Asturian-American Migration Forum

Raquel,

I don't find your story hard to believe (although how your daughter can be both FROM Cuba and NOT FROM Cuba at the same time, utterly mystifies me).

This is because my great-uncle, who is the American-born middle son of my great-grandfather Aurelio (who came to America in 1912 from Candamo, Asturias) tells the story of my great-grandfather's journey to America that, while my great-grandfather was on the boat from Spain to one of the Caribbean islands as a stopover (I can't recall which island it was), my great-grandfather refused to set foot off the boat because he took one look down at the docks and saw it teeming with crowds of very dark-skinned black people and made a statement about them of such extreme superficial derogation that I won't repeat it here.

And this was his reason for not getting off the boat during the stopover at that island -- a purely superficial aversion to the color of the people's skin color. And being that he was just recently a countryman of Asturias, I am not disinclined to believe that the people of Spain could not be extremely racially preoccupied today -- and, in particular, the people of the largely lighter-skinned "Green Spain".

Rgonzalez: I believe you are on to something different there, not only anti-Spanish discrimination; it is world-wide phenomenon of disrespect and looking down on those who are not WASPs.
The media have everything to do with it: you will see no designer fashion shows now with more that 1 or 2 token black models, no Asians, no Indians, no nothing... Do you realize how sitcoms now compare to those of the 70's?
The music business has singled out the Latin Grammy Awards; in a shampoo commercial in Spain a well knows actress (Paz Vega) comes on calling her brunette mane "Mediterranean" hair (I wonder what Queen Elizabeth's hair was all these years), implying that nobody from a Mediterranean country can have blond hair and those from non-Med can only be fair haired. It is a collective idiocy, but it sells.

Maybe you should send it all to hell, change your name to Gonzalick, tell everyone you're a Polish aristocrat and you don't even know how you did stoop so low to speak to them.

Terechu,

I will indeed be changing my name to something more "acceptably" non-Spanish European-sounding. Being that Gonzalez would be phonetically pronounced "Gon-THA-leth" in Spain, I will be picking something that contains the hard "G" sound at the beginning, as well as "n" and "th" sounds -- although something like "Gunther" would be way too oppressively German.

Also, there is a channel here in the Americas called Univision and, in it, all the actors in the romantic soap operas are all tall and slender Germano-Arabic spaniards. These shows are broadcast throughout Latin America, and what is truly horrifying to me, in a psychologically apartheid-genocidal kind of way, is how the studio audience cameras will occasionally turn to show the audience, and it is filled with the indigenously short, dark, and stocky-looking Incan-looking original ethnic sort of people of the Americas.

It is horrifying that these people have been trained to essentially regard these more Nordic-hispanics as the standard of "real" Spanish, while they are relegated to the notion of being forever a degenerate and inferior class of people -- or not even fully people, but sub-human creatures.

What's more, not too long ago there was a television series that featured the famous chef Mario Batali and the actress Gwyneth Paltrow and they toured Spain, seeing the regions and eating the food. I was very moved by how much deep respect and even reverence Batali had for Spain, but in the last episode I was appalled by something else not related to him:

They were ending their trip in Madrid (where it had begun) and were visiting some large, recently-built structure (perhaps it was a mall or a post office), and it was a marvel of cutting-edge architectural design that was the collaboration of engineers from both England and Spain. And after the group had toured the station, one of them asked the lead English engineer what his reflections were on the project, and on his joint collaboration with engineers from Spain. What was his response?

To paraphrase, he said: "Well, we've always regarded the Spanish as being lazy, but I was surprised to find that they're actually very hard workers".

This is how the Spanish are viewed by the conceited racial supremacists of almighty northern Europe, even today.

I am sorry Terechu, this is something I did not want to tell, but I wanted
to show that discrimination is everywhere, you just have to be strong and
face it without fear and say whatever you believe is right, and I firmly
believe discrimination is wrong, we are all children of God!

Cubans have a strong relationship with Spain, after all we all respect and love our Motherland ( Madre Patria).

My daughter loves Spain, she loves Sevilla, now they are already planning
to take the baby to Ourense and Lugo to visit the Gonzalez part of
his family and also to Asturias, Islas Canarias and Malaga to visit my daughter's family roots....they will take him to Puerto Rico,
we can not travel to Cuba because the communist regime is still there
and Puerto Rico is like Cuba before the nightmare.

Yes, everybody in Cuba have a Spanish relative, but the documents are
hard to obtain. My cousin asked for the confirmation that his grandfather
went to Cuba and never changed his Spanish nationality....he presented
his request January 2011 and he received a letter from the Cuba's Interior Ministry saying that he will receive his documents by April 2013 and my
cousin lives in Cuba, so I imagine people that live outside Cuba are not
able to get that document at all.

Ronzales wrote:

I don't find your story hard to believe (although how your daughter can be both FROM Cuba and NOT FROM Cuba at the same time, utterly mystifies me).


Cubans inside Cuba and outside Cuba are the same people.
Cubans leave Cuba because they have to leave a communist regime that
do not let people live normal and free lives.
Our children know that they were supposed to be born in Cuba but because communism they were born in a different country, in our case
our children are American born and they are very proud and we are very
proud of it.....but at the same time, the children are aware that Cubans
living in Cuba are not free to express their feelings, so they say they are
Cubans because we have teached them to defend the Cuban traditions and
history...in this case my daughter was very upset because it is wrong to
identify a country by the people's skin color.
My children like the majority of Miami' Cuban children say they are Cubans
as a sign of respect and honor to their heritage. They are called " Cubanitos
de Miami " it is something I am very proud, they continue the same
traditions and the same Roman Catholic faith that helped our families to
survive !
May the Lord bless you and guide you!

Ronzalez wrote:
I will indeed be changing my name to something more "acceptably" non-Spanish European-sounding. Being that Gonzalez would be phonetically pronounced "Gon-THA-leth" in Spain, I will be picking something that contains the hard "G" sound at the beginning, as well as "n" and "th" sounds -- although something like "Gunther" would be way too oppressively German.

Oh well, if you've made up your mind to wipe out your roots and those of your eventual offspring, be reminded that a person who doesn't know his origins will be forever haunted by this emptiness. Your children will never forgive you, nor will your father.
Why don't you consider "Candamo" or "De Candamo" as a surname? That way you wouldn't lose all trace of your background.

Quote: To paraphrase, he said: "Well, we've always regarded the Spanish as being lazy, but I was surprised to find that they're actually very hard workers".
We, who? I'm surprised to hear an Englishman would say something so out of this world nowadays, after all they're just a one-hour flight away from Spain and they come to Spain by the millions. Where was this guy hiding the last 40 years?


This is how the Spanish are viewed by the conceited racial supremacists of almighty northern Europe, even today.

I believe it's the other way around and northern Europe is neither almighty (Iceland is bankrupt, Norway had that crazy murderer kill off teenagrs like rabbits, Sweden? Denmark? They're small countries of no consequence)

Raquel M wrote:I am sorry Terechu, this is something I did not want to tell, but I wanted
to show that discrimination is everywhere, you just have to be strong and
face it without fear and say whatever you believe is right, and I firmly
believe discrimination is wrong, we are all children of God!

Yes, everybody in Cuba have a Spanish relative, but the documents are
hard to obtain. My cousin asked for the confirmation that his grandfather
went to Cuba and never changed his Spanish nationality....he presented
his request January 2011 and he received a letter from the Cuba's Interior Ministry saying that he will receive his documents by April 2013 and my
cousin lives in Cuba, so I imagine people that live outside Cuba are not
able to get that document at all.

Raquel I'm not sure what you mean by the first paragraph, I have known and experienced real vicious racism - believe me I can tell the difference between an ignorant fool thinking that Cuba's population is like Haiti's, and the real "good-ole-boys, let's shoot them up..".


As to birth certificates, I just recently got one for our friend Ron Gonza´lez by making a brief phone call to the registrar's. Of course you need to know all the data and where to look.

And lastly, I believe we two have a clear sense of belonging,that nothing and noone can change. We are proud of what we are, proud o our community. Our roots are deep, we are solid oak trees!

Terechu wrote:

And lastly, I believe we two have a clear sense of belonging,that nothing and noone can change. We are proud of what we are, proud o our community. Our roots are deep, we are solid oak trees!


My mother always said " We have Asturian blood, so we are very healthy
and very strong!"....when my daughter was pregnant I told her the same
thing !!!!Don't be afraid, we have Asturian blood, everything will be OK!

my mother also said " the babies are beautiful because we are Asturians!"

Buenas tardes, he llegado a este foro por casualidad y no he podido evitar registrarme al leer algunas respuestas del post. No sé si escribir en castellano sea lo más correcto, pero viendo que muchos de ustedes lo entienden y siendo bastante torpe en el dominio del inglés, espero que me perdonen que responda en español. Para empezar, al chico que quiere cambiarse el apellido González por uno más "asturiano" quisiera darle algunos apuntes acerca del orígen de los apellidos: Gonzalez, Fernandez, Pelaez y demás "-ez", son apellidos patronímicos. La terminación "ez" viene siendo en español lo mismo que el "mc" para los escoceses o el "son" para los suecos. Es decir, significan "hijo de" (Gonzalez=hijo de Gonzalo) y esta terminación es tan asturiana como el apellido "Miranda" permítanme decirles. La terminación "ez" parece ser un préstamo lingüístico del euskera y los apellidos patronímicos son de orígen visigogodo y muchos de ellos provienen del norte de España. Para que se hagan una idea; Rodriguez (un apellido "muy" de mariachi) tiene su orígen en Asturias, es un apellido de orígen godo que significa "hijo de Rodrigo", Rodrigo a su vez proviene del nombre "Rodrerich", que era el nombre de un monarca visigodo. Otra apellido que ejemplificaría muy bien el orígen de esos apellidos tan "sureños" sería el "García", cuyo orígen podría ser vasco y hay quiénes lo relacionan con el germánico wars, "joven guerrero", o con el godo garxa o garcha,"príncipe de vista agraciada". Un poquito de por favor, que la corte de Don Pelayo seguramente estaba llena de "Garcias" y "Saezs" . Si usted lo que busca es la aceptación de la élite "anglosajona" no se cambie el apellido, lo que tiene que hacer es imprimirse la lista de los reyes godos y pasarsela por las narices al próximo que le venga mirandole por encima del hombro. Fuera de bromas, debería usted estar orgulloso de llevar un apellido como el suyo, que a parte, es bastante bonito.
En cuanto al señor que decía que los "norteños" eran más independientes y con un savoir más europeo, básicamente hacer la comparación con los castellanos no es la mejor opción, ya que ellos tampoco estarían muy de acuerdo con el apelativo de "mediterráneos" y son históricamente conocidos por su sequedad y carácter de "pocas palabras". Y si hablamos de catalanes y valencianos (yo soy valenciana) está usted hablando de una de las regiones que más impacto y relación ha tenido con otros países de Europa (especialmente con Italia y Francia vía la corona de Aragón) y es que nosotros también fuimos un "reino" antes de ser España, y también tenemos lengua propia, el catalán o valenciano como le llamamos en nuestra tierra (y es oficial) y somos industriosos, comerciantes, nos gusta el vino y las mujeres al contrario de otros "pueblos hispánicos" (léase la ironía). Y es que aunque no lo crea, la de los asturianos es la historia de todos los "pueblos" españoles, una conquista tras otra, empezaron siendo una tribu, después una provincia, después un reino y acabaron siendo comunidad autónoma. Y si usted revisa la historia de otros países europeos, llegará a la conclusión de que no es tan diferente a la de la creación de España, pese a que nosotros siempre hemos sido muy regionalistas, solo hay que echarle una vista a este foro, y personalmente es algo que me amarga y a la vez me hace sentir orgullosa, ya que si algo compartimos todos los íberos es el espíritu de lucha por mantener lo "nuestro".

Bienvenido, Cinilla. ¡También muestras un buen sentido del humor! Y sí, castellano está bien para muchos aquí.

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Welcom, Cinilla. You also show a very good sense of humor! And, yes, Spanish works well for many here.