José Barreiro

Who is José Barreiro?

José Barreiro is a Cuban-born American writer, journalist and former professor of Native American Studies at Cornell University. He is a member of the Taíno Nation of the Antilles.

Barreiro currently serves as director of Office for Latin America, at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Barreiro was an early editor and contributor at Akwesasne Notes, during the years of Seneca luminary John Mohawk. At Akwesasne Notes, Barreiro led the human rights group, Emergency Response International Network. Later, he and Mohawk founded the Indigenous Peoples Network.

At Cornell, Barreiro was founding editor of Native Americas Journal. In 2003-2006, he redesigned and was Senior editor of Indian Country Today. He is also the editor of Indian Roots of American Democracy, and the ethnographical testimony Panchito: Mountain Cacique. Barreiro's first novel, published in 1993, was The Indian Chronicles, a pseudo-journal of the life of Diego Colon, a 12-year-old Taino whom Christopher Columbus takes with him to Spain in 1493, and who later returns to the Americas, where he supports the Taino resistance led by Guarocuya.