The Land Bridge

When my mother brought me home from the hospital, my uncles teased her that she had brought home the wrong baby -- she had the Chinese baby and some poor Chinese family had a Mexican baby.


I used this as the basis for questioning whether or not I was adopted during my teenage angst. But these samephysical features - high cheek bones, small dark almond shaped eyes and small nose -- were said to resemble my grandmother, the one who called herself Katie.


We met up with Emilio -- the "adopted" son of my parent's cousin Romelia's sister -- in Mesilla last Sunday. When he met me he said "como se parece a Katie" (she looks so much like Katie) to my mom. He had met my grandmother when she visited El Paso and when they made their trips to California.


["adopted" because since Elvira (Romelia's sister) was single, she was not allowed to officially adopt Emilio even though she did raise him from his childhood.]


As I was growing up and people remarked on my physical features -- that I seemed Asian and not Mexican -- I had to explain a few things --

1) most Mexicans are mixed white and native

2) there used to be this thing called the land bridge between Asia and Alaska at one time...


My father has always wondered whether or not my grandmother was Indian and if so what kind. It has remained a speculation because we know so little about her mother and father. All we know for sure is that her father (Ysidoro) was a land owner and merchant. We can assume he was mostly white, though we don't really know. But we know next to nothing about her mother, Tomasa -- which is why she has been the focus of most of my research while in Texas and New Mexico.


Somehow in the back of my mind this has been a quest for information about that branch of the famly. But since El Paso was such a bust in terms of finding anything definitive or even filling out more of the family tree, I am still searching for her genealogy and her story.


At the archive and state library I used their ancestry.com accout to plow through all the names that I got from Romelia.


For the past few days, I have been wrestling with the pieces of information that I think I know... and trying to put it together if it is possible to do that with what I think I found at the archive.


Here's what I "know" -- they are really just threads, tidbits...

>Ysidoro (Isidoro?) never made it to El Paso

>His land was left in care of a family member -- relationship unclear but probably related to Ysidoro

>Children and mother (mother piece still doubtful) left in care of famly in El Paso but not set up in their own home -- theoretically to wait for Ysidoro to join them

>Romelia's family is maybe related to me on both sides (Tomasa and Ysidoro) though we can only find a direct line to Ysidoro


Thinking through these bits and what I know about patriarchal Mexico at the turn of the century -- it makes sense that the land would be left in care of the father's family and that the children would be left in the care of the mother's family.

Add in the info I found at the archive on ancestry.com -- most of which I cannot prove are people who are really my relatives --- just people who have the same names as people who Romelia told me about...


What I found on ancestry.com and at the archive:

>A baptismal record for an Ysidoro who could be my great grandfather but not for Tomasa

>A woman with the same name as the woman with whom my grandmother and siblings were left -- she also had a brother on this census record with the same name as the brother this woman had in my family. On the census record she and her mother and siblings are listed as Indian.

>There is a tribe of Pueblo indians, the Ysleta of El Paso, that was cut off from the New Mexico Ysleta back in the 1600s -- they are not federally recognized however they have created a list of people in the tribe; the archivist on duty on my last day at the archives just happens to be the one who is helping the Ysleta of El Paso to research their genealogy -- and he confirmed the family I found on ancestry is an inscribed member of the Ysleta tribe.


So, the wheels are turning -- what if Tomasa was related to those folks who were Ysleta then she might have been Ysleta as well, but from the other side -- from Chihuahua. It would make sense that her baptism was not recorded at the Cathedral like my great-grandfather's was -- because the natives would not have rated that kind of treatment. It would explain why I can't find records for Tomasa anywhere.


Assuming all my assumptions are correct or even plausible and those people are really related, it could the missing link between me and the land bridge.


Of course the connection between that family and my family is not established because I don't know they dates of birth. Boy, it sure would be great to have the history detectives on my side on this one.

-- I wish I had the energy to add photos to this post... but it has been sitting in the drafts folder for weeks, and it is just time to let it see light.... pictures may come, but they won't have anything to do with the post.