The Truth about Hispanic/Latino Peoples
By Ephraim D’Angelo
Who are we? Where did we come from? I’ve heard the old timers in the San Luis Valley of Colorado say when asked where they’re from, “No no Mexico, Nuevo Mexico, Nuevo Mexico!” making it very clear that they are not from Mexico but New Mexico. I find it unusual that they are so adamant about not being Mexican. Because as I’ve gone back through my genealogy I find that these ancestors did come from or through Mexico. In hindsight it makes more sense that they must have wanted to say they were not Mexican ethnically.
After New Spain gained its independence from Spain between 1810 and 1825 the authorities decided to name the country after its Capital which was Mexico City. Many Hispanic/Latino people in Colorado and all around the southwest, know they come from Spain or Portugal but many don’t seem to realize that we came through Mexico. Somehow growing up in America being socialized by the Greco-Roman education system, and separated from our native tongue has blinded present generations from the very essence of who we are and where we come from. As Catholics, the Hispanic people have been a deeply religious and spiritual people, a people that next to God put family as our highest priority.
At best we are most definitely mixed up, which we know. When asked, most of us know that we are of some variation of Spanish/Portuguese/French (European) blood and some Native American blood. Most of us think of “Mexican” as a specific bloodline of its own, it is more scientifically provable that today’s modern day “Mexicans,” are the descendants of the original natives conquered by the Conquistadors. I come across stories all over Colorado of Hispanos whose subsequent generations would be wondering how they arrived at where they settled, and didn’t have any answers. And in their choice of words and recollection there comes across this sense of a people in hiding, and lost.
As I’ve gone back into my own ancestry and ask questions I’ve found that only a few generations ago we were Catholics. Most of these “old timers,” I referred to earlier are the first generation converts from Catholicism into Protestantism. According to a U.S. Religious Landscape Survey report published by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life states, “Catholicism has experienced the greatest net losses as a result of affiliation changes. While nearly one-in-three Americans (31%) were raised in the Catholic faith, today fewer than one-in-four (24%) describe themselves as Catholic.” It seems that more and more of the Hispanic/Latino people have been leaving the Catholic Church, but why?
The Alhambra Decree | 1492
I think the biggest piece of history that has not made it to the knowledge base of the “Hispanic/Latino” population is that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella the rulers of Spain during the time of Christopher Columbus passed and Edict exiling the Spanish Jews from Spain..
Here is an excerpt:
“Therefore, with the council and advice of the eminent men and cavaliers of our reign, and of other persons of knowledge and conscience of our Supreme Council, after much deliberation, it is agreed and resolved that all Jews and Jewesses be ordered to leave our kingdoms, and that they never be allowed to return.
And we further order in this edict that all Jews and Jewesses of whatever age that reside in our domain and territories, that they leave with their sons and daughters, their servants and relatives, large and small, of whatever age, by the end of July of this year, and that they dare not return to our lands, not so much as to take a step on them nor trespass upon them in any other manner whatsoever. Any Jew who does not comply with this edict and is to be found in our kingdom and domains, or who returns to the kingdom in any manner, will incur punishment by death and confiscation of all their belongings.”
Alhambra Decree http://jrbooksonline.com/alhambra_decree_abridged.htm
THE FALL OF SPANISH SOVEREIGNTY
The process in which Mexico, gained its independence from the Spanish Crown didn’t happen overnight. The political climate in Europe as in the New World was intense. King Carlos IV the King of Spain at the time was passive in his leadership an eventually became untrustworthy as an ally. The Spanish Inquisition officially began in 1478 and ended in 1834. By 1808 the Spanish Inquisition was in its 330 year that same year Napoleon Bonaparte invaded and defeated Spain and placed His brother Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne. From this point rebels against the Spanish Crown in New Spain began fight for freedom and declared themselves independent from Spain.
At the same time on the East coast of the “New World” President Thomas Jefferson was positioning for war against Napoleon as well. Napoleon now had control of Spain, the Louisiana Purchase Territory and was ignoring the Spanish sovereignty over its colonies. Because of Napoleon President Jefferson was contemplating a dreaded alliance with Great Britain, but proposed to buy the Territory from Bonaparte instead.
As I’ve looked back at all of this history, I think to myself, “We could be speaking Spanish or French instead of English. Spain had a vast majority of the New World under there authority, and to this day United Mexican States remains the largest country of the Americas. But how does this answer the questions of who we the Hispanic/Latino people are? Most Hispanic people know that they descend from the families that left Spain with Christopher Columbus in 1492. Columbus Day was always a big deal in the Southwestern United States up until a few years ago when the government decided it wasn’t important enough as they try to make us forget our history.
WHO ARE THE SEPHARDIM
In the past few decades many Hispanics have been asking questions, doing genealogy, mostly fueled by the younger generation; those of us who have lost the language of our people. In this separation caused by not knowing the Spanish language, I realized that they succeeded in there goal…to assimilate us. But assimilate who? Who is US?
Sure I can say I’m Hispanic, or Latino but those are labels given to us by the governments that have ruled over us. They called us Hispanos, and Mestizos, and Latinos but beyond the labels and the mixed blood there is something else. At the very heart of the Hispanic/latino people there are four distinct traits I have come to identify.
The first: we are a deeply spiritual people, our whole perspective of life is viewed through our soul, the second; we are a passionate people, zealous even, and the third is a most vague attitude that I have come to identify in us, it presents itself as a sense of denial, a “don’t ask don’t tell,” attitude. The fourth is a strong sense of nobility an aloofness that shows in our dress, and manner. We expect our children to speak properly, and act in a way that is respectable. That’s what I mean when I ask, who are we?
In the past ten years or so many Latino people have traced and connected there roots to the Sephardim. The same families that left with Christopher Columbus to the New World were one and the same Sephardic Jews ousted from Spain and Portugal because of pressure from the Catholic Church, more specifically the Islands, Colonies and Missions of New Spain. Some went other places like the Turkish Ottoman Empire, and provinces of Portugal like Brazil in South America or Goa in India. These were a people looking for peace trying to escape persecution, and murder. We are the descendants of those people, and those people were the descendants of the people dispersed from the Land of Israel the tribes of Israel.
If you are interested in learning more about the Sephardim and the Sephardic heritage, and you have the courage to peek into your heart and your family. I believe you will discover some mysteries you didn’t know were there. In this process, we believe you will also find something that has evaded you and your family for many moons...and that is healing. Because of the exile of our people so many centuries ago and the fact that the Inquisition lasted as recent as 1834, it stands to reason that we need healing. Healing from atrocities that have only barely been acknowledged since the people it was done to seemed to have all but disappeared. The descendants of the Sephardic people are still in hiding whether they/we know it or not. We can’t wait for somebody to help us, we have to do it ourselves. | Ya No Estoy Escondido |
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