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Re: [ranchos] Racial Classifications was Moorish or Slave

 
 Hi, Irma,
 
Yes, my "friend" is the product of a Catholic girl's school in Pamplona.  So that tells you something.  Her brothers, who unlike girls in Spain at the time, received higher educations and are engineers, etc. and are more worldly, have gone to school and worked in Mexico.  She has never been there, yet when my husband would break out into a popular Mexican song, she started to sing along with him.  When  I asked her how she knew the song, she said that Mexican songs and movies have always been very popular in Spain.  Her husband, who is a Mestizo, and whose father, like mine, was also born in Jerez, Zac. is as prejudiced as she.  More so, I think, since she married him even though he was from a different race and country.  He probably wanted to married up; she really married down.  (She gave up a prominent social position in Spain to marry an American serviceman--maybe she felt adventurous).  He even told me he never wanted to marry a dark-skinned person.  Their kids look Latin.  He also has gone so far to the political right (spouting Rush Limbaughisms all the time) that we avoid them now because of him as much as we can.  We used to invite them to dinner often since he liked my Mexican cooking, about the only Mexican thing he liked, I guess.
 
You are right about the garbanzo beans!  She used to cook them all the time in her pressure cooker.  She said if you don't use a pressure cooker, they take forever to cook. I don't like them, I prefer pinto beans.  She is an excellent cook, and I used to enjoy going over to their house for typically Spanish meals.  She uses so much olive oil that I had a problem (if you know what I mean) until I got used to it.  Their food is very Mediterranean.  Funny thing, she learned how to make tamales for Christmas from her mother-in-law, and as far as I know she still makes them for her family, who like them, since they were raised in California. 
 
I was prepared to dislike my Spanish friend at first since at the party where I met her (our husbands were child-hood friends) she made that comment about not being "hija de moro ni de indio", but she grew on me a little.  I think she is prejudiced against groups, but not when she gets to know an individual in that group.  I admired her sophistication and intelligence.  Even without the education her brothers received, she is very capable, and has even gone back to Spain occasionally to help run the family business, where she has a chalet outside Pamplona which is near the village called Olague (my surname).
 
Emilie Garcia
Port Orchard, WA.
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Irma GomezLucero
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 7:41 AM
To: ranchos@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [ranchos] Racial Classifications was Moorish or Slave
 
Hi Emilie,
    I have been enjoying alll of the recent postings on racial classification.  Excuse me for now jumping onto the soapbox.  :)  I hope that I don't offend anyone from what I am about to say.  I just don't like hearing ignorant racist remarks about Indians, Mexicans, etc., and people who feel superior to other ethnic groups.  Your Spanish friend sounds like someone with low self-esteem, (as well as possibly uneducated) and in that she feels that she should distance herself from those that she perceives as inferior to herself.  Heaven help her poor Mexican American husband that has to hear such racist comments. 
    The Spanish I met in Spain when I travelled there are nothing like those immigrants from Spain or South America that I have sometimes encountered here in the USA.  They do not view people from Mexico like a bunch of Indians.  In fact, they often remarked about Mexico's riches both in the Indian Civilizations as well as the gold that their churches are filled with.  They were very warm people who would comment on how handsome Pedro Infante was when they saw him in concert in their youth.  Also how the foolish Spanish king really screwed up when he underestimated the strength in the Mexican people during Mexico's independance. 
    Remember to stand tall.  Just a side note to your Spanish friend.  Garbanzos which are a staple for humans in Spain (they  are often served in Basque dishes) are often fed to livestock in Mexico.  Please educate your South American friend too by informing her that Taco Bell is not authentic Mexican food.  I am extremely proud of all my bloodlines whether it be India, mestizo, mulata, espanola, etc.,
    Okay I'll step down now   Thanks for allowing me to get this off my chest.
Irma who hails from Northern California

From: Emilie Garcia [mailto:auntyemfaustus@...]
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 3:41 AM
To: ranchos@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [ranchos] Racial Classifications was Moorish or Slave

Wow, those charts and photos are mind-boggling.  I am really getting an education. 
 
The mixing of the races in Mexico has led to a particular typically Mexican look, I think.  My husband, who looks white (I call him viejo Gachupin pelon sordo) calls the typical Mexican the result of the Mestizaje.  Yet no two Mexicans could look more different than he and I, he 6 ft, me 5 ft; we could have been the Espanol and the Indian pictured in the photos. Yet I can trace both of our lineages back to the early 1700's in Mexico. 
 
 My Spanish-Basque friend said that when she met her Mexican-American serviceman husband in Pamplona (he looks like me) she was fascinated by his appearance.  She said she had never seen anyone with the planes of the face like mine and his.  In profile we have small noses in line with the chin and forehead, whereas she and my husband have ! the look of Europeans, yet different.  He has a large Roman nose with receded chin and forehead in profile and he is bald on top yet very hairy arms and legs.  She looks German.  Up here in Washington State in an area where there are few Mexicans, I am at times mistaken for Asian or Filipina.  I have a hard time convincing the Filipinos around here I am not a Filipina.  One man even asked me why I did not want to admit to being Filipina!
 
An interesting thing too about food preferences among us:  My Spanish-Basque friend does not like corn tortillas or Mexican food.  She prefers bread and fish or chicken.  She says that corn is only fed to animals where she comes from.  I heard that also from a lady I knew from South America.  She was dismayed that her sons were learning to eat "como Indios" since they liked Taco Bell tacos and asked her to make some like their Mexican friends' moms made! . 
 
Also, lately, I feel that it is this typical Mexican look, an Indian appearance, that makes many Anglo-Americans so prejudiced against the aliens coming across from south of the border.  They are being so mean to those poor people. American employers continue to depend on alien labor for the work that many Americans won't stoop to do, and that is where the problem lies, not with the poor people looking to improve their lives.
 
I am off my soapbox now,
 
   Emilie
 
----- Original Message -----
From: lareina2@...
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 10:58 PM
To: ranchos@yahoogroups.com
!
Subject: Re: [ranchos] Racial Classifications was Moorish or Slave
 
There's a folder for it in Ranchos 2.  I found a book that gave a little background and some pictures.  Here's the link, and definitely blow up the link of the page of classifications so it's readable:
 
 
Rosalinda


-----Original Message-----
From: latina1955@...
Sent: Jun 23, 2005 1:32 AM
To: ranchos@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [ranchos] Moorish or Slave

I could be wrong (my memory comes and goes with this stuff called menopause - should be called memorypause), but I think coyote was a term used to describe the mixed blood of Indians and African. 
 
There was a chart (perhaps someone can recall it here?) that described the various labels placed on the mixture of "races" during the early part of the conquest, when race delineation was seen as important by the Spanish.  I'll keep looking for this chart, but in the meantime, perhaps someone else on the board has easy access to it for reference?
 
Esperanza

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