Despite a sustained interest in the formation of Genízaro identity in northern New Mexico during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, little has been done to address its collective persistence and maintenance today. Whether serving as the corporeal buffer zones between Native and colonial nodes of power as Indigenous slaves, settlers, or military scouts, Genízaros continue to be recognized for our historical presence and contemporary absence. Yet nestled in the Rio Chama and Taos valleys of northern New Mexico, individuals, families, and communities maintain Genízaro identity as a continued experience—myself included. These tensions indeed motivate this presentation to consider the realities, pitfalls, and potentialities of academic knowledge acquisition and production among Genízaro communities peculiarly situated along the margins of settler states and tribal nations. Particularly, this talk will consider the role of orality within Genízaro articulations of Indigeneity and belonging in northern New Mexico, as well as its discursive trajectory within Genízaro identity studies.