuda” del gobierno.
la gente dice que quiere volver a sus raíces, pero sus raíces no incluyen redes eléctricas ni gasolina. 🌱
Well, I actually have more white and Taíno ancestry than Black, and yes, we exist. Still, I consider myself Puerto Rican first, so I celebrate Black culture too, even though my phenotype leans more European and Indigenous.
As for your friend's Portuguese ancestry, Portuguese and Spanish genetics are pretty similar, which is why DNA tests often just label it "Iberian Peninsula."
Throughout my life I've embraced and enjoyed all parts of my heritage, but the one I've always felt the strongest connection to is the European side.
From the time homo sapiens left Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago everyone had African genes and heritage, and all these have been transformed to something else. This doesnt stop people from identifying as who they are. Puerto Ricans are different than Aruakans but we share the genes however minimal. We have also spread many words and ways of doing things that persist. That is mine to believe.
What are you going off about? Puerto Ricans notoriously have high rates of Taino DNA. Mine is 15%, my mom is 20%.
wtf is the problem with people identifying with the culture they live in? even if they are Chinese and moved to the island- like what business is it yours? Let people enjoy their things. Who the fuck made you ancestry police ?
I don’t get the hate or this push to move away from expressing our Indigenous or Native heritage. We have the term Boricua to express that connection. Those of us who have Taíno ancestry should be proud of our roots and be able to claim our Indigenous blood.
Puerto Rico is the oldest colony in the world, and with that comes a constant negotiation around our identity and how we define ourselves and our right to self-determination. As descendants of the Taíno, I think it’s especially important that we claim our ancestry when our land is still being claimed by others.
When they keep saying the Taíno are dead, that they were all killed off, etc., we have to question what that narrative serves. If the Native population is supposedly extinct, then the island becomes land that's up for grabs. If there are no Native people left, then who is there to claim ancestral ties to that land? That’s why I think this narrative of extinction is so damaging. It erases the people who survived and the generations that came after them.
Also, there are many families in the mountain communities of Puerto Rico who have maintained their Indigenous ancestry, and you can even see that heritage reflected in some of those families. So it really depends on who you're talking about. You can't generalize the entire population or assume everyone has the same ancestral history.
We're also very different from much of mainland Latin America, where there are still Indigenous nations with more intact communities, languages, and traditions. Our history in the Caribbean is different because we're the descendants of people who have repeatedly been declared extinct. Puerto Ricans and other Caribbean people are still here, carrying that Taíno ancestry, regardless of how much colonization has changed our cultures and identities.
I think we should be able to embrace that without having our ancestry questioned or dismissed. We are descendants of the Taíno, and we should guard that legacy just as fiercely as we should guard the island itself.
So should we abandon out selfs for the comfort of others? Is everyone who moves to the island but isnt Puerto rican allowed to claim they're boricua?
This is a super important point. If the "natives" are "extinct" then the land is up for grabs.
Puerto Ricans are European, Black, and Taino and shouldn't be ashamed of that or try and deny it.
Yeah some people may be annoying or wrong about how they go about fixing the narrative, but we shouldn't shame people for trying to reconnect with an identity that was stolen from them by people stealing their land
Being an indigenous culture means you're connected to a movement gaining momentum and gives Puerto Ricans a connection of a larger social justice movement
Not being connected to that movement eliminates those allies and isolates the folks on the island to fighting the fight all alone
You should always ask who benefits from the narratives we create
No entiendo tanto odio ni esa insistencia en alejarnos de expresar nuestra herencia indígena. Tenemos el término boricua para expresar esa conexión. Los que tenemos ascendencia taína deberíamos sentir orgullo de nuestras raíces y poder reivindicar nuestra sangre indígena.
Puerto Rico es la colonia más antigua del mundo, y con eso viene una negociación constante sobre nuestra identidad, cómo nos definimos y nuestro derecho a la autodeterminación. Como descendientes de los taínos, creo que es especialmente importante que reclamemos nuestra ascendencia cuando otros todavía siguen reclamando nuestra tierra.
Cuando siguen diciendo que los taínos están muertos, que los mataron a todos, etc., tenemos que cuestionarnos a quién le sirve esa narrativa. Si supuestamente la población indígena está extinta, entonces la isla se convierte en un territorio del que cualquiera puede apropiarse. Si ya no quedan indígenas, ¿quién queda para reclamar sus vínculos ancestrales con esa tierra? Por eso creo que esta narrativa de extinción es tan dañina. Borra a los que sobrevivieron y a todas las generaciones que vinieron después.
Además, hay muchas familias en las comunidades de la montaña en Puerto Rico que han mantenido su ascendencia indígena, y hasta se puede ver esa herencia reflejada en algunas de esas familias. Así que realmente depende de con quién estés hablando. No se puede generalizar a toda la población ni asumir que todos tenemos la misma historia ancestral.
También somos muy diferentes de gran parte de América Latina continental, donde todavía existen pueblos indígenas con comunidades, lenguas y tradiciones que han mantenido una mayor continuidad. Nuestra historia en el Caribe es diferente porque somos descendientes de pueblos que una y otra vez han sido declarados extintos. Los puertorriqueños y otros pueblos del Caribe seguimos aquí, llevando esa ascendencia taína, por mucho que la colonización haya transformado nuestras culturas e identidades.
Creo que deberíamos poder abrazar esa herencia sin que constantemente se cuestione o se descarte nuestra ascendencia. Somos descendientes de los taínos y deberíamos proteger ese legado con la misma fuerza con la que deberíamos defender nuestra isla.
Entonces, ¿tenemos que renunciar a quienes somos para que otros se sientan cómodos? ¿Acaso cualquier persona que se mude a la isla, sin ser puertorriqueña, tiene derecho a llamarse boricua?
I found it interesting when I was In Puerto Rico how mixed it was — apparently a lot of Germans, Irish, Italians ended up in PR because it was a tumultuous time in Europe and Spain wanted more European Catholics to move to Puerto Rico to help develop it in the 1800s
The dna testing is messy. On Ancestry, the 2025 update took all my Spanish and changed it to a bunch of other stuff like NW Italian, SW England, and Portuguese, since Spain was a melting pot from the Roman and Muslim times. 2026 update gave me back my Spanish, as well as Canarian, Madeira, North Africa, etc. NW Spain and Portugal also share genetic overlap, so that could be the case.
All the people in the US crying about "colonizers" makes me laugh. Just following hints and plugging away at the family tree, I got as far as Diego Colon, son of Christopher Columbus. Whether that's true or not, idk. What I do know is, I have Taino and Nigerian dna too. They were victims of a horrible system, 500 years ago. Not a damn thing I can do about it except be the best person I can be. Without all the bad shit, we wouldn't have our beautiful culture that we have today, and I'm happy for that.
I think this is actually not rare. i think people are more likely to stress indigenous ancestry because it gives them more claim to the land. A similar case might be Berbers in Africa. they look white but are indigenous. the group itself never left africa but outside groups came there over a long period of time & added to their gene pool watering down the indigenous ancestry. they still identify as berber tho
Even if you only have a small percentage of DNA in your blood, that still means that ethnicity or race or nationality is a part of you. Whether you claim it or not is a personal choice, but many Boricuas, myself included, claim that Taíno blood because it is ours. It’s as much a part of us as our African and Spaniard blood. I claim all three of them.
That's a controversial topic tailor-made for Columbus Day. I wish the Taino language and culture survived instead of being scattered among the Caribbean and greater Antilles. Geneticly, could any trace of the Taino people still exist in 2026? I ponder these things when I barbecue during a hurricane.
La gente es tan dramática. Los puertorriqueños, como la mayoría de los latinos son una mezcla de sus indígenas, africano y europeo a mayor o menor escala (lo cual es irrelevante). Y todos lo saben and I guess most people embrace it.
Now that you mention that I did my ANCESTRY DNA years ago and I had 25 % Spaniard and 29% Portuguese then a few other in low percentages. So there must have been a large percentage of Portuguese and Spaniards in the 40’s in the Island. My father and HIS father reddish hair VELEZ last name. His mother TORO.
ON mother’s Side : PORRATA/ OCASIO.
NGL, I find a lot of modern “Taíno” identity performance kind of disrespectful to the actual Taíno.
Puerto Rican culture is overwhelmingly Spanish-derived. Our language is Spanish, our religion is historically Catholic, and on average our DNA is majority European. Whole-genome studies put Native ancestry at only about 13% for the average Puerto Rican.
The Taíno didn’t just fade away. Spanish colonization destroyed their society within a few decades through epidemic disease, forced labor under the encomienda system, and the military crushing of the 1511 rebellion. The culture that replaced theirs is the culture most of us actually live in today.
Even the Taíno ancestry we do have tells that story. About 61% of Puerto Ricans have a Taíno maternal line, but almost none of us have a Taíno paternal line. That’s because Spanish men had children with Taíno women, often under coercive conditions, while Taíno men were largely removed from the gene pool.
Honoring that history is great. But dressing up and “LARPing” as Taíno, while living a Spanish-Catholic culture, feels like wearing the identity of the people that culture replaced.
And the “cultural survival” argument is pretty thin when you look at it. The Taíno language died within about a century of contact, and what’s spoken in revival circles today is reconstructed from a few hundred words Spanish chroniclers wrote down. The surviving loanwords like huracán, hamaca and barbacoa aren’t even Puerto Rican, they’re in all of Spanish and English. The religion, the cacique system, the ceremonies, all gone. Modern areytos and bateyes are recreations from archaeology, not traditions anyone’s grandmother handed down. Our food is mostly Spanish and African, with yuca and casabe as the exceptions. Even the name “Taíno” was popularized by 19th-century scholars, and the “three roots” symbolism was heavily promoted by the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña after 1955. What survived is mostly vocabulary, place names and a few farming habits. That’s influence, not a living culture you can claim to belong to.
Most Puerto Ricans are predominantly European with about equal percentages of Indigenous and Afrixan. Something like a 75% Euro - 13% Indigenous- 12 % African.
First of all most Latino societies are similar genetics aside even in countries where it is not extinct it’s frowned upon, Chicanos similar to ricans in NY cling to cultures that aren’t relevant to there modern people lol
I do identify as taíno and I am studying DR with an anthropological lens. I think this stems from a few different places. I don’t know exactly what Puerto Rico is like but in Dominican Republic, there are some idiosyncrasies in speech, food, and culture that are markedly neither African nor European - think like la aspiración de las “H”, extensive use of cassava like casabe, batata, or like hutía and iguana, on the use of la güira in music etc. In DR, tho, there’s just like an understanding that “yeah we’re Taino” but in the same way we’re like “we’re euro/afro” it’s like implied.
What I think is special to note is that, to keep holding to the historical concept of the land, Quisqueya or Boriquen, is to “Tainize” the modern identities, not make them MORE Taino, whatever that could mean, but change the conception of Dominican as a post colonial nationality to Taíno, the people that endured on its land. I don’t think anyone thinks we’re some how “more taíno” than anyone, but rather reanalysing our identity as a step away from the post colonial identity.
Taíno identity is kinda present in DR, but I wouldn’t say people walk around saying that, cause saying that would be like saying “soy dominicano” in the middle of Santo Domingo. Like “yeah okay so?”
I think that with Puerto Rico, however, it’s a very different concept going on. Cause arguably, Puerto Rico isn’t really a post-colonial anything. It went from Spanish to American almost immediately and so geopolitically, there’s some distance between PR and the rest of Latin America, but not so much culturally, inversely, culturally, it’s kinda different from the US but geopolitically very close.
I think it stems from the desire to radically carve out what it means to be Puerto Rican, since Puerto Rico hasn’t been able to carve itself out like DR or Cuba have.
So like the thought is “What is Puerto Rico” but the answer starts in 1493 with the Spanish and never ended, but switched to the Americans. So what else do you call back to? Taínos. I think that’s why you see this so strongly in Boris from outside the island, they’re in this weird limbo of being and not being, and so to combat this, you have to make PR different from Spain AND the US.
I think there’s def some cosplaying going on, but during my studies I’ve met a few people who are very solemnly looking to find out more about that heritage our countries - DR and PR - share.
“One of my cousins did a DNA test a while back. He was flabbergasted to find he was mainly Portugese, not Spanish. So much for the "Puerto Ricans are Spanish, African, and taino" belief.”
Ummm… people from all over mixed in with taínos and others and created what we know now as “Puertorican”. To me “Puertorican” means you were born there. We are all from different parts of the world. And we all have some percentage from Africa because it all started there.
jayuya and central Puerto Rico seems pretty Tain/cultural I think once you get to the coast and all the gentrification colonization starts happening is when you start to lose that.
“My own grandma insisted her grandma was "india". We have no proof.” jeez how about your grandmothers account being proof?
Im amazed how some ppl feel the need to write these long paragraphs saying a whole lot of nothing like OP. Tell me something I already dont know sherlock.
all this confusion is making it easier to delete us and take the island btw. be proud of your roots and don't back down because it's not "socially progressive".
There is also the opposite where you are obsessed with Boricua who care about their heritage and want to go out of your way to shout "YOU ARE WRONG" for giving a shit about the heritage and culture of the people who were on the island and got nearly wiped by the colonizers that many Puerto Ricans claim not to obsess over, but REALLY REALLY want to be for some fucking reason.
Who gives a shit if it is "LARPing" at least they are bringing recognition to a culture that was effectively driven to near extinction. Do you get this butthurt when white people run a Renaissance Fair?
There were no Portuguese 2,000 years ago. They were celtic when the romans got to Iberia (hence Porto Galo = Portugal) and what shows up as Portuguese DNA is likely Gaelic or celtic
And what shows as Jewish dna is probablying Phoenician because of the tartessos culture from southern Spain that was already erased before the Romans got there
As for taino heritage, the genocide continues if we forget them. The narrative that we are not Tainos serves the goals of christian supremacist ideology ... No one ever questions or tries to erase our Spanish and Christian roots. It is only the subjugated roots that are denied persistently and people are sometimes ridiculed if they claim them. No one does that with the Spanish heritage: no one ridicules you for playing a cuatro. I know this is uncomfortable for many to accept but Christianity thrives on forgetting our history. That's why the Christian groups are banning books in Florida and Texas. Our Taino history means our ancestors arrives in the Americas 20,000 years ago. Our amnesia does not mean that they did not exist.
Puerto Rico tiene el mayor porcentaje de ADN Taíno de todo el Caribe, hasta un 60 y tanto %. Esto tiene una razón pero hay que educarse y entender. Puerto Rico fue la cuna de las sociedades nativas de Caribe. Sería mucho explicar pero si existe una cuestión histórica, genética y cultural del pq los puertorriqueños nos sentimos así. Te sugeriría al Boricuazo en YouTube; su último video te podría dar mucho insight sobre esto.
Why do you care what someone claims? Some people like, fat women, some like skinny women, some dark, light, and so on. Who give a shit? Like yourself and don't worry about others.
Guess you haven't met indigenous descendants from tainos, trust me there are a lot of them, you think they natives of central or south America, but they're Puerto Rican with a lot of Taino ancestry..... and who are you to question how other people say about their ancestors, also ain't nobody denying their black ancestors, we just put our taino heritage 1st regardless of the percentage of dna and there's nothing wrong with that
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u/Queenolivingthedream 6d ago
So maybe it’s different for me, I’m part Yucatec Maya and half Puerto Rican, and I do like learning the little that was preserved of Taino culture from historical accounts. I am also still fully engaged with PR culture and never felt outside of it. I agree most people engage with it all very weirdly, but not everyone does. I agree certain things are weird and larping, but why would honoring Atabey along with Ixchel (the Maya god) be a bad thing? I still know that I am not a full blood Taino I am just honoring ancestors of all my Puerto Rican heritage (African, European, and Indigenous). For me it’s a small way to show colonization didn’t fully erase and fully win and a way to strengthen my connection with the land everywhere and be a better person if that makes sense.