Reclaiming Borikén: Decolonizing Puerto Rico Through the Lens of Afro-Taíno Heritage

As an Afro-Taíno person, I carry within me the weight of dual survival: the memory of my Taíno ancestors who first called Borikén home, and the African blood that arrived in chains, reshaping our collective destiny through unimaginable strength. I also carry rejection: most of my biological family has disowned me for being Biawaisa (most commonly understood by English speakers to be similar to Two-Spirit), a gender identity recognized by our Indigenous ancestors but suppressed under colonial Christianity (see The Gender History of Puerto Rico, Before Colonization). My life is lived between erasure and awakening, from what Boriken once was to what it could be.

Our history did not begin in 1493. We were not waiting for Columbus. The Taíno people, with their rich social systems, matrilineal governance, and spirituality rooted in nature and reciprocity, lived decadently in harmony with the land and sea. The decadent, in this sense, refers not to moral decay, but to the luxuriant beauty of balance, celebration, and community. The arrival of Spain, and later the United States, introduced systems designed to erase that beauty. Our language, our genders, our food systems, our sovereignty…were all labeled as primitive or sinful. And…it worked. 

Now, 500 years and some change later, Borikén is a colony twice over. A United States “territory,” where “Puerto Ricans” are born into second-class citizenship. And yet, the deeper colonization…is mental. Columbus was not a hero. He was a trigger point. Today, lateral violence among our own people is as devastating as any hurricane. The humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico isn’t just about FEMA trailers and bankrupt infrastructure. It’s about a people brainwashed into hating their roots, policing their queer relatives, worshiping their colonizers and the “god” they were told to love, and confusing survival for freedom. This is why decolonization must be cultural before it can be political. We need more than statehood or independence (though to be very clear, I personally refuse statehood as an option). We need soul retrieval. My work centers on that: building a world where people awaken to our true history, where Afro-Taíno identities and stories are uplifted, not buried. 

Policy efforts like the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act (H.R. 2070/S. 865) reflect this yearning for agency. Introduced by Representatives Nydia Velazquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the bill proposes a status convention led by Boricuas themselves (Puerto Rican Cultural Center, 2021). It would finally allow us to author our own future. Yet political autonomy is not enough. Groups like Boricuas Unidos en la Diáspora (BUDPR) push a more radical vision: decolonization rooted in justice, equity, and full cultural reawakening. Their framework emphasizes inclusion, historical awareness, and dismantling U.S. imperial norms (BUDPR, 2022). 

On the ground, community-based initiatives are already modeling what decolonized life can look like. El Departamento de la Comida, led by Tara Rodriguez Besosa, advances food sovereignty by rejecting U.S. import dependency and reclaiming local, sustainable agriculture (Them, 2022). Likewise, the Adjuntas solar microgrid initiative I look up to and light a candle for daily demonstrates that energy autonomy is possible without U.S. utility monopolies (Time, 2023). These efforts parallel the goals of Project South’s Free Puerto Rico Campaign, which calls for international solidarity, educational sovereignty, and demilitarization (Project South, 2021). They recognize, as I do, that decolonization is not a one-time vote, but a lifelong unraveling and reweaving. 

If Borikén is meant to heal, the wounds need to be fully recognized. We must name lateral violence, colorism, homophobia, Christian supremacy, and internalized colonialism for what they are: symptoms of a larger disease. I’m not going to sit here and say that the policies and efforts we have now are radical or substantial enough to even begin to scratch the surface in the slightest. The world will always spin too slowly for me. But I digress. We need to choose each other again. We need to protect our trans and two-spirit youth like our ancestors once did. We need to remember. 

De-colonizing Puerto Rico isn’t just about what we remove, it’s about what we recover. 

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Boricuas Unidos en la Diáspora. (2022). A Framework for Just and Inclusive Puerto Rico Status Legislation. https://www.budpr.org/framework_status_legislation

Puerto Rican Cultural Center. (2021). Puerto Rico Self-Determination Bill Profiled: A Major First Step Towards the Decolonization of Puerto Rico. https://prcc-chgo.org/2021/05/19/puerto-rico-self-determination-bill-profiled-a-major-first-step-towards-the-decolonization-of-puerto-rico

Project South. (2021). Free Puerto Rico, Free Ourselves: Remembering Colonial Legacies in the 21st Century. https://projectsouth.org/free-puerto-rico-free-ourselves-remembering-colonial-legacies-in-the-21st-century

Them. (2022). El Departamento de la Comida: Puerto Rico's Decolonial Food Movement. https://www.them.us/story/el-departamento-de-la-comida-tara-rodriguez-besosa-puerto-rico-food-farming

Time. (2023). How a Solar Microgrid Is Rebuilding Puerto Rico. https://time.com/6264631/puerto-rico-adjuntas-solar-microgrid