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"No Moors."
When I was in my teens, my mother's paternal aunt Gladys researched the Conant family tree (my mother's maiden name is Conant) and discovered, among other things, that my mom's father's grandmother's maiden name was Marquez, and that she hailed from Anton Chico, New Mexico. Her family, Gladys assured us all, could trace its roots directly to Spain in the 1500s, with a land-grant from the King. She was, in other words, royalty. "She was from the Northern part of Spain," I often heard my grandmother (who married into the Conant family) say, following up with "they're blonde-headed up that way.""Erasing the Mexicans," Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez.
This is almost exactly how my own grandmother describes my father's family, except that she's a bit more explicit. In describing Northern Spain to
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ojouchan in the same genealogical context, she said calrified it by adding, "No Moors."Valdez-Rodriguez's story is about how the "Anglo" side of her New Mexico family erased the family's ties to Mexico. My own family has always been fiercely proud of its Mexicanity, but the same kind of erasing/omission goes on for our non-white ancestors. This article has made me more curious about looking over my own grandmother's work more closely to pry out more about the "very little intermarrying" that was going on.
A review of our shopping adventures has revealed that we've spent more than we hoped, so we're going to try to finish everything off today, as quickly as possible. Used-book store ahoy!
Longer than I meant
Well, I'll be jiggered. Never thought of the Moors as being the genetic connection to the darker Spanish look. Does it also explain the general darker Mediterranean look that made Italians and Greeks "dirty" and "ignorant" when they arrived here? Or was that just the usual "other" thing with Catholicism and newness?
As a northern European, I have a certain hackle up about the focus on my ancestors as *the only* horrible, murdering, genocidal invaders of the Americas while the Spanish and Portuguese invasions are simply brushed aside. Why is it that Latinos are now somehow not as ashamed of their brutal and murderous history as I am of mine? It is cool to be brown or black or pretty much any color except mine -- at least around here.
As fas as I can see, any human is capable of any action. Give someone permission, and they too will do terrible, heinous things when viewed from some other standard: in some other place or time, for instance.
Given that I am so white, I'm blue, I notice I am sometimes quick to mention that the sperm donor of my dreams was jewish. It's the closest I can get to oppressed minority... other than the atheism thing. We found out after that man's father died that my kid's jewish immigrant grandfather changed his last name from Krechevsky to Krech not because he wanted to deny his judaism but because the cultural norm at that time (1930s) was to become american as fast as possible because you wanted to be american and that meant american-sounding names.
The cultural norm today here in Oakland is to be as minority as possible. We are a minority-majority city and I think we are a bit of a model for the future of our country. The U.S. will no longer have a northeuro majority in less than 50 years. Like Obama, we will mostly be mutts and it's about time -- in both sense of that phrase.
For me, there is some connection in your comments to a current cultural conversation I hear in Oakland that is along the lines of "anything but anglo or northern euro or "white" is better *because* they, and only they, were oppressors." I just don't get it. Cortez was the Dalai Lama? The Moors do not still practice slavery and slave trading? Who's kidding who? (I typed kissing by mistake.)
End ranting on saturday morning. Thanks.
Re: Longer than I meant
When David was a young man, he had taken the train to some sity like Philadelphia to deliver a lecture. When the person finally found him, the other man remarked, "Oh, I was looking for an old man with white hair." David (Isador) wrote that he immediately changed his name to David Krech upon his return to New York City to have a name that fit his new life.
Does that make sense to you?
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