Baruch Garcia
Baruch Garcia was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, into a family whose roots in the Americas span several hundred years. He describes a maternal Basque Jewish lineage and a paternal Portuguese Jewish lineage, with ancestors who arrived in the Americas in the late 1500s and in 1622. His father, already a pharmacist, moved the family to Mexico City to attend medical school, and Baruch spent much of his childhood there. He attended a bilingual private school where his mother taught English, and where many classmates came from established Mexican Jewish families. Raised Catholic, he nonetheless grew up feeling a strong comfort and kinship with Jews and Judaism.
Baruch came to Dallas to attend the University of Dallas, drawn by its pre-med program as he pursued his goal of becoming a doctor. He became a family practice physician. Over time he grew more curious about the crypto-Jewish undertones in his family, recalling relatives who kept subtle Jewish customs and an aunt who declared the family to be Marranos in 2009. His aunts, Dr. Cleo Garcia and Dr. Dalia Garcia, had spent decades collecting ancestral documents spanning 500 years. Studying these records, along with DNA analysis, Baruch traced his lineages and eventually returned to Judaism, completing a full conversion through study, conversion classes, and immersion in the mikvah.
Baruch became active in Dallas Jewish life, worshipping at Temple Emanuel and studying at the congregation Beth El Binah. His DNA research connected him to the Katzenellenbogen rabbinic line and to fellow congregants and researchers, and he has lectured on his findings, including at SMU and to a scholarly society. He notes the family archives are held largely at a library in Corpus Christi through the Spanish American Genealogical Association, with related collections at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, including the papers of his uncle Dr. Hector Garcia, a civil rights leader who founded the American GI Forum. Baruch has also pursued Spanish citizenship under the right of return and hopes to further explore the Native American strands of his heritage.
Full Transcript
May Siebel Good morning, my name is May Siebel. It is Sunday, March 1, 2020, and I am interviewing Baruch Garcia for the One Story at a Time Project Viva Shalom, celebrating Latin American Jews in Dallas. Good morning, Baruch. Good morning, May. Will you please tell us where you're from originally? I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas. Okay. Talk about when and why your family originally immigrated to the U.S. Well, both the maternal and the paternal ancestry is represented by two different lineages. The maternal ancestry is represented by a Basque Jewish lineage, and the paternal ancestry is represented by a Portuguese Jewish lineage. So we were born in South Texas.
The families have been there for several hundred years. So the lineage from my mother's side, the Garrakan Amal lineage, came over to the Americas in 1622. And my maternal lineage, the Castano Vesosa lineage, came over to the Americas in the late 1500s. So you have lineages that are several hundred years old and that have been in the Americas, but really never immigrated from any border in the Americas, with the exception of my father's side, who you had some individuals who were part in the U.S. and part in Mexico during the early 19th century and late to 18th century. So we've been here for a while.
Tell us about your life growing up in Corpus Christi. Well, I actually moved away from Corpus Christi when I was about four years old. My father wanted to go to medical school. He was a little older, and he was already a pharmacist. And his brothers and sisters, all his brothers and sisters except for one, were physicians, and he wanted to be a physician as well. And so he wanted to study in Mexico. Some of the families studied in the U.S., some of the families studied in Mexico. Being Spanish speakers for generations and generations it was easy for my father to pick up and go to Mexico and start over with another career So my childhood was really in Mexico City What was memorable about growing up in Mexico City?
What was most memorable to you? The most memorable experience that I had was attending school. I attended a university. I mean, it felt like a university. It was a very difficult curriculum. I went to a school called Colegio Volumbre in Mexico City, which is a bilingual school. It's a private school. My mother taught English there. And so my sister and I had scholarships through my mother to attend school there for many, many years. That is where I began to become familiar with Judaism, because many of the students there came from Jewish families, from Mexican Jewish families, from Mexico City Jewish families, long-standing established families. And so from that point, as a young child from first grade on, I felt like Jews were my family.
And attended Shabbat services and war mitzvahs and many different functions and played with them. And we were all friends and felt like family. So that was the most memorable experience, was just going to Kalea, Bum, and Bia, and being involved with all of the different kids there. We were both Jews and non-Jews. But Judaism was not your religion at that time. No, I was raised Catholic. I was actually baptized Catholic. And we were raised Catholic. This has come up several times in my family, because my mother, my father, was a non-believer. But my mother didn't believe in God. So my mother was Catholic, but I don't really recall going to the Catholic Church much when we lived in Mexico City.
And I've asked different family members, particularly my sister, why. Because I think I maybe went, I remember going to the Catholic Church maybe two or three times for about a decade. And we didn really ever know why She said that my mother was not comfortable in large crowds and potentially a theft of her purse or something like that I don know But you do see that in some of the crypto-Jewish families. We didn't really learn about Catholicism until we came back to the U.S. when I was about 14 or 15 years old. That's when I started learning about it. I do remember having a first communion we just came back to the U.S.
for that I just must have studied for a week and went back to Mexico City that was it I think my mother was a very devout Catholic and prayed a lot but I don't really remember that being very much a part of my early childhood it was more, Catholicism was more part of my early adolescence and thereafter. Do you want to comment on being from a crypto-Jewish family? Tell us about that. So, when we lived in Mexico City, I didn't really think much about religion. I just knew that as Hispanic Americans, we lived in Mexico City. and there were Jews and non-Jews. In crypto-Jewish families, you often see that there is a comfort level with Jews and Judaism.
And there may have even been an oral history about your ancestry being Jewish, but there really is not ever really talked about. So even to this day, I think many families don't really talk about being Jewish, including mine. So, my father used to say, you need to be nice to Jews because we are like them. My mother never commented about it. So he even had a list of items we could not buy because he felt that those items were generated in the war camps or were derived from companies that originally were generated in the war camps during the Holocaust. There were certain brand names that we could not buy Siemens or Mercedes because we could not afford a Mercedes But I mean he always made it known you can buy these products You can learn German because I wouldn go out which I kind of learn on the side Because he felt that was all part of the whole Nazi issue.
So, I think that was part of crypto-Judaism, because later on in my life, I found out from my father's sister, Dalia Garcia. I have Dahlia that her father, my grandfather, my father's father, had told them at a very early age that they were Jewish. But he never, the father never really said that we are Jewish, that we are like them. So you always have this Jewish undertone in crypto-Jewish families, which I think we had. On my mother's side, I didn't really hear much about what my maternal side thought about Judaism until we came back to the U.S. when I was a teenager, and my grandmother, my mother's mother, would talk about Jews.
She was friends with Rabbi Wolf in Corpus Christi. My grandfather was a pharmacist. He had five pharmacies in Corpus Christi. Many of our friends were Jews in Corpus Christi. Many of the families I even see here in Dallas, Temple Emanuel, the Wilsons, for instance, are related to the Wilsons from Corpus Christi, and the furniture store were friends of my grandfather's. So there's always been a comfort level in interaction with Jews. The Borensteins in Corpus Christi owned a gift shop, and one of the Borensteins used to pick us up every morning and take us to school, and his daughter Barbara and I were in school together, and the Warrensteins.
I thought of Greenhill, which has many Jewish families, and I knew some of their children there. And so we've always, I guess being the crypto-Jew to me has meant, well, I think we're Jewish. But there is such a comfort level with Judaism and the Jewish families. My grandmother used to say, Well, you can't have that chili and drink milk. Don't open that can of chili and don't drink that glass of milk. And I just said, OK. So obviously, that's not kosher. And she knew that. And we really never talked about it. That happens a lot in the family. And then she would say things like, when I die, I want you to be buried with the Jewish people.
You know, I want you to be buried in a shroud and just put me in the ground. Of course, she wasn't. She had a Catholic funeral. But so you have these subtle nuances of Judaism throughout your life. I didn't really find out a lot until I was in Corpus Christi with my mother having lunch. and a woman, I believe she was a librarian, she was a Spanish ancestry, a crypto-Jewish ancestry. She came up to me and she said, did your mother tell you you're Jewish? I said, no. She said, well, you are. So, and she looked at my mother and she said, you know, we converted a long time ago.
We used to be Jewish. She said, we just, and she used this term, and I thought it was strange. She said, we were just, you know, two chicken back then during the Spanish Inquisition. And so we just converted and came over. And so then I asked my mother, is that true? And she did not answer me. So, and to this day, I mean, you still have a lack of acknowledgement of the Judaism in the families, many of the crypto Jewish families. to my family. Obviously I returned to Judaism and converted back to Judaism, which I didn't really need to do because we're halakim Jewish. But I wanted to do it.
The families, our family, is very supportive, happy that I am Jewish and that I participate in all aspects of Judaism in my life as best as I can. But And that's it. There was a, one of my uncles just passed away. And he, there was an issue. There are many different religions now in my family. I'm the only one who is Jewish by practice. And there was, I guess, a discussion about how to bury him. And it was ultimately decided that he should be buried as a Catholic. So I attended the services and sat in the front row as Paul Farrell next to a cousin He really never really never really has understood He a very supportive and very wonderful man who supported me whatever I did He didn't really understand why I was able to sing certain prayers with the family or what was I doing.
He said, can you do that? You're Jewish, you can't do that, you can't do that. And so it became this discussion between us at the funeral. and we kind of got shushed by one of the ants, making us feel like we were adolescence again. But that became a family conference afterwards. I wasn't able to attend that meeting because I was not feeling well after a very hard death. But apparently I heard that there was a very large discussion, a very big discussion, about that I should be supported in my choice of practicing Judaism. What brought you to Dallas? I went to the University of Dallas to go to college.
I wanted to become a doctor, and I think we made the choice for various reasons. I mean, it was a Catholic university, but it had a very good pre-med program, and I wanted a good pre-med program, so that's why I came to Dallas. Tell us about your path to Judaism. When my mother passed away, one of my aunts announced in the that we were Marana. She said, somos marranos. Aunt Dalia and her sister Cleo collected ancestral documents for most crypto-Jews or most Spanish people, really in the Americas. It took them about 50 years to collect ancestral documents, Spanish documents, Portuguese documents. They went to churches, they went to synodons, they went to the Mormon church.
They created an archive of ancestral documents that span 500 years. And so Dr. Cleo Garcia, my aunt, was the individual who actually started it. And her sister Dr Dalia Garcia supported her and helped her collect information She was very knowledgeable about Spanish ancestry and about Judaism And so that announcement to us was sort of this is who we are She titled it, we are more islands. How long ago was that? That was in 2009. Okay. And some of the individuals in the magazine said, no, we're not. And so there was this minor discussion about, yes, we are. So after hearing the lady in movies that told my mother that she asked my mother, and I had been told I was Jewish and passed me, I was just, and this information from Andalia in 2009, I want to look at this.
And about two or three years later, Andalia gave my sister and me some documents. They were ancestral documents. So they're like, if you don't have this, just take a look at these. So it took us a while and looked at it. I'm like, wow, this is, you know, we're Jewish. So I started looking at the documentation. For many years I studied it. I took the lineage back to, you know, on my father's side, it was easy because they had done it. Dr. Clay or Dr. Daly had done the ancestry forest. They had done the genealogy forest. It was quite easy because I had all the lineages.
lineage, as it's written now, typed out. On the mother's side, they got her Anamal lineage, and they didn't have that. So, I did that. And an uncle, my grandmother's uncle, my maternal grandmother's uncle, was a tax assessor collector in Laredo, and there was an oral history about our ancestry that had been passed on from 1622 to maybe the late 50s to the 1960s. There was an oral history and Osvaldo Martinez codified that. He was a tax assessor. He had access to so many records and so he went and documented the lineages from 1765 up until the 60s. And so I had that piece of knowledge from my mother's side, but I took that, I had to get that back from 1765 down to 1622.
And so I had documents that my aunts had, online information, and ancestry, and all this. So really it was not easy but it was certainly searchable and easy to do from the standpoint of searchability because of what we have now in the 21st century you know the computer and all of my accents So doing all of that, I mean, I started interacting with historical issues and historical Judaism and I thought, well, let's look at the religion. And so what I discovered was I started looking at it and thinking, well, you know, we're halakhically Jewish as well. And so I wrote a little paper about it and presented it to the Society of the Judetic Studies.
And they're pretty strict about what they do and who presents to their conferences. So I did a presentation there. And little to my knowledge did I know that there were going to be several hundred people in the room listening to what I had to say. To my left, there were the Montemegro family, my father's ancestors. And to the right, there were the Guber-Garamad family, my mother's ancestors. And other scholars and people who were interested in studying Judaism. This is this huge room with a lot of people. I'm like, wow, why is this important? So that's kind of how that all started and it kind of evolved.
That was a very early process of what I started to discover. At that point, I had some of the oral history, I had some of the documentation, I had started to do the DNA. There was a man who gave a lecture, the name of Bennett Green Spandell, who's family tree DNA. And I said, hey Bennett, you know, I did my ancestry, I did my genetic lineage tree. can you take a look at it?" And he said, you know, I think this is Arab DNA. I said, okay. So, why not? What's wrong with that? He said, no, there's nothing wrong with it. I just want you to know that to me, we're starting to study this and it looks like it's Arab DNA.
So, maybe a year later or so, to make a long story short about genetics, because because it is an incredible story. Turns out I am Bennett's relative. I mean, a very close Y-DNA match to Bennett Greenspan. And what has happened was there was a study that was done, the name of the individual, the Kappalow, Jeffrey Mark Paul, It was called the Y-DNA Synculture of the Katzenbella-Bogan Lineage. So, okay. I get this email from someone from Family Tree DNA, a volunteer, genealogist, geneticist, and I exactly know what her title is. Very nice lady, Judy Simon. She said, we need to see if you'll donate your DNA for a project.
I said, okay. So the information came back, and that's when we realized that we are descendants of the Katzenellen-Bogen rabbis from Germany, from the cities called Katzenellen-Bogen, Germany, who are descendants of a long lineage of rabbis who claim descendants to Rashi. So you have very interesting opinions at this point that I'm a part of, and so has been a great span. And so are other members from our temple, Paul Allenbogan, that we traveled with in Spain. I told him about it in Spain. That's when he found out that he was related to us and that he had a Spanish ancestry. Because the Casanellenbogan's had an oral history of being Spanish, of being Sephardic, that they couldn't prove it.
It wasn't until they had my DNA and a couple of other Hispanic Americans, South Texas and Bennett's, that we're all in the same lines. So it's had a major impact on many people. And there was another family at Temple, Emmanuel, the Stieglitzes there. Mr. Stieglitz is also a descendant of the Cats and the All-Bogans. So from the point that I met Bennett during my first lecture to today, we have discovered that this DNA, if you will, is an ancient ancestral line that dates back to Tirmashi. of course the Levant Central Area of the Insulet if you can take it back far enough it's all in people anyway but I think it's important because what I have discovered and what others have discovered and Peter Tarlow who also does a lot of this he a rabbi I sure many people know Peter Tarno has have discovered that there are millions of people who connect to us In South Texas there are about 3 million individuals who can connect to my lineage.
And Peter has looked at other lineages that are South America, European, and other countries. and he estimates them at 20 million or tens of millions. I'm not exactly sure what the number he has compiled, I mean, he has come up with. Could you comment on, of those millions in South Texas, how many do you estimate or identify as Jewish? It's hard to say. Some of the families may have had an oral history of being Jewish and some have not. Some talk about it, some don't. many of the families are Catholic. So they're starting to learn and starting to understand that. I mean, we have the Internet, so it's not that hard to figure out these days.
I don't think many of them are aware of their Judaism, but it is starting to happen. And I can tell by the amount of emails I'm getting, people trying to connect or need to connect or need, asking a question about it. I do my best to explain that to them. Could you talk about your personal journey to become fully Jewish, if you will? So, during the course of study of my ancestry, I met with many Jewish people wanting to explore Judaism, started going to Shabbat services, different congregations, Jewish congregations and temples, and I made a lot of friends. And I realized that I felt very comfortable being amongst Jewish people.
And so I thought, well, being Jewish really resonates with me. It's what I believe. Everything that is being said and taught and everything I was exposed to in synagogues and temples is what I believe And I am Jewish so I going to be Jewish And I talked a little bit with Peter Tarlow. We studied a little bit together. And he said, well, we'll just go ahead and do a, we can do a return to Judaism. And I said, sure. So he, you know, after one of my lectures, I gave a lecture at SMU. and he and I gave a lecture together and he said, well, let's just do it now.
So we did it and we pulled another man from the lecture and we did it. I mean, he had an old thing that he read. I don't remember. I don't remember exactly what it was because I didn't know Hebrew back then. But, you know, we talked about it. He said, well, this is how you do it and you can do a return to Judaism, and you just need to continue to study, and you're Jewish anyways. This just affirms that you're claiming Judaism as your religion. So I continued to study, and I went to a temple, a congregation of Beth El Binah. I had many friends at Beth El Binah, and the rabbi there, Steve Fish, had some lectures that he was giving.
He had some conversion classes that he was giving. And I said to him, look, I'm Jewish by ancestry. I'm Jewish. I've accepted my Judaism. I've talked to Peter Charlo about it. I've accepted it. And he said, that's great, but let's study a little bit more. And he's really big on me knowing what I'm doing as a Jew. So I said, why don't you come to these conversion classes? Even though you're not converting, I want you to come to the conversion classes. I said, okay, so I went to the conversion classes for a couple years. and then some of my friends started converting and I went over to the mikvah and I was like, well this is really cool and I wanted to do it too because it really reaffirms who I am and so we did a full conversion and he brought in me with other rabbis and we went to the mikvah and all that What about other members of your family?
have they come to accept that they are Jewish also? Oh absolutely I think I had no dispute about that No one has disputed that in my family Some people religion or family it really up to an individual No one has really judged me or judged anyone for their religious beliefs. There are different denominations in my family, different types of religions. I think the most supportive individual has been my sister, Yolette Garcia. I mean, of course, we grew up in Mexico City together, and so many of our friends are Jewish. So many of our friends here in Dallas are Jewish. And she comes to Temple all the time.
She's Catholic. But she tells me she feels like this Temple Emanuel is her Jewish home. And she feels very comfortable. She says she feels just as comfortable at Temple Emanuel as she does at Holy Trinity Catholic Church. So anytime I invite her to come to services or any Temple function, she comes. She knows, actually, more people at Temple Emanuel than I do. and she's very tied in. She knows David Stern well, and she used to work at KRA TV, and she produced several things, and she was an executive there. She's interviewed Rabbi Stern several times. She would go to Temple Emanuel, and he would say hello to her before he'd say hello to me, because he knew her, he didn't know me.
So, like I said before, there's always this connection and familiarity and acceptance of Judaism in my family. No one has really ever converted, so to speak. Like I said, you don't have to be in our family. Accept your Judaism, return to Judaism. There's no other individual who has done that. But it's not for me to decide what other people want to do. As far as them being supportive, as far as them coming alongside with me to any service, it's easily done. And people are very willing to understand that they're Jewish, to understand that I'm Jewish, and to be a part of my life as a Jew.
Tell us a little bit more about your family archives. Where are they maintained? The bulk of the collection is at a library in Orvis Christi called the Laritama Library. My aunt Dalia founded an organization called the Spanish American Genealogical Association, which held those archives. And it's a pretty good archive. I mean, I remember Anna and Clay buying ship manifestos of some of the ships that came over after the Inquisition. So those are the types of documents that are there that should manifest those birth records, baptismal records. Those are mainly housed at La Ratonimo Library through the Spanish American Genealogical Association. And Clio donated all of her collection, well, most of her collection, to the Spanish American Genealogical Association, which was subsequently donated to the La Ratonimo Library in Corpus Christi.
That being said, there are also archives at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi. And CLIO has, there is a special collections section at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi. And that collection has two collections that represent my family. It has the Dr. Hector Garcia papers. Uncle Hector was, in my opinion, a civil rights leader, one of the greatest civil rights leaders in America, who founded the American GI Forum, which is a veterans organization. And he has, Uncle Hector was very prominent in American politics. I think almost every president since Kennedy would go to him for support of the South Texas vote to carry Texas in presidential elections.
And he actually got the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Ronald Reagan. We are traditionally Democrats, but Ronald Reagan recognized Michael's achievements and gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Medal of Freedom is there at A&M and many of Uncle Hector's documents which has been decades and decades of work. He was also an alternate ambassador, United Nations ambassador. So there are a lot of documents that he has there. With that being said, Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi has housed our family, one of my uncles' collections, for many, many years. It's actually their flagship collection. This is an easy step for Aunt Cleo to also have her documents there because her ancestral the ancestral documents that she and Adalia compiled are very important and deserve a home as well That being said, when people ask me how to research their Spanish ancestry or their Jewish ancestry, I not only point them to Laratama Library or to SAGA, Spanish and American but also to the archives at Texas A&M University because the Dr.
Cleo Garcia papers are there. And a lot of the ancestral information is also there and easy to search because it's being digitized. So, in fact, when we were in Spain, I wanted to give some information to certain individuals. People were asking questions while we were on this trip, and I didn't have all the answers. And so I contacted some of the archivists in Corpus Christi, and I said I need to follow up pieces of information because they got it to me very quickly. So I'm not really familiar with the collection of Laratama Library, but I think librarians there will help anyone who wants to find anything.
And then Dahlia, I think, has some documents of her own, and I have some documents of my own as a considerator, that she had given me some information, some documents many, many, many, many years ago, minoring the process of restoration. But I think in answer to your question, the official bulk of the collection is at Laratama Library in Corpus Christi. But they can be found in other places. Also what I noticed was that if you go to Ancestry.com and you start looking for Spanish-American genealogical documents, or Sephardic Jewish documents, you go and get one. At the bottom it says, from the Spanish-American genealogical association. So they have done some work that allows you to search it through Ancestry.com as well.
I know that you are dealing with the Spanish government. Tell us about that. Well, that's been a difficult process. I think when we were in Spain, we had a man give a lecture the name of Victor Sorensen who talked about that process And he was uncomfortable with it and that He is a Sephardic Jew in Spain because it so complicated and because the Spanish government has decided to give us the right of return to get our Spanish citizenship in Spain. So I have a family practice position. I have a practice of disease. I have some illnesses. So for me to get these documents and to try and get my Spanish citizenship does not have been easy.
It's also expensive. Many people have had to hire a lawyer. You have to go to Spain. You have to do a lot of things, jump through a lot of hoops. So what I did, I was going to jump through as many hoops as I could. And I submitted some information on a website with the Spanish government to process your application just in time because the deadline is up. So now I have to take a Spanish language test. We've been speaking Spanish for 500 years. Our family's been speaking Spanish for 500 years. So we have to take a test to prove that we speak Spanish, which I think is a little unfair, especially since I grew up in Mexico City, especially since I scored a perfect score on the Spanish SAT when I came back to the U.S.
And I have to take this test to prove to Spanish I speak Spanish. That doesn't make any sense to me. It's become very complicated. I did not hire a lawyer because when we went to Spain and Barcelona, the president of the congregation where we went to Shabbat services is an immigration lawyer. He said, don't spend any money. Just let me do it for you. So we're still in that process. I don't know if I'll get it because I didn't get everything in on time, but that is really kind of the lawyer's work. So while the Spanish government is saying, okay, we welcome you back, they're making it very difficult to grant that.
Extremely difficult. And if you want to look at it from the standpoint of jumping through groups, I mean, I don't mind if you have to take a knowledge of civics, Spanish civics, a civics test, history, Spanish history, which is fine. I love Spanish history. I don't mind taking that test. I do mind taking the Spanish test. But there are many Spanish people people in Spanish ancestry who may not speak Spanish and they may want to learn it and do that fine But it something that not everybody can do because you have to pay for the test You have to fly or drive to one of the local testing centers.
There's one in New Mexico, one in Seattle, one in Chicago, one in New York, perhaps other cities, maybe Boston. But you have to get there somehow. You have to pay for the test. you have to hire a lawyer you have to fly to Spain and that's expensive not everybody can do that I can do that but I'm certainly going to try and there's no harm in trying this has been fascinating is there anything else you'd like to add? I would so we have an ancestry of mine that is ancient that I can document and prove down to the LaMont, to the central Oregon peninsula with various means.
This is the 21st century. We can use DNA, plus we can use our ancestral documents in my hands, so diligently compile. So we have a line that is obviously Jewish, both internally and paternally. over the course of 300 years my mother's family and my father's family have married each other so the families married each other and they didn't do that necessarily to preserve, no one consciously did that to preserve Judaism you have to understand that these families were localized and they lived together and worked together and that's who they interacted with so you have families that are variable Jewish families my mother's side came over approximately 130 years after the Inquisition, and my father's side came over approximately 85 years after the Inquisition.
So you have some families that were crypto-Jews that were Jewish that practiced Catholicism in Spain and Portugal for many, many years before coming over here. You have these families that are ancient Jewish families. You also have a family through my father's lineage that can connect to some important rabbis that kept the other living families who claim descendants through our Rashi, which means we have many millions of people in South Texas who can claim their descendants through Rashi, who Rashi claims is a descendant. So you have millions of people who can possibly claim a Davidic language. You also have the situation through the maternal side, where you have a Native American component to our ancestry, to Judaism.
Because my maternal ancestor, Dono Yvonne Camar, married Lisa Fernandez del Rio Frio. Fernandez of Rio Frio is Fernandez is a Jewish name. You see it's like Ben. Like you have Ben Abraham, son of Abraham. Ramirez, son of Ram. Fernandez, son of Fernandez. Ben implies, implies Judaism. You have the patrilineal line, Fernandez, matrilineal line. Then Rio Frio, which means cold river. So you have this woman that my ancestor married These were conquistadores who came over to settle the lands in the Americas So I told him that my mother was in his 20s He came over to the Americas who they meet Native American people or individuals, Native American families who married into Jewish families, which is the case here.
So, my maternal ancestor married a woman who was, whose father, whose patrilineal name was Jewish. But if you look at the Rio Frio, we don't know what that is. Was that a Converso name? Did they convert the family? Did they convert the name to protect themselves from the Inquisition? Or was that a Native American name? When I did the DNA, I picked up the tribe, which is a Nisa tribe in Mexico, which is consistent with that maternal Native American lineage. And as they've studied that, many individuals were beginning to study that information. There are four major Native American tribes A B C D RSSB Almost every conquistador family that came over from Spain and nor Portugal married into one of these lines one of these Native American lines And I say Native American because even though you're picking up lineages that are Native American in Mexico, the lineages are, if you trace them back to the Caucasus, if you trace them way far back, they're all the same Native American lineages.
So the line from my mother's side came over across the Bering Strait to Canada, down to the island of Hispaniola, northern South America, up into southern Mexico and central Mexico. So you have a family, our ancestor on my mother's side, I'm telling you the other kind of mother, married into a family that was Jewish, apparently, that had already married a Native American person. So you have a Jewish man that has Native American roots I think that highly significant in addition to exploring my Judaism and being Jewish I would like to explore the Native American aspect of it as well And if you want to look at it from a Jewish standpoint, that's fascinating because you now have lineages that are Jewish.
And I get emails all the time. Individuals look at my lineage. We're Native American. And I'm not surprised. But it's becoming a surprise for so many people who started studying their Spanish ancestry, discovering they were Jewish, discovering that the Jewish, the crypto-Jews that came over, married Native American families. It's just fascinating. I think very important to history. Brooke, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to hear your oral history. And thank you so much for participating. Thank you, Mayor.