Our Secret Heritage
Crypto-Jews of South Texas ©2001
by Alberto Omero Lopez y Cadena
From HaLapid Summer 2002
Descendants of Spanish Jews in South Texas? Yes, we’re there and we still use some Spanish Jewish words (Ladino) all the time! First, I’ll discuss research on the Cadena Jewish genealogy, then my most recent Sephardic traditions discoveries and hidden Jewish practices among some family members. Next I’ll describe related events in the Post-American Civil War Period, The King Ranch and King Rangers—a tale of racism, murder and loss of our Spanish Land Grants. I’ll conclude with the family oral history as told to me by my elders.
Our family links are numerous and span hundreds of years of Mexican and Spanish history. Dr. Francisco Montalvo Cadena (distant relative—great-great-great grandfathers were brothers), and his uncle have researched the family history for over 40 years. The work shows that the Cadenas are inter-related and linked to the royal houses of Europe. The five Jewish genealogical lines leading to the de la Cadenas in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth centuries are:
1. Ha Levis from Castile,
2. Truchas from Zaragoza and Calatayud, Aragon (they assumed the surname Maluenda after the town where they lived),
3. Ha Levis from Aragon (aka ibn Labi de la Cavalleria),
4. Fernandez de Guadalupe family from Granada, royal physicians to the Catholic Kings; their origins were in Burgos and
5. Our royal line linked to Estrada, Ferdinand II (V) (The Catholic King and his association with the beautiful Jewess) Paloma de Toledo.
In the seventeenth century, Antonio de la Cadena Vasquez de Bullon (b. 1552) testified before the Audencia in Mexico and said he lost his inheritance after financing three companies in the failed Oñate expedition to New Mexico. He sought refuge in Havana in 1598 and gathered people wanting to sail to the Philippines in 1600 and 1601. Antonio married Leonor de Alvarado, mestizo daughter of celebrity silver baron Bartolome de Medina and granddaughter of Pedro de Alvarado, aide to Hernan Cortes.
Most of our relations are from Nuevo Leon, Mexico or South Texas. In The Course of Mexican History, Michael C. Meyer and William L. Sherman claim that Spain and the conquistadores were lusting for gold and glory. Escaping the Spanish Inquisition must have been another motivating factor.
Among the first colonizers of Zacatecas and Monterrey, the Cadenas ultimately moved further north, where they established large ranches in Mier and Agualeguas, Mexico. The Church of Nuestra Señora de Concepción de Agualeguas in Agualeguas, Nuevo Leon has Star of David dome windows beneath the Christian cross. In Texas, Cadenas live in Alice, Austin, Ben Bolt, Concepcion, Corpus Christi, Dallas, Falfurrias, Harlingen, Houston, Palito Blanco, San Diego and other places.
My Most Recent Discoveries
In researching family foods, I found a sketch for how to construct a proper sukkot hut in Michael Strassfeld’s The Jewish Holidays—A Guide and Commentary. It’s just like my dad’s grape arbor! I recently asked mom why they don’t eat the grapes. She said “because it’s a sacred structure!” I replied, “Mom, Catholics don’t have sacred grape arbors!” She added that the grapes were used to make wine. She thought it had something to do with the blood of Jesus Christ.
Many foods we eat are not found in Mexican or Spanish cookbooks. I found a few Tejano recipes for fideo, pan de semita and bumuelos de Hanuka in Sephardic cookbooks.
A world traveler, I’ve often been told that I speak an unusual Spanish. “Thank you,” as you know, is “muchas gracias” in most Hispanic countries. However, my people in South Texas say “munchas gracias,” the Ladino form. I made this discovery while reading ancient Sephardic verses in The Encyclopedia Judaica at the Library of Congress.
My Crypto-Jewish Self
I published My Crypto-Jewish Self in 1997 through Kulanu, an international Jewish Organization. The paper details additional cryptic Jewish practices and appears in the web site in the section titled “Articles by Subject” [www.ubalt.edu/kulanu/lopez.html].
Marginally Catholic, I left the Catholic religion in 1982 because it wasn’t meeting my needs and I never felt comfortable with it. Religion had always been a topic of discussion in my family and I remember hearing a lot of arguments about Protestantism versus Catholicism. Most of the Cadena family is now Protestant and devout Christians; some are crypto-Jews like myself. I