Democratic Socialist Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she has ‘awakened’ to her ‘indigenous heritage’.

Ocasio-Cortez, who is Puerto Rican, claims she is part Taino – the people indigenous to the Caribbean who resided in places like Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, The Bahamas, and the northern Lesser Antilles.

During an Instagram live Q&A, she said that meeting American indigenous groups while protesting the Standing Rock Pipeline in North Dakota made her want to connect with those roots.

‘One of the things that first started awakening and connecting me in a deep to my indigenous heritage was connecting to the Lakota Sioux at Standing Rock,’ Ocasio-Cortez said.

Democratic Socialist Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she claims ‘indigenous heritage’ during an Instagram live Q&A

Ocasio-Cortez is currently in Puerto Rico attending forums about the potential of the island becoming the 51st state

The second-term representative said that meeting indigenous groups while protesting the Standing Rock Pipeline in North Dakota made her want to connect with those roots

‘It really just clicked that this is nuts, like, the grace that they extended to say ‘no, you are a relative,’ was really formative for me. While we may not be and come from the same exact lineage, there is a commonality to that ancestry,’ she added.

‘And it’s important for us to recognize that we were raised and we were told growing up that we were extinct, that Tainos don’t exist, and it’s really important for Puerto Ricans to understand that that narrative is being challenged right now.’ 

Ocasio-Cortez is not the first Democratic member of Congress to claim indigenous heritage, as Senator Liz Warren infamously made headlines by taking a DNA test to try to prove her Native American heritage. 

Warren eventually apologized to the Cherokee Nation after releasing the results of a DNA test that showed only a tiny sliver of her ancestry was Native American.

Former President Donald Trump began calling Warren ‘Pocahontas’ in the spring of 2016 in order to blunt her attacks as she threatened to become a key surrogate for his presidential rival Hillary Clinton. 

Ocasio-Cortez is not the first Democratic member of Congress to claim indigenous heritage, as Senator Liz Warren infamously made headlines by taking a DNA test to try to prove her Native American heritage

Former President Donald Trump began calling Warren ‘Pocahontas’ in the spring of 2016 in order to blunt her attacks as she threatened to become a key surrogate for his presidential rival Hillary Clinton

Ocasio-Cortez has cited several different cultures as part of her heritage, claiming to come from European, Jewish and African ancestry. 

She told a Hannukah service in 2018 in Queens that her family came from Sephardic Jews who escaped the Spanish Inquisition.  

‘As is the story of Puerto Rico, we are a people that are an amalgamation,’ she said. ‘We are no one thing. We are Black; we are indigenous; we are Spanish; we are European.’

She went on in the Instagram Q&A to say that Taino culture has been appropriated by Americans without accreditation, citing the Taino deity ‘Juracan’ of chaos and disorder helping form the root of the word hurricane.  

The New York City rep is in Puerto Rico this weekend with her fellow members of Congress to sit in on events discussing potential statehood. Ocasio-Cortez supports self-determination for Puerto Ricans regardless of status.