Making Airwaves (2023 in Review, Part 2)

Recording "Rediscovering Latinidad" back in July with my cousin Jellissa Alvarado (center) and Briar Rose Sambolin (right, behind the mic)

A big highlight of the year was being able to appear on "Rediscovering Latinidad," a wonderful podcast that takes an unparalleled deep dive into Latino and Latin American genealogy, with magnetic hosts Fausto Jiménez and Briar Rose Sambolin. I previously blogged about the podcast here and here. They recorded their third season on July 8, and invited my distant cousin Jellissa Alvarado and I to come to the taping and appear on multiple episodes! Here's the episodes where you can find me: 

Co-host Fausto Jiménez

Episode 2: "Latinas judías y sus experiencias" - If you were to ask me to dive into a TED Talk, this would probably be my topic. I'm very passionate about Latino Jews, being the son of an American Jew and a Latino immigrant with partial Jewish ancestry. I appear with my cousin Gina Goff to discuss our mutual ancestor, the ever-enigmatic British-Colombian privateer and slaver Juan Cohen. I also go over some famous Latin American Jews like Don Francisco, but not Frida Kahlo.   

Episode 4: "Cien años de soledad" - Gabriel García Márquez's masterpiece gave us a lot to talk about! I focused on José Arcadio Segundo Buendía's singular, haunting mission to keep alive the memory of the massacred banana workers, when the rest of Macondo denies that the massacre ever took place.

Episode 6: "El viaje genealógico de Edward y Jellissa" - This story also means a lot to me: How Jellissa Alvarado and I realized that her Panamanian Vásquez ancestors and my Colombian Vásquez ancestors were part of the same family, and how our common history reflects a larger Caribbean legacy. 

Episode 8: "Adopción y genealogía" - We talk about adopted people finding their birth families and how traditional genealogy can be expanded to include adopted families and chosen families. 

Episode 11: "Conflictas de la familia" - We spill tea and talk about how to navigate through family conflicts. I bring up how Facebook, WhatsApp, and other social media can help bring estranged family branches back together. 

We will record Season 4 in early 2024, so stay tuned for more episodes!

Some More Latino Genealogy Wins

Deep ancestry - I deduced more insights from my DNA matches, such as my Colombian grandmother having the matrilineal mtDNA haplogroup B2d, one of the oldest Indigenous lines in the Americas. Also, I made an interesting comparison (which should probably be a separate entry) of two DNA services' classifications of my chromosome segments. One company said I had "Welsh" DNA markers, but the other company said these segments were "Iberian." It's a good cautionary tale about reading too much into ethnic admixture results. 

Mexican primos - Through the Spanish archival website PARES, I found the 1796 petition of my presumptive 5th-great-grandfather, Lázaro María de Herrera Leiva, for a civilian award, the Cross of the Order of Carlos III. He spelled out the military history of his naval captain father and army commander grandfather, and included the detail that his grandfather's nephew died in the siege of Luxembourg in 1684. That ill-fated nephew also appears in the Herrera Leiva family history written by the Canarian genealogist José de Viera y Clavijo. Tracing this extended branch of the Herrera Leiva family in the Canary Islands, I found some descendants settled in Mexico, including Simón de Herrera Leiva y Sotomayor, governor of Nuevo León from 1795-1810. 

El Tiempo - Google News Archive Search has more extensively indexed the leading newspaper of Bogotá, Colombia. I found many relevant articles, like the 1959 obituary of my great-grandmother, Romelia Rueda, whose death date was previously unknown. I also found an article from 1979 making the compelling case that my grandfather had "discovered" (and maybe forged?) a counterfeit document about the Comuneros. The writer points out how the forgery contains many anachronistic phrases directly lifted from the later writings of Simón Bolívar, who my grandfather had studied extensively. 

The most amazing find is a 1951 article on the Colombian Liberal Party's 1897 assembly, which includes a photo montage of all of the attendees, including my great-great-great-grandfather, Pedro A. Lara. The largest photo at the top right shows Aquileo Parra, Colombia's last "radical" Liberal president, and Pedro Lara is probably one of the faces in the bottom half. 

"La asemblea de 1897," including my ancestor Pedro A. Lara and other now-forgotten Liberal Party leaders.

This image marks a sad turning point in Colombian history, as Liberal leaders were debating whether to take part in the upcoming presidential election of 1898 or rebel against the conservative government. Aquileo Parra, Pedro Lara, and other aging Liberal leaders argued for reconciliation, since they had fought in previous civil wars dating back to the 1850s, while younger Liberal leaders including General Rafael Uribe Uribe demanded armed rebellion. 

The Liberals presented a candidate, and the 1898 election went as poorly as they expected. The national electors selected the conservative National Party candidate by an overwhelming 78%, while the Liberal candidate got a paltry 15%. The aging Liberal leaders finally lost control of their party and Liberal guerrilla armies started the Guerra de los Mil Días in 1899, which killed 2.5% of the country's population. Colombia would have to wait another 75 years before having free presidential elections.

Questions? Comments? Please email me at ruedafingerhut (at) gmail.com.