"Sherina Feliciano-Santos' ethnography offers us a beautifully written account that models rigorous scholarly analysis and ethical ethnographic practice as she examines controversial and critically important questions of Taino activism and identity claims within broader negotiations of Puerto Rican racial, ethnic and national identity. She reminds us of the generative value of embracing ambiguity, and incongruity and of listening carefully to what people have to say about their lives and their worlds."— Gina Pérez, author of Citizen, Student, Soldier: Latina/o Youth, JROTC, and the American Dream<br /> "Sherina Feliciano-Santos has written a compelling and vital book on the multiplicity of ways of being Puerto Rican Taino—at once rigorous and theoretically sophisticated, highlighting again the value of language-centered work to the concerns of anthropology more broadly, it is also deeply personal, highlighting again the value of doing anthropology that matters."— Anthony K. Webster, author of Intimate Grammars: An Ethnography of Navajo Poetry<br />
List of Abbreviations and Acronyms
Glossary
Transcription Conventions
Prologue
Introduction
Part I: Competing historical narratives regarding Taíno extinction
1 The Stakes of Being Taíno
2 Historical Discourses and Debates about Puerto Rico's Indigenous Trajectory
Part II: The Puerto Rican Nation and Ethnoracial Regimes in Puerto Rico
3 Jíbaros and Jibaridades, Ambiguities and Possibilities
4 Impossible Identities
Part III: Taíno Heritage and Political Mobilization
5 (Re)Constructing Heritage, Narratives of Linguistic Belonging
6 How Do You See the World as a Taíno? Conceptualizing the Taíno Gaze
7 Protest, Surveillance, and Ceremony
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index