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| April 25, 2014 [DNAart] |
I know I am a day behind with this post but I still wanted to publish it! DNA has truly changed the way I view myself, my culture, my history, and my view on the world. I wanted to share a bit why taking a DNA test was important to me.
Before taking my 23andme test, which back then was a hefty price ($500), I didn’t really know what to think of myself. I knew that my history was full of multicultural ancestors, yet how much of me was actually native Taíno, African, or European? I had always been proud to be Puerto Rican and my tree was definitely helping me to realize more and more how deep my roots are on the island, yet I still had no idea what continents my lines ran back to.
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| Parranda en Puerto Rico [ElBoricua] |
Taking the 23andme test and later the AncestryDNA test really helped to show how mixed our culture, my culture, really was. I learned about my Y-DNA, mtDNA, and my ancestral composition. I learned that my Y-DNA traces back to the area between Spain and France where the Pyrenees lie; this wasn’t too surprising since many Spaniards came to Puerto Rico. I learned that my mtDNA traced back to the natives of the Americas and probably specifically to the native Taíno and/or Arawaks who lived in Borikén before the arrival of Cristóbal Colón. I also learned that while I am little over half European, I do carry about 15% and 12% African and Native American genes respectively. Other haplogroups in my family tie into various groups such as: West Africa, Middle Eastern/Jewish, Irish, English/French, and there is more to learn about.
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| Ancestry Composition – Luis Rivera [23andme] |
I learned that even though my family has been on the island of Puerto Rico for at least 200+ years I have ancestors who immigrated to Puerto Rico from Martinique and Guadeloupe, bringing their own culture and identity with them to their new land. In that 15% Sub-Saharan African, I carry their names, their stories, their memories.
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| Spanish, Taíno, Africans [TainoNationNews] |