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| Photo by Mark Raymond Harrington, 1919. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution. (N01404) |
If you are in the New York area - or plan to be sometime before October - be sure to check out this temporary exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian. Taíno: Native Identity and Heritage in the Caribbean presents a more complete history of the Taíno people by looking at their culture and movements after the arrival of Christopher Columbus.
The exhibit is a collaboration between the NMAI and the Smithsonian Latino Center. Over the past thirty years, a diverse Taíno movement has taken form. This movement challenges the prevalent belief that Native peoples became extinct shortly after European colonization in the Greater Antilles. It is spurring a regeneration of Indigenous identity within the racially mixed and culturally blended societies of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, as well as other areas of the Caribbean.
The picture above is of the Barrientos family. The family was formed by a Spanish ex-soldier and an Indigenous woman from Baracoa, Cuba, more than 400 years after Spanish colonization.
I have a lot of MM readers who identify or are familiar with the Taíno people. Here's a wonderful way to introduce and explore the people and their culture with your children and students.
The exhibit runs through October 1st, 2019.
