Emilie and all,

I've been enjoying your messages and agree with you about identifying 
myself as Mexican.  My 25 year-old son said it best when he told one 
of his friends that his parents were both Mexican, so that makes him 
Mexican.  He is pretty Americanized, but still appreciates his 
Mexican culture.  He doesn't define himself by his ethnicity, but 
that doesn't mean he isn't proud of it.

Emilie, I chuckled at your comment about Aztlan.  I'll have to 
remember to ask if it's south, east, north or west of Atlantis next 
time I hear it.

Maria

--- In ranchos@yahoogroups.com, "Emilie Garcia"  
wrote:
>
> Linda,
> 
> When some Anglo says "you don't look Mexican" it means that you 
don't look like his idea of Mexicans formed by most of the Mexicans 
he has seen---field or orchard workers, very dark, made darker by the 
sun, very small due to their mostly Indian blood, pitch black hair 
and eyes, poorly dressed, not too clean due to their constant labor 
in

For your information:

Publications by El colegio de Michoacán, including a few that deal
with "Nueva Galicia" and other historical topics.

http://www.colmich.edu.mx/publicaciones/indices/indice_titulo.asp

Victor
México

Good write up...
I have in the past felt that same way as you have
written.  And this is the reason I enjoy and indulge
in genealogy--to learn who I am and where I came from.

Alberto Duarte Prieto
Santa Maria, California

--- lareina2@...
wrote:


---------------------------------
The issues of acculturation and assimiliation run deep
and are painful in this land of multiethnic and
multicultural groups.  What do I call myself?  Who am
I?  Much of the pain of the generation that follows
the immigrant one often causes much confusion, and
sometimes, self-hatred and denial of

I was asked this past week at work (I'm a library clerk) by a black gentleman if I had Indian blood. I responded that I did, on my father's side but that it was so remote as to be almost impossible to name. (Moctezuma's daughters are my ancestresses.) My father's father's mother probably had Indian, but what kind, who knows?



Anyway, I wasn't insulted just surprised. The funny thing is is that my features are my Scots mother's but my coloring is a paler version of my dad's. I have salt and pepper hair like my Jerezana grandmother and her almond-shaped eyes. I have funny colored eyes...I don't think they're those eyes we were discussing earlier in December. Sometimes if my skin flushes or I'm red from being out in the sun, they're almost hazel. I DO consider myself Hispanic as opposed to Mexican because I had more Scots influence in my formative years and I'm married to a South American of Italian descent, so our family is more continental than Mexican. But I can't and don't

Good write up...
I have in the past felt that same way as you have
written.  And this is the reason I enjoy and indulge
in genealogy--to learn who I am and where I came from.

Alberto Duarte Prieto
Santa Maria, California

--- lareina2@... wrote:


---------------------------------
The issues of acculturation and assimiliation run deep
and are painful in this land of multiethnic and
multicultural groups.  What do I call myself?  Who am
I?  Much of the pain of the generation that follows
the immigrant one often causes much confusion, and
sometimes, self-hatred and denial of ancestry.  How
can I call myself a Mexican when I can speak only a
rudimentary Spanish and only visited the birthplace of
my grandma and great-grandma once?  When I visit
Mexico, I recognize its beauty and its devastation,
and when I land in the United States, I am happy to
drive my sedan, go inside my condo, and turn on my tv
to "Law and Order."  Both my parents are of Mexican
descent, but both were born in the US.