Even if one can’t visit Yad Vashem in person, its website is an important resource for research, most notably for its searchable Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names (see http://db.yadvashem.org/names/search.html?language=en), which has names and available biographical information for more than four million individuals out of the approximately six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust [so much for Holocaust denialism], including copies of the “Pages of Testimony” submitted by survivors for those who died. (I was able to find the Pages which my maternal grandfather submitted in the 1950s for his murdered sister and her children, as well as pages for my maternal grandmother’s parents and four brothers and sisters.)
My SIL married a Hispanic man (Cuban) and their children are Jewish with a very Hispanic sounding last name
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This sort of thing happens. My sister, my cousin, and I all married men with Jewish last names, yet none of our children are Jewish. My sister-in-law is raising her children Jewish, but they don’t have a Jewish last name. These things happen.
My brother’s Asian children have an Italian last name…yes, they get funny looks on the first day of school when teachers call roll and see who is who. My other brother has a child who is black, hispanic and white with an Italian last name. Oh well…this is America!
Our neighbor was a Korean war orphan adopted by an OR Caucasian family. His last name is definitely Caucasian. He married a Chinese woman from Hong Kong that he met in college. They have two sons with their dad’s Caucasian last name.
I also married a man with a Jewish name, but we are not Jewish. I imagine that our adopted biracial daughter will get a few strange looks once she starts school, too.
And the word “mulatto”? Who uses that word anymore? I find the term, which is derived from the word “mule”, both derogatory and outdated.
“My brother’s Asian children have an Italian last name…yes, they get funny looks on the first day of school when teachers call roll and see who is who. My other brother has a child who is black, hispanic and white with an Italian last name. Oh well…this is America.”
My son is Asian with an Italian last name and he is Jewish.
^^mom2collegekids summed it up the best: “This is America”
My Jewish cousin married a black man, had a gorgeous bi-racial daughter who had a Bat Mitzvah and also went on Birthright. She looks black, yet she is Jewish. The story is to be careful what you say because you will offend someone with your ignorance, unless you really educate yourself about a certain race, etc. it’s better to remain silent.
Many people have no choice! If you are Asian in an area with a five percent Asian population, you will likely be a minority no matter what neighborhood you live in. It’s a far different thing for someone who is a minority ever day than for someone who isn’t.
Often times socioeconomic status comes into play. For example, the Obama administration is seeking to create more racial integration by putting mostly black housing projects in wealthy, mostly-white neighborhoods. Most people who would welcome upper-middle-class black neighbors resent like hell the idea of having a bunch of poor people of any race plopped down in their midst.
Some of you might be interested in the computer model of Thomas Shelling, who found that even a small preference by people to live in a neighborhood with others of their race resulted in substantial housing segregation. I’ve posted a link below, but even if you assume that people want to live in a neighborhood where 25 percent of their neighbors will be of the same race, then substantial housing segregation occurs. If you increase that preference to 50 percent, then you end up with massive segregation of the type that exists in most communities today.
OK, I stand corrected, their surname just bears no relation to their ethnicity. I have a loved one who is Chinese but adopted two kids from Korea. They have his surname. His wife was a natural redhead and folks would say how much the kids looked like dad.
