Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on October 6, 2019

We are far more Hispanic than we think.

When a crew member in the expedition of Christopher Columbus spotted land on October 12, 1492, he set in motion a world-changing series of events.

The Italian Columbus claimed the New World for his Spanish patrons. This brought the Dutch, English, French and Portuguese. The collision of civilizations decimated the Indigenous population and brought Africans to the Americas.

Spanish language, culture, and religion spread across much of the Americas, including the western third of what is now the United States. Though not strictly Hispanic, French language, culture, and religion spread across what is now Quebec, Canada and down the Mississippi River through the center of the United States to New Orleans.

In South America, Portuguese language, culture, and religion spread across what is now Brazil.

New York City was originally a Lenape trading post at the Battery in what is now downtown. The first immigrant was a Portuguese African Dominican named Juan (Jan) Rodriguez. He left a Dutch ship and set up a home at the trading post.

Eventually the Dutch set up a colony. At that time, the Netherlands was the Spanish Netherlands. It was ruled by King Philip IV of Spain from what is now the capital of Europe, Brussels, Belgium. So even New York City is Hispanic in a way.

Contemporary identity tends to be based on the last colonial power in a region. So though the Spanish were the original colonizers, Americans of the U.S. and Caribbean nations like Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, consider England to be their mother country.

Cuba and the Philippines were the last possessions of the Spanish Empire and the first possessions of the American one.

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Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month 2019 | New York Latin ...

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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