The “Jíbaro” is and has been the inland people those that worked the land as to the “city” people. Yoy want to see the real “Jíbaro” of the 30’s, 40’s and even the 50’s, please look up “El Pan Nuestro” a Ramón Frade painting. Our native indians the one that Columbus found and welcome him to the island of BORIKEN were the TAINO Indian.

There has been some DNA studies that claim that there are some Taino DNA in Boricuas or Puerto Ricans today. As to what they claim that percentage is I think is too high. However there NO FULL BLODED Taino today in PR. As to the Taino culture all we have what has been passed by word of mouth since the 1500’s to today with all the filtering during all those years since. Written there was not much. Bartolomé de las Casas has been the primary source as to the Taino Culture. That culture has never been taught in school ans much of what they call today as been taino are invented based on what the historians have written.

Our culture TODAY is primarily base on Spanish, African and American influence.

I am a Univ of Hawaii Graduate Class of 1969

Now, I don’t have a problem with honoring our Taino roots, but I disapprove of how it tries to undervalue our entirely culture claiming it all for Tainos while giving the Spaniards SOME credit (the worse ones by that) and almost entirely no credit to the Africans despite their immerse contribution to the culture when the Taino roots tend to be the smallest one in our culture. It’s better to acknowledge that the identity of Puerto Ricans is a new one, it’s NOT the same as Taino, not the same as African, and sure as hell not the same as the Spanish culture, it’s an different one on its own, and the sooner people recognize that, the better.

I traced my diasporic roots to find that my grandparents were the last of several generations born and raised in PR…my earliest ancestral records were slave records. My grandmother left as a young woman when she was pregnant with my Dad so he could be born here. Only to return with him shortly after. My mother also lived in between both places for much of her life. I spent summers in PR but, was discouraged from speaking Spanish and was told I was white even though my Dad had an afro. The conditions that our families sought to improve by leaving, only followed us when we got here. No assimilation helped. In my 30s, I’m left with no parents, no language, no culture and a storm of painful memories related to their oppression.

There is a grief that comes when you are displaced in this way; Colonialism 101.

I’m reading this thread and noticing so much hubris. There are the stateside Diasporicans who readily embrace the colonial oppression of the US to gain acceptance. There are the elitist Puerto Ricans who will not accept the Diasporicans and cling so desperately to self determination that they cannot see the faces of their own brothers. There are the nationalists who don the pava and romanticize about jibaros or tainos or Spaniards the way whites here tell you they are 1/10th Cherokee or that they descended from the Mayflower…completely dismissing the ways colonialism has ravaged customs, displaced families and mixed these alleged pure bloodlines. You can bend research to fit the thesis you like, but there is a racial division on the island the way there is a racial division in the US. There is a legacy of brokenness.

It’s convenient to talk about imagined histories while slavery & occupation slips into erasure. The FSA paid a visit to PR using the same methods it used to document the dust bowl to fund the New Deal. What better way to sell the government’s bidding than to proliferate the ideology of the farmer on the eve of the first gubernatorial election that would determine PR’s commonwealth status? Later, the Jibaro icon was used by the PPD party to welcome capitalist expansion to the island with Operation Bootstrap. Now, all over the US, you see a resurgence of Taino-ism that points to an insular identity politic that doesn’t help the financial/health crises that is swallowing everyone whole.

These are symbols of pride. But, pride is bi***. If history has taught us anything, it’s that we need to organize. The division is what keeps us oppressed.

Esta es una buena historia sobre su familia, hay solamente un problema sobre su comentarios y es que esta muy general hablar sobre un pueblo sin tomar en consideración que usted y su familia no son ni pueden hablar por el pueblo de Puerto Rico. Hay diversos elementos étnicos, raciales y culturales en el Puerto Rico del hoy. Primeramente yo nací de familias de sangre mestiza Jibara Boricua Taina y de mescla del blanco Español en la cuna de mi nacimiento en el pueblo “Corazón” de la isla llamado Orocovis, Puerto Rico. Mis Abuelos siempre nos han dicho que el uso de la palabra Jibaro o Jibara es puramente de origen indígena y un mestizaje del Indio Taino. Sobre sus pasado estudios académicos en la UPR, le puedo dejar saber que los académico o intelectuales o los Blanquitos criollos Puertorriqueños que son los hijos de los Españoles del hoy han llevado una campaña de promover muchas mentiras sobre el origen de la palabra y gente Jibara o Jibaro del campo o de la Cordillera montañosa Central de Puerto Rico, y siempre pintando a nuestra cultura Jibara Taina con un falso origen de España. Por último es muy claro por el uso mi nombre Guanikeyu (Pájaro Noble de la Tierra Blanca) y de mi título hereditario de Cacique del Gran Alto del Jatibonicu que soy Anciano y un líder del Movimiento Indio Taino de Boriken establecido en el año del 1968 en la isla de Puerto Rico. Que tenga un buen Dia y que Dios te bendiga.

well hello my taino brother i am proud to see a lot of us do know some what but not enough which we all should know about are coltura y raza to be honest i would like to read more about what you have to say by the way my taino name was given to me by my grandparent bojote pitre be safe my brother

Mitchell Pagan

Omg the colonizers were brilliant, look even now by their teaching methods they have us doing their work of separation of ourselves for them. what are we looking for here? People, Dna, a connection, our past, but you are fighting over names..A rose by any other name will still look, smell and be or grow the same….we cannot test names, they will change, let us use what is obvious facts, DNA, People, when we establish this then we may fight over which name we will assign…now for correctness research this…what did our ancestors call themselves before the colonizers came and gave their preferred names…Caribs, Tainos, Arawaks,etc, its time to be more aware.

Your incorrect as the term Jibaro mean (People or men of the Forest) was a term used by the full blood Taino people to refer to the Mestizo mixed blood Tainos who had mixed with the white Spanish European people, up in the Hill country (Mountains) of Puerto Rico. It was the Taino themselves whom begain or started calling the mixed bloods Tainos as the Jibaro and then later the term Jibaro in the 1800s was carry on by the descendants of the modern day Puerto Rican people today have refer to the mountain people of Puerto Rico.

Jibaro comes from Iberia which means colony of Spain or Portugal! Geesh no one reads or does research! Ibaro, Iberia or the Iberian peninsula which is Spain! Geesh and no we are not extinct! The Spaniards took many Tainos to Vieques and La Isla Mona two islands off the coast and brought them back also they took Tainos to Hawaii as well! The ones that returned got mixed with Sub Sahara Africans and whites from Spain but we absorbed the DNA as new studies indicate we have 60% Taino MTDNA so no way we are extinct just mixed! Ask any Native American and they will tell you-you are what your mother is, remember the Spaniards killed or tried to kill off the men and RAPED the females!