Anti-Spanish Discrimination?

[Jovita]

I agree with Ron. Gonzalez is a strong, good name. If others have a problem, let them have the problem. You don't need to own it.

[Raquel M]

Gonzalez is a beautiful last name!!!
You must call a lawyer to sue the person that discriminated against you!
You must read about Mexican history and take karete lessons, so next
time somebody says something about your Mexican ancestor, you stand
tall and you must said, YES, my grandparents were born in Mexico and
I AM VERY PROUD OF IT !!!! SOOOOO....
Mexico has a beautiful history, the culture is magnificent, the music is
from heaven and the Mexicans are hard working people. Mexico was
blessed when the Virgen Maria de Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego.
So, please read about your ancestors, you will be surprised to see how
many Mexicans are around you and very proud of it.
You can see that our former Governor, Jeb Bush is married to a Mexican
and he is very tall and she is very small and they have a very happy
marriage, so....start your readings now!!!!

[Trina Gonzalez]

I grew up in an area that had one spanish family, we were that family. I had a teacher who said "You're Mexican" when I said no Spanish she then said oh, Puerrto Rican, again I said no. She ended up saying "same thing." Most of the people we lived by were OK with my heritage, the others were considered little minded. Be proud of your heritage. I love the name Gonzalez

[Bob]

In New England ther seems to be a pecking order among castellanohablantes..When I ws in the hopitals, may of the staff were from Puerto Rico, other Caribbean island, Mexico,s and a South American country or two. Noticing my surname, many asked where I was from and tried to guess based on my accent in castellano. I answered that was born in California but that my family was from Asturias in Northern Spain. Their attitude, always friendly, turned to awe, as if I carried with me the Holy Grail. My God he's from Spain, one of ancestors of us all." Needless to say, I got instant responses to my call button (while my roommate often had to wait) and extremely good care.

[Jovita]

Bob,
I received the same reply from a Filipino doctor a few years back. When I told him that my family was from Asturias, he stated' "Ah, the land of Kings". He always treated with respect and deference after that.

[Raquel M]

Ok, the real Americans....are the Indians.....soo....

Columba Bush, a Mexican born, was the First Lady of Florida....her husband
is Jeb Bush, the best governor we had here in Florida.
I only wanted to say that once I went with my husband to a new Italian
Restaurant in Miami Beach, we went, we met the owner and we met his wife...as soon as she began to talk to us in Spanish I noticed her Cuban
accent and I asKed her if she was Cuban....she said " Oh, No!! I am from
Spain " I said excuse me but you have a very strong Cuban accent and she said "she was born in Cuba but her grandparents were from Spain so
she always says she is from Spain because she did not want to be related
to the awful new arrivals from Cuba...." I felt so bad...I told her my
grandparents were also from Spain but I am a Cuban born and Cubans are
ONE people, no matter their skin color, their ideology or their beliefs, that
I take my share of the responsability for all the new Cuban arrivals the
good ones and the bad ones, because Cubans are only ONE family and
I am proud to be a Cuban born...so after I said that I told my husband
we had to leave that place and that ignorant woman.
Yes, you have to decide " to be or not to be"

[Xose]

We pronounce our name without the ll, so it sounds like Vah-lee-na instead of Vah-yee-na. So now everyone thinks we're Italian. LOL

[Raquel M]

Omg....I see a lot of people need to talk to a psychologist!!!!
Who cares what a Filipino thinks or an Italian names sounds like!
A Mexican or a Cuban MUST be proud of their heritage !!!!!
What kind of message are some people sending to their children???
" we are from X but it is better people think we are from Y " ?????

omGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!

I like the Israelies and the Jewish people...they are Jewish, they are from
Israel, no matter what!!!! have you seen all the sufferings the Jewish
people had? My father came to study in the USA in the 1930's and he said
that everywhere there were signs that said " No dogs and no jews" and
the Jews did not care and you can see they are united and wealthy now,
so that is the way people must be, you must be proud of your ancestors
and your roots, no matter what...so if some people do not like your background, so what????? bad for them!!!

[Raquel M]

Los artistas de diferentes paises se han unido y han cantado esta cancion
Somos el Mundo en Espanol para ayudar a los mas necesitados en Haiti
quizas al ver a todos estos artistas orgullosos de sus origenes todos unidos
para ayudar a los necesitados comprendamos que la discriminacion es ignorancia y no puede existir !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie0ddpOtIJ8

The different artists from different countries are singing this song Somos
el Mundo in Spanish to help the poorest of the poor, the Haitians...this
artists are very proud of their heritage, they are together to help the
people in need, we may understand that the discrimination is only ignorance and it can not exist !

[Ronzalez]

My father tried to have a career in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), but eventually they harassed and sabotaged him until he quit, largely because he was Spanish.

Whenever we lived in Florida, in places like Panama City, Pensacola, and Daytona Beach, they would call him names like "nigger" and "Mexican", and when he was just starting out, one of his racist redneck supervisors snuck into his original training files from years before, and deliberately changed his information, so that it made him look incompetent. And then he forged my father's signature.

My father tried to legally fight the FAA for years, but they played all kinds of dirty tricks against him until he finally snapped and had a total nervous breakdown in 1986. He was never the same.

...But he was "lucky", though -- there were a number of suicides amongst people in that job, because there is just something about it that wrecks people.

I learned a lot from my father and what he went through, but I didn't realize the extent of the problem until recently. Here is an article from way back in 1973 that talks about the problem:
http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?c ... &id=&page=

[is]

So, there are essentially four names in my family: Gonzalez, Miranda, Valenti, and Castellano. Of those four, "Miranda" is indigenously Asturian -- in fact, to my understanding, the name originated in Asturias.

I've been looking around, and I've found that there is a slightly rare French variation of the name, which is "Mirandon". I like it. Similar to that, I've also been thinking of "Mirannon".

And, finally, apparently there is an obscure last name that is somehow listed as one of the variants of "Gonzalez", and it is "Monsabre" or "Monsaber".

Wow, what a thread! Since you've made a decision and that's a strong basis on which to respond, here are my 2 cents:

Miranda is definitely Asturian sounding (County Miranda), but it also sounds like fertile ground for 'Miranda rights' jokes. Mirandon does not work in Asturian at all. Mirannon has a faint French feel, but it's a bit of a confabulation. Valenti is definitely un-Asturian and totally Italian-Sicilian (like Xose says, LOL), so scrap that.

Castellano (means Castillian in Spanish) is a name that is historically linked to counties like Allande/Ayande, where I've come across 'Rodriguez-Castellano' in my own genealogy. But it's too ethnic. Finally, Monsabre-Monsaber sounds too pretentious, like a Gothic novel character you get in the check-out line at Costco.

I'd keep digging into your Asturian genealogy for an original last name. I'm sure you have one. Tell us where your Asturian roots are from and we could suggest 'interesting' last names from that county. Who knows, you could even own them by virtue of your family.

Keep in mind there's a law in Spain that safeguards 'original Spanish names' that are threatened by extinction. If you can prove a genealogy, you can legally reclaim that name. Obviously, Asturian last names qualify as 'Spanish' by law.

Your story is definitely newsworthy, especially after reading the piece on the FAA. But because the descendants of Asturians are not numerous in the US, it could be a classic. Either way, I'd advise you to think only about yourself and your interests.

[Ronzalez]

I'd keep digging into your Asturian genealogy for an original last name. I'm sure you have one. Tell us where your Asturian roots are from and we could suggest 'interesting' last names from that county. Who knows, you could even own them by virtue of your family.

Keep in mind there's a law in Spain that safeguards 'original Spanish names' that are threatened by extinction. If you can prove a genealogy, you can legally reclaim that name. Obviously, Asturian last names qualify as 'Spanish' by law

Well, it's my great-grandfather on my mother's side who was the Miranda from Asturias -- and my great-grandmother was from there, too, but I can't be sure. Her maiden name was "Gutierrez". And he was from a town in Asturias called Candamo. But the point is that it's all on my mother's side.

[is]

If your Miranda branch is originally from County Candamo, it´s quite an old name. Here´s a bit of text from the Asturian encyclopedia from its chapter on Candamo:

"En San Tirso contempla la casa donde vivio don Hernando de Miranda y de las Alas. En tal alqueia se caso en primeras nupcias con Hernando de Miranda, dona Catalina, hija mayor de Pedro Menendez de Aviles, adelantado y conquistador de la Florida..."

And here's a text on a 19th century literary figure from the same county, Bernardo Gonzalez de Candamo, with plenty of associated names, including Hevia, which is as Asturian as you get...and could be in your own past somewhere.

http://www.lne.es/secciones/noticia.jsp ... Generacion

[Raquel M]

Ok, I insist that you need a good lawyer....or a good TV program like
Oprah....that was then....but this is now.....when we came to the USA
one of the first things we were told never to say is " negro" because some
people will think we were saying " nigger" a very offensive word for the
people with African ancestors living in the USA...so.....find the attorney
fast!

Ok, Yo insisto que usted necesita un buen abogado...o un buen programa
de television, como Oprah....eso fue entonces....pero esto es ahora....
cuando nosotros vinimos a los USA una de las primeras cosas que nos dijeron era que nunca dijeramos " negro" porque algunas personas pudieran pensar que nosotros estuvieramos diciendo " nigger" que es
una palabra muy ofensiva para las personas con antepasados Africanos
que viven en los USA...entonces....encuentre a un abogado rapido!

[Art]

That looks like an interesting article, Ronzalez. What was it's conclusion? I could only read the first page.

I like the idea of reclaiming an old Asturian name. Some of our members use place names for their user name. That might work nicely for a last name, maybe Candamo?

I don't see the point of suing via a lawyer. Ronzalez' father already battled the bureaucracy for years, didn't he? It'd be a great way to waste one's life.

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Parece ser un artículo interesante, Ronzalez. ¿Cuál fue su conclusión? Sólo podía leer la primera página.

Me gusta la idea de recuperar un nombre asturiano antiguo. Algunos de nuestros miembros usan un topónimo para sus nombres de usuario. Podría funcionar muy bien para un apellido, tal vez Candamo?

Para mí, no sirve de nada demandar por un abogado. El padre de Ronzalez ya se enfrentaron a la burocracia unos años, ¿no? Sería una gran manera de perder una vida.