AOC says she had ‘awakening’ about her indigenous heritage at Standing Rock in 2016

She’s gone from woke to “awakened.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claims she experienced an “awakening” and got in touch with her indigenous ancestry in 2016, while demonstrating against the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

During a lengthy Instagram story Q&A session Saturday, the left-wing lawmaker spoke for roughly three minutes about people native to the Caribbean, known as Taíno, and the Americas, stressing that many Taíno ways are still alive and have not been entirely wiped out by European colonization.

“I really, really feel you, and understand you on this,” AOC says in the video, in response to an unnamed self-identified Boricua, or Puerto Rican, Bronx resident who said they “want to learn more” about their Taino ancestral traditions. “In fact, I feel like one of the things that first started awakening and connecting me deeply to my indigenous heritage was connecting with the Lakota Sioux at Standing Rock.”