The National Museum of the American Indian and the Smithsonian Latino Center presented Taíno: A Symposium in Conversation with the Movement on September 8, 2018 to celebrate the exhibition Taíno: Native Heritage and Identity in the Caribbean. Experts representing Indigenous studies, genetic science, anthropology, linguistics, and other academic disciplines examined exhibition themes in dialogue with Taíno/Indigenous Caribbean community leaders and cultural workers. In this segment, José Barreiro, Assistant Director for Research and Director Emeritus, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, provides closing remarks for the symposium at large.
José BARREIRO, PhD, is Assistant Director for Research and Director Emeritus, Office for Latin America, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. A member of the Taíno Nation of the Antilles, Barreiro is a pioneering figure in Native American journalism and publishing. He co-edited, with Dr. John Mohawk, the national Native journal Akwesasne Notes from 1975–1984. In 1984 he co-founded the Native American Journalists Association. At Cornell University from 1984 to 2002, he served as associate director and editor-in-chief of Akwe:kon Press and the journal Native Americas. At the NMAI, among other initiatives, Barreiro led the Caribbean Indigenous Legacies Project (CILP), which conducts research and representational activities with Caribbean Indigenous communities, scholars, and policy makers. He co-curated the exhibitions The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire (2015) and Taíno: Native Heritage and Identity in the Caribbean (2018). José Barreiro’s writing on American Indian topics includes Indian Roots of American Democracy (1988); Indian Corn of the Americas: Gift to the World (1989); Indigenous Economics: Toward a Natural World Order (1990); View from the Shore: American Indian Perspectives on the Columbus Quincentenary (1990); Chiapas: Challenging History (1994); Panchito: Mountain Cacique (2001); America Is Indian Country (2006); Thinking in Indian: A John Mohawk Reader (2011); and Taíno (2012, novel).
This symposium was webcast and recorded live in at the National Museum of the American Indian New York, George Gustav Heye Center on September 8, 2018.
