The topic of Taíno language was a decision Matt and I came about after really cutting down on all of our other Ideas.

My interest in the topic was really rooted in y interest in linguistics and how the language of a population has such a big impact on their culture and way of thinking.

Also with my interest in social science, I did tend to gravitate towards the policy aspects of the Taino language in regards to colonization and sovereignty of Puerto Rico.

So for that, I decided to focus on the Movimiento Indígena Jíbaro Boricua (MIJB), the Taíno Nation (TN). Along with the Liga Guakía Taína-Ké (LGTK), which is more focused on the language aspect.

The MIJB community has a website in it which they detail what they are fighting for, which is a representation of the Taíno people and it’s language. It is also tied to TN and most of the information from both of these I got from the website (click the flag!).

Their website is very interesting because it has so many online documents about them linked to it. I didn’t get a chance to read all of them because they have so many different topics, from the census data of the number of Taínos which are still around, descriptions of the flag, prayers for the Taíno ancestors, and Taíno art from different time periods.

The main focus was on the LGTK, which has language rejuvenation programs which teaches students about the language culture and identity. There is a blog post on their website which details what their program does and how it works.

Here is a chart that they shared on their website. Although it is in Spanish here’s a translation of some of it:

The program is meant to offer:

• Workshops and quality classes in public schools and other educational institutions with a focus on the support, and participation of the institution’s directors, teachers, parents, and students all in an effort to give a cultural identity through a  multidisciplinary program.
• Fortify the abilities and understandings of parents and students in an effort to strengthen the community to allow for the betterment of the social and cultural knowledge which they share.

They do all of its community building via lessons about their history and knowledge of the Taíno culture.

I found that the use of language was a form of resistance to colonization because it rewrote the narrative of colonization by talking about the history that the colonizations erased. This fights that but also rights the Taíno culture back into the history of Puerto Rico and makes their presence known once more. Since they are spoken to as an “extinct” culture, speaking and teaching the language along with the culture counteract the colonialism. The language can be used to restore the identities of the Taínos and give them the power which they need to assert their importance on the archipelago. Language, in a sense, is a form of magic giving back power to the cultures that use it as a form of resistance against the colonial imposition.

One thing that I did think about a lot during my research was which colonizers are those who practice the Taíno language resisting? would it be the U.S. imperialism/ Colonization, or would it have been the previous Spanish colonization? And if it is the U.S’s imperialism which is being resisted what other forms of decolonization along with resistance tot he imperial language can help completely push back that colonization? What forms of resistance will be the most effective in transitioning the wealth of power back to Puertoricans and Taíno descendants?

Link to the Presentation: Look at me!!

For this presentation, my partner and I chose to focus on 5 groups’ Taíno revitalization efforts in regards to language and culture, of which I researched 3:

• The General Council of Taíno (GCT)
• Guaka-Kú (GK)
• Liga Guakía Taína-Ké (LGTK)
• Taíno Nation (TN)
• Movimiento Indígena Jíbaro Boricua (MIJB)

As we began to research for our project, to present material in relation to Puerto Rico, we came across a flyer of sorts that was advertising a workshop to teach young students about the cultural history of the Taínos. Specifically speaking, it was from Liga Guakía Taína-Ké (LGTK) that was hosting a workshop to teach students a script based on Taíno pictographs seen inscribed throughout Puerto Rico’s natural landscapes, such as La Piedra Escrita. The LGTK’s work was noted for opening up space for its students and their extended family to identify as Taíno social actors within Puerto Rico, an identity ‘historians’ had claimed was extinct since the 16th-19th century. 

The LGTK sought to add Taíno words and symbols into everyday vocabulary, and explained that by teaching it to students it could continue to live on and serve as a material index of Taíno survival.  The Guaka-Kú (GK) employ a similar performative/enactive strategy to the LGTK, and subverted latin script to use as a base that would be differentiated from colonial Spanish. This specific group was founded by a man who stayed in close proximity to a petroglyph-covered cave, and also began by teaching young students in the area.

Upon further research however, it was clear there there has been/still is some tension amongst the five different groups and their revitalization efforts, specifically when I began reading up on The General Council of Taíno (GCT). The GCT, which is the oldest ‘formally’ organized revitalization group (1970s) understood Taíno not as language exclusive, but rather dependent on who was speaking it and how they interpreted the world around them. “Abuela,” a prominent figure in the organization explained that being Taíno was about feeling/knowing, motive/intent, and worried about the implications of others’ efforts. From my understanding, the worry is that using language as an index of continuity will eventually lead to the ‘delegitimization’ of the other groups. After my own research and reading, I feel that the GCT is much more concerned with embodied knowledge and language, rather than what it exactly looks like. In terms of contextualizing this amongst decolonial efforts in Puerto Rico, I honestly did not understand the weight of this project until I had done several readings. Language, whether it is written, spoken, visual pictographs, and so on, carries with it knowledge, specifically what one may argue is relational knowledge; relation in terms of culture, background, the actual language which is imbued with meaning, and who is producing that. This immediately struck me as aligning with Allison Weir’s “Decolonizing Feminist Freedom,” in which she argues and illuminates many other theorists in specific relation to ‘Indigenous knowledges.’ Weir’s contributed greatly to my understanding of context for this project, as language is a form of knowledge, which again has been systematically and historically erased and ignored. Especially in regards to the GCT, both Weir and the groups discuss the importance of listening and being, rather than traditional Western pedagogies. This embodied and relational knowledge is vital in decolonial conversations, as its space has been and is still being erased. Language contributes to sense of identity, communicates ideas and stories, and may preserve knowledges, thus these efforts are, arguably, already woven into the conversation, it just may not get as much attention as other forms of resistance. 

Sources:

http://salonnaguake.blogspot.com/

http://www.topuertorico.org/reference/taino.shtml

https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jola.12139#jola12139-note-1007_34

Many different resistance struggles grew from the fertile ground of the 1960’s. The need for change and systematic reckoning led to the development of numerous action groups rallying around and against causes like the Vietnam War, women’s liberation, civil rights, and more. However, one truly astonishing story of these liberation struggles is that of the Young Lords Organization (YLO), a civil and human rights association for the liberation and self-determination of Puerto Rican and Latinx people stateside and on the island. The Lords were young, they were intersectional, and they were fired up about the issues impacting their communities– racism, systemic poverty, violence, and fractured communities. So, they made a change.

The Lords have their roots in a Chicago turf gang, but were officially formed in 1968 under the leadership of Jose Cha Cha Jiminez. Chapters of the organization began to crop up all over the country, with a particularly prominent and engaged group in New York City. This group later broke away from the Chicago chapter, prefering to be called the Young Lords Party rather than Organization. These groups led not only resistance actions, but made community safety and improvement a priority. The YLO served free breakfasts to children, started free clinics, tested for tuberculosis and lead water, and cleaned up garbage– all with liberation in mind. They also had numerous publications, the most prominent being Palante, which we had the privilege of checking out during class. They were a Marxist organization, and believed in the principles of communism and socialism, with capitalism being the oppressor of POC worldwide. 

 An issue of Palante.

Some of the groups’ many actions included garbage protests, or “Garbage Offensives”. When city sanitation departments failed diasporican communities, they first cleaned up themselves– however, growing tired of this, groups in New York dragged the garbage into the street and set it on fire, so that something had to be done. In 1977, the Lords took over the Statue of Liberty, ejecting tourists and hanging the PR flag from her pedestal. They also fought for land rights, against the use of forced sterilization and birth control on Puerto Rican peoples, and aligned themselves with the Black Panthers in the fight against racism.

The principles of the YLO can be summed up rather succinctly with their thirteen point program, thought to be modeled after the Black Panther’s ten point program. These are as follows-

1.  We want self-determination for Puerto Ricans—Liberation on the island and inside the United States.
2. We want self-determination for all Latinos.
3. We want liberation for all third world people.
4. We are revolutionary nationalists and oppose racism.
5. We want community control of our institutions and land.
6. We want true education of our creole culture.
7. We oppose capitalists and alliances with traitors.
8. We oppose the amerikkkan military.
9. We want freedom for all political prisoners.
10. We want equality for women. Machismo must be revolutionary … not oppressive.
11. We fight anti-Communism with international unity.
12. We believe armed self-defense and armed struggle are the only means to liberation.
13. We want a socialist society.

Some of these points were later modified to be more inclusive, especially with regards to women. Intersectionality was an ever-evolving discourse for the party, while turmoil brewed over traditional senses of machismo and notions of race were constantly changing. The Lords recognized the “Third-World Woman” as the most oppressed of any group, that they were “the revolution within the revolution.” In this respect, though there was a lot of revolutionary machismo within the movement, it seemed to have been recognized and called out pretty quickly. Denise Oliver-Velez, who taught at New Paltz for a time, was actually a Young Lord!

Denise!

  Lady Lords. 

However, in Dylan’s and my own research, one thing we struggled to find was information about queer people in the movement. We were only able to find information about one gay activist within the Young Lords, the legendary Sylvia Rivera.

 (Legend)

Dylan and I chose to present on this subject because their interest was really piqued featuring our class presentation on Puerto Rican nationalism and Lolita Lebron, and I was happy to study it further as well. We can learn so much from looking into the motives and actions of the Lords, from revolutionary tactics to how to care for our communities. Puerto Ricans/Boricuas/other Latinx and POC folks continue to be oppressed today, and racism will likely always be a problem; however, liberation groups like the Young Lords show us how to combat these forces and spur change. By studying the actions of the Lords, we can learn how to better our own communities and discourses.

our slideshow: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1j-6mMI-g_iY5RG4pp3PZ18h-Rx3cYCJTY8z1FhtKG0A/edit?ts=5cbf179e#slide=id.p

https://libcom.org/library/palante-brief-history-young-lords&gt

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-flash-young-lords-jose-cha-cha-jimenez-0708-20180626-story.html

https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/the-young-lords-legacy-of-puerto-rican-activism/

http://younglordsproject.com/?p=29

Melissa: As part of my project on decolonial struggles for liberation I researched and connected the art of Yasmín Hernández to said topics. Yasmín Hernández was born in Brooklyn, New York to Puerto Rican parents and she currently resides in Moca, Puerto Rico. Yasmín describes herself as a spiritual, Borikén, decolonial, artist, and writer. A large amount of her art pieces are concerned with Puerto Rican liberation. Featured in Charlotte and I’s powerpoint are paintings of hers referencing political prisoners, liberation, crimes committed against activists, and the struggles Puerto being faces as a modern day colony. Though Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship through the insular cases in the early 1900’s they still remain marginalized racially, representatively, and politically (Malavet 10). While receiving recognition from the US the Borikén and Taino history of the island of Puerto Rico has been overlooked and rejected by US colonial presence. Puerto Rico is nothing short of a fixture of colonial rule, having been used and abused for the US imperial gain through exploitation.

As Malavet elaborates in America’s Colony: The Political and Cultural Conflict between the United States and Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico individuals are second class citizens through the racialized subordination they face in the US. The view of Puerto Rico as an island colony has been normalized in the views of people in the United States. Approaching decolonial themes through visual representation is important because the medium of painting and pictures can be more accessible to non-academic and underprivileged populations. For example, there is also an agelessness of history represented in the paintings of Yasmín Hernández in her paintings of Pedro Albizu Campos and Oscar López Rivera. Yasmín’s work offers a decolonial mindset to observe different periods of a post colonial society. Paintings do not age the same way texts and essays do, paintings are timeless reminders that the fight for decolonization is not over.

***

Charlotte: Street art encompasses an element of accessibility that other forms of art may not, similar to the purpose stained glass windows served hundreds of years ago. Anyone can see them for free, and a narrative is easily ascertained from images alone that transcends language and literacy.

I found Julie Schwietert Collazo’s article, Photo Essay: Street Art Activism in San Juan, which featured Moriviví, a collective of 4 women who have created so much beautiful content. Their work strongly underlines the connection between Puerto Rican women, land, and indigenous women’s and/or Afro-Latinas’ identities. Butterflies are a prevalent motif throughout their work, and the concept of identity is represented by glowing orbs of light. The joy of the subjects in their identity reminds me of when Lugones stated that playfulness “involves… openness to self-construction or reconstruction and… of the ‘worlds’ we inhabit playfully” (Lugones 17).

Moriviví’s work is decolonial not only because street art exists in direct opposition to western traditional concepts of “owning” space, but because the art itself seems to canonize subjects who coloniality treats with contempt, erasure, violence, and genocide. Rather than centering colonization, Moriviví centers the majesty of colonized women living in Puerto Rico and the diaspora; they have worked in San Juan, on Culebra (Collazo), and NYC (Moriviví).

In class, we have talked about anti-Blackness in Puerto Rico. Moriviví’s work opposes racism and seeks to usher in a new era of racial justice with their representation of Afro-Latina women. Their mission seems completely aligned with Aurora Levins Morales’ Declaracion, particularly when she stated, “It is essential that we embrace all of the beings that make up this dispersed people” (Morales).

BASTA’s mural depicts a more truthful imagining of Columbus’ exploits in this hemisphere than American audiences are used to seeing. I thought 1492 was a particularly powerful image. In a sea of blood, Columbus’ trio of ships leaves hundreds of bodies in its wake. The gruesome image is on public view all the time because it’s on the side of a building. The artists of BASTA won’t let you forget.

I also wanted to call attention to two anonymous works in the Collazo article, Confrontation with Police and The Taínos. They spell out the legacies of both colonialism and violence and the beautiful and still very present indigenous heritage of Puerto Ricans, respectively.

What I come away with at the end of this project is that all of the work we chose to explore showcases not only the scars of colonization but the enduring identity that refuses to be erased, that fights back with strength and beauty, and that isn’t going anywhere.

***

WORKS CITED

“All-Female Boricua Art Collective Moriviví Brought San Juan’s Controversial Black Flag Piece to NYC.” Remezcla, 26 July 2016, http://remezcla.com/culture/colectivo-morivivi-black-puerto-rico-flag-mural-nyc-el-barrio/.

“Art And Liberation| Yasmin Hernandez Art.” Art And Liberation| Yasmin Hernandez Art, https://www.yasminhernandezart.com. Accessed 10 Apr. 2019.

BASTA. (n. d.) In Facebook [Page]. Retrieved April 10, 2019 from https://www.facebook.com/elbasta787

Collazo, Julie Schwietert. Puerto Rico Street Art | AFAR. 6 Nov. 2015, https://www.afar.com/magazine/photo-essay-street-art-activism-in-san-juan.

“Colectivomorivivi.” Colectivomorivivi, https://www.colectivomorivivi.com. Accessed 10 Apr. 2019.

“King of the Towels: The Torture and Murder of Pedro Albizu Campos.” Latino Rebels, 10 Mar. 2015, https://www.latinorebels.com/2015/03/10/king-Of-the-towels-the-torture-and-murder-of-pedro-albizu-campos/.

Lugones, M. Playfulness, “World”-Traveling, and Loving Perception. (1987). In Hypatia (2nd ed., Vol. 2).

Malavet, Pedro A. America’s Colony: The Political and Cultural Conflict between the United States and Puerto Rico. New York University Press, 2004.

Moriviví. (n. d.) In Facebook [Page]. Retrieved April 10, 2019 from https://www.facebook.com/colectivomorivivi/

“Puerto Rican Nationalist Oscar López Rivera Is Released.” NPR.Org, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/17/528787071/puerto-rican-nationalist-oscar-l-pez-rivera-is-released. Accessed 10 Apr. 2019.

in lieu of what we’ve been discussing about Afro Boricuas, i found this video. hopefully it shares and you all are actually able to see it.

https://www.facebook.com/jose.pagan.351/videos/10205831941794973/UzpfSTEwMDAwNTEzMzYzOTQ3NzoxMjExMzg2NjY5MDQyNDQz/

The intention of my photo essay was to connect the different (Indigenous/Native/Aboriginal) peoples around the world who have been and are still effected by colonization. In using the artwork created by these different people and communities, I was attempting to center their individual lives and experiences. In the first photo, I was trying to invoke a personal reaction to the amount that European(cis white heteropatriarchal) colonization has effected nearly all corners of the world; as the article said, all but five countries. This photo was meant to quiet the reader/viewer and prepare them to think about what the rest of the photos would be. The second, third and fourth photos, which I used in the center of the the essay, perhaps as the portraits or the scene photos, were all chosen for specific reasons. The second photo is a piece of Modern Ledger Art, which is artwork that has been created by women Native to North America, usually on United States political/governmental documents. This particular piece of artwork was created by an artist, Dolores Purdy (Corcoran), who is alive and well, and selling her artwork to the public. This photo was meant to represent the resilience of culture through artwork, and the decolonial essence of said artwork. The third photo is a screenshot of a blog post about different decolonial artists and curators. The curator featured in my photo, Matariki Williams, aims not to decolonize, necessarily, but to indigenize. This curator is a member of the Maori of New Zealand and she ‘indigenizes’ the space of the museum/organization that she works for by incorporating artwork of Maori peoples from different eras. The act of bringing artwork created by Aboriginal/Maori people into these ‘professional’, perhaps even ‘academic’ spaces, ensures that those people are representing themselves through their own experiences. The third photo is also a screenshot, but from a video found on the blog, unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com, which advertised for an event that was held in August 2014. This event was called, “Decolonizing street art: Anticolonial Street Artists Convergence.” The artwork created by these Street Artists is meant to show the modernity of Nativeness, Indigeneity and Aboriginality, and that was exactly what I was trying to do by using some of their artwork in my photo essay. The piece that I used was a photo of two people, presumably Native/Indigenous/Aboriginal, with, “What we do to the mountain, we do to ourselves,” written over their profiles. I felt this photo encompassed much of what I have read about Native/Indigenous relationality to the natural world around us. The final photo is a photo I took of a piece of block-out poetry I created from María Lugones’, “Toward a Decolonial Feminism.” The final photo is meant to conclude that, though we are taught to believe that colonization is in the past tense, it has happened to the world, and it is over, the effects of it last centuries, generations. It is, in fact, still with us.

Caption:

• This photo essay was created to convey the decolonial nature of artwork created by colonized peoples and communities.
• The first photo illuminates the prominence of European colonization around the world. (Map: European colonialism conquered every country in the world but these five, https://www.vox.com/2014/6/24/5835320/map-in-the-whole-world-only-these-five-countries-escaped-european)
• The second photo is apiece of Modern Ledger Art by Dolores Purdy (Corcoran), a member of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma. (https://www.dolorespurdy.com/artworks)
• The third photo is a screenshot of a piece of artwork used by Maori curator, Matariki Williams, in one of their shows to help construct their “thinking around decoloniality.” (https://frieze.com/article/decolonial-documents-part-four)
• The fourth photo is also a screenshot, but from a video found on blog/site unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com used to promote an event that happened in August 2014; Decolonizing street art: Anticolonial Street Artists Convergence, in Montréal, Québec. (https://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com/2014/05/13/support-decolonizing-street-art-anticolonial-street-artists-convergence/, 2:09)
• The last photo summarizes what the photos that came before it attempted to; colonization is not in the past tense, we are not beyond it, it is still with us. (my own photo)