Haruka Sakaguchi

I Am Taíno is a portrait series that explores the erasure of Taíno identity through a process known as “paper genocide.” 

The Taíno are the Indigenous peoples of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean who were long believed to be extinct. This belief was partly due to the removal of the “Indio” (Indigenous) racial category from census records in the early 1800s, which forced Taíno people to identify as white, Black, or mixed on official documents. The community refers to this bureaucratic erasure as paper genocide.

The dominant historical narrative holds that 80–90% of Taíno were killed following European contact in the 15th century, and that those who survived became too “mixed” through intermarriage and mestizaje (cultural and genetic blending) to claim an Indigenous identity. Despite this, a grassroots movement known as the Taíno Movement emerged in the 1960s among Caribbean communities and their diasporas in the U.S., asserting Indigenous survival. A 2003 study funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation further supported this claim, revealing that 61% of Puerto Ricans carry Amerindian mitochondrial DNA.

After decades of being dismissed as “fake Indians,” Taíno people were finally able to identify as Indigenous in the 2010 U.S. Census. Their visibility was further affirmed with the opening of a dedicated Taíno exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York in 2023.

In collaboration with Taíno Chief Jorge Baracutei Estévez and the New York City-based community group Higuayagua, this portrait series documents the Taíno people’s continued fight for recognition and challenges the colonial legacy of race as a tool of exclusion. The resulting images were published on National Geographic on October 14, 2019. Read the article here.

Name: Jorge Baracutei Estevez Age: 58 Years identified as Taíno: since age 5 My grandmother and mother always asserted that we had Native ancestry, and that our hometown of Jaibon, Dominican Republic was home to many people of Indian descent. When I ente
Name: Maritza Luz Feliciano Potter Age: 38 Years identified as Taíno: 5 years Growing up, my family only ever discussed (and bragged about)our European lineage; despite family history of members being copper to dark skinned. It was obvious we also had Af
Name: Kacey Colon  Age:26 Years identified as Taíno: 8 years I grew up without knowing my father or his lineage, and identified only as Quechua Indian from my mother’s side until college. What initially sparked my interest in my father’s lineage was a fr
Name: Mercedes Garcia Age: 36 Years identified as Taíno: since age 5 Growing up, my grandmother kept telling me that I was Taíno, and that no matter where I was in the world, that was who I was. I didn’t fully understand what Taíno meant until I read abo
Name: Rene J Perez Age: 33 Years identified as Taíno: since age 16 When I was 4 or 5 I asked my mother “What are we?” to which she replied “Taíno.” When I asked her what Taíno was she replied “Indios” which in Spanish means “Indian” so I always thought I
Name: Mayreny Santiago Age: 18 Years identified as Taíno: 2 years What led me to identify as Taino was simply learning more about myself. I didn't know who I was, where my people were from or that they even existed until I met Jorge Estevez and the Higua
Name: Gypsie RunningCloud Age: 48 Years identified as Taíno: I have identified as Indigenous all of my life; in recent years, my self-identifying term has shifted from solely, “Taíno,” to “Lokonoaíri,” a term meaning “The Island Peoples,” that is inclusiv
Name: William Colón Age: 44 Years identified as Taíno: my whole life Since I could remember, it’s our roots.
Name: Michelle (Cruz) Bangash Age: 41 Years identified as Taíno: since age 11 From a very young age I knew that something was off from the Caribbean cultural history that I read about. The stories didn’t resonate. I didn’t identify with the European or A
Name: Angel Luis Vazquez Jr.  Age: 37 Years identified as Taíno: I have been identifying as Taino from Mayaguez Boriken my whole life. My father and paternal grandparents taught me to identify as Taíno. They had phenotypical markers that were distinct fr
Name: Kayla Anarix Vargas-Estevez Age: 17 Years identified as Taíno: I was raised as Taíno since I was a baby  It is all I’ve ever known.
Name: Eric Alexie Cruz Age: 48 Years identified as Taíno: 5 years In 2014, I worked on a documentary film featuring Native Americans from Oklahoma called Spirit Roads alongside producer Campbell Daglish as a student aid and photographer. I connected with
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