I have something fitting to share on Día de la Raza, the 530th anniversary of Columbus landing at the Bahaman island Guanahani, as named by its indigenous Lucayan people. This day for many Latin Americans and Latinos (myself included!) is a chance to reflect on the encounters, conflicts, and intermingling of Native American, African, and European peoples and their descendants in the Americas.
So it's appropriate to point your attention to "Rediscovering Latinidad," a new podcast on Latin American genealogy hosted by a college friend of mine, Fausto Jiménez, and his friend, Briar Rose Sambolin. Fausto and Briar Rose are well-informed and engaging speakers who want to inspire Latinos to talk to family members, search for records, and learn more about their family history and the history of their countries of origin.
They do a great job of explaining the basics of genealogy, like how to approach family members to ask potentially dicey questions about the past, what to expect from DNA tests, and how to search resource-rich websites like FamilySearch.org. Fausto talks about learning the history of his homeland, the Dominican Republic, while Briar Rose shares a bicultural perspective I can relate to, contrasting the difficulty of searching for her Salvadorean ancestry with the relative ease of searching for her Western European ancestors.
"Rediscovering Latinidad" has released five episodes so far, and it's worth checking out! Find the show wherever you find your podcasts.
Questions? Comments? Please email me at ruedafingerhut (at) gmail.com.
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