Len, My grandfather's first wife was Irish. Her family looked down on the Portuguese as the N(word)s of Europe.(Sorry, not a word I would use. ) As a result, he anglicized his name. His children from that marriage used Marshall. His wife died young. When he decided to remarry, my grandmother's family were not biased against his heritage (being Portuguese themselves) so his second family returned to the Machado surname.
However, outside the family, my father would never acknowledge his heritage or the fact that he spoke Portuguese fluently. To my great disappointment, he refused to teach my sister or I saying this was the U. S. and English was the only language we needed. Gayle On Aug 11, 2012, at 8:20 AM, Cheri Mello <[email protected]> wrote: > Repost for Len Silva, lensilva at lenstudio.com: > I ran into a wall in tracing an uncle born in 1898. I had him through the > twenties, but then he just seemed to disappear. I finally found that he > had so anglicized his name that I could not find him. Later, talking to > his family members, I found that he did everything he could to hide his > heritage. He was a well respected professional in Providence RI. He felt > that he could not be successful in those professional circles with his > heritage. > > Growing up in New Bedford, I never felt that in the least, but we were blue > collar and not striving for "upper crust" as they say. > > How common was this and have you found it in your own families? > > As an aside, I can remember my first generation grandfather and my father > speaking disparagingly of the "dumb greenhorns" that just got off the > boat. I guess it's just a human condition. > > Len > -- > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. Follow the confirmation directions when > they arrive. > For more options, such as changing to List, Digest, Abridged, or No Mail > (vacation) mode, log into your Google account and visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/Azores. Click in the blue area on the right > that says "Join this group" and it will take you to "Edit my membership." -- To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. Follow the confirmation directions when they arrive. For more options, such as changing to List, Digest, Abridged, or No Mail (vacation) mode, log into your Google account and visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Azores. Click in the blue area on the right that says "Join this group" and it will take you to "Edit my membership."
