Never mind the fact that “Puerto Rican” Bronx gal Sonia Mara Sotomayor is Afro-Barry’s nomination for Supreme Court Justice but who “never thought about” the rights of an unborn child. Never mind the fact that the Democrats are desperate to get her confirmed in 48 days, beginning hearings July 13, to be finished August 6, before the Senate recess–despite her sloppy, incomplete questionnaire, hastily returned. Sen. Leahy thinks this is equitable.

Sonia Maria Sotomayor.

Of perhaps more importance, or at least more interest, is the history of Spanish Jews, slavery, and the New World. Democrats and liberals haven’t quite edited that history yet.

According to Milton Meltzer (Slavery, 1971), Jews are quite familiar with the ancient form of labor management, both as labor and management. Constantine had ruled (339 AD) that Jews could not own Christian labor, nor were Jews allowed to proselytize their labor.

In 1348, in Spain, the Code of Castile again prohibited Jews from owning Christian labor. If any Africans (Moors) owned by Jews decided to convert to Christianity, there were immediately freed.

Before that, in 7th century Spain, the Visigoths oppressed Jews, driving them to the point of of a conspiracy. When the Visigoths uncovered the plot, all Jews of Spain were enslaved. Jewish families were decimated, and could never obtain freedom. It wasn’t until the Arab Muslims invaded in 711 that freedom was restored to the Jews. They were granted religious freedom as well. This, of course, was to insult or denigrate Christianity.

We’ve already noted the persecution of Spanish Jews in the 15th century. As soon as the Christians re-captured Granada, routing the Alhambra, driving out the Islamic invader (1492), Jews were expelled from Iberia (those who did not convert, anyway).

Harriot Rochlin (Pioneer Jews, 1984) tells us of the Jews in Mexico as early as 1521, and then of the great El Reino de León of 1579, comprised of “conversos” (Jews who at least pretended to be Catholic).

Martin Gilbert (Atlas of Jewish History, 1969) tells us that the Dutch West Indies Co. created a Jewish colony in Curacao, (Dutch Guiana, South America), in 1652. In 1659, The French West India Co. created a Jewish colony in Cayenne (French Guiana). (The British had contemplated a haven for Jews to be established in Surinam, about the same time, 1654.)

A couple of big names that made their way to New Port, Rhode Island (via New Amsterdam–New York), are Jacob Rodrigues Rivera (arrived 1745), and Aaron Lopez (arrived 1750). They became rather fabulously successful traders (merchants), and whaling industry owners.

But that’s “American” Jewish history. What about the South American, Caribbean, or Central American Jews?

There are a number of web sites these days which address this matter. Among them are Society for Crypto Judaic Studies, Sephardic History Channel, and The Association of Crypto Jews, to name but a few. Well, maybe everyone’s trying to get in the act, but, the fact is, there are a number of sites and pages for specifically Puerto Rican crypto Jews. Here are just a few:

Crypto Jews in Puerto Rico
Jewish Immigration to Puerto Rico
Puerto Rican crypto-Jews band together
Jewish life emerging
Sephardi genealogy comes of age

So, there’s no question of Jews being in Puerto Rico. Some say as early as the 1493, coming along with Columbus’ second voyage. Ezratty says they were cryptic Jews, of necessity, and their descendants today have only their intuitions of Judaism.

Celina Baez Sotomayor, 82.

But, since Sonia Maria Sotomayor won’t give us her family history, we’re left to speculate a bit. Personally, I believe Sotomayer is one of these crypto-descendants. Her father, Juan Sotomayor, and her mother, Celina Báez Sotomayor, are the only names she gives us (which is a lot more than some people claiming to be American Indian will give, like Rudy ‘Youngblood’ Gonzalez and Brent M. Davids). But little is known about the background of either.

1927 in Lajas, a mostly rural area on Puerto Rico’s southwest coast. After her mother died when she was young and her father abandoned the family, Celina Baez was raised by her older siblings. When she was in high school, she enrolled in the U.S. Army, becoming a member of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corp, and the military sent her to work for a year in Manhattan during World War II.

After leaving the military, she decided to stay in New York, where she met her future husband, Juan Luis Sotomayor, who was from the Santurce area of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

So, there is the question as to which parent might be a crypto-descendant. Because of the name “Sotomayor,” I originally thought it might be the father. But, the character of the mother, little known as it is, smacks of something a lot stronger than cane sugar.

Again, there appears to be nothing “of color” in this family. They appear neither Negro nor Arawak (Taino–Venezuelan Indian). If they are simply Spanish, then they are not people of color. Just because a person speaks Spanish (we assume Sonia does–though she hasn’t, publicly, yet), doesn’t mean he is a person of color. Just because a person comes from Puerto Rico (and Sonia doesn’t) doesn’t mean he is a person of color.

Liberals think that “rags to riches” (where are the riches?) story, that compelling personal narrative of coming from the ‘ghetto’ to the Supreme Court is going to ram-rod the nomination through. If it does, it will be the most laughable, licentious lapse of integrity in the recent history of Congress. And Republicans are too impotent to even raise their voice against it.

Sonia, at six or seven years old. What does
she look like to you? A Moor?