Re: double surnames and Cultural Identity

["Edward Serros" <ed@...>]

--- In ranchos@yahoogroups.com, "Erlinda Castanon-Long"
<longsjourney@y...> wrote:
>
> I want to thank everyone for the input on double surnames...Many of
us did not marry Hispanic but would have kept our 
> maiden name regardless. Just like someone said, it's a matter of 
> family pride..
> 
> One more question.. which is 'politically' correct to designate our 
> nationality of origin if we or our ancestors were from Mexico... 
> Hispanic, Latino, Mexican-American or American-Mexican?  I find I 
> really upset some people when I call myself Hispanic. I'm told that 
> excludes my Indio blood... People ask me what my nationality is 
> because I'm just brown enough to not be Anglo but have light green 
> eyes, my sister get's the same thing and she has blue eyes and 
> freckles. I still laugh when told I don't look like a Mexican... what 
> does a Mexican look like!!!!
> 
> Linda in Everett

Linda,

I have debated for a number of days responding to this and I wish to
offend no one. In trying to figure out what to say I decided that I
would simply try to bring attention to a book published in 1919 that
struggled with the idea of cultural identity, amongst many other
things. The book was originally written in Spanish by Vicente Blasco
Inañez. It was called "Los Cuatoro Jinetes de Apocalipsis" and is more
commonly known by its English translation "The Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse". Ibañez does a fine job in presenting the confusion which
may arise in subsequent generations when the "founder" moves from one
 country/culture (Europe) to another country/culture (Argentina). The
conundrum is presented in a very entertaining manner. Needless to say,
in typical latin fashion, the end is death.

In the book one of the characters, Julio Madariaga, an immigrant
Basque, makes a fortune in the Americas (Argentina) and has many
children, legitimate and illegitimate, brown and fair. His son-in-law
is an immigrant Frenchman, Marcelo Denoyers, who says something in
relation to cultural identity which I will never forget. You or others
in this group may not necessarily agree with it but I quote the
paragraph from the book.

"Where a man makes his fortune and raises his family, there is his
true country," he said sententiously, remembering Madariaga.

Reread the quote. For what it is worth, Desnoyer's rich son returned
to France to find a majestic country, cultural isolation, personal
guilt, and finally death on the battlefield.  

Ed