What's Your Heritage? ... Where Ya From?

Born in the U.S., as were my parents. Paternal and maternal grandparents born in the southern-most part of Italy, Calabria -- very agrarian types from what I have been told -- unfortunately, I hardly knew them.

Mom's parents are from Sicily .dad's parents are from Italy. it's no wonder I can't agree with myself. Grandma says sicilians are dirty and the other side grandma says Italians are snobbs...

@bottom feeder: Did your grandparents use the phrase, "Testa dura" to describe either a Sicilian or a Calabrese? Did you ever hear a northern Italian refer to anyplace south of Rome as Africa? We Italians believe our place of origin is the only worthwhile place on Earth.

Dad is from Casper Wyoming and is of Danish descent.

Mom was born in Honduras. She came up to New Orleans in a banana boat with her 3 siblings and my grandma. Grandma escaped from my Granddad after he beat her one time too many...threw her down the stairs and when she didn't get up, he put his gun to her head and said "you know what we do to horses who can't walk anymore".  She got up.

Mom and Dad met in New Orleans. My brother and I were both born there, but we moved all over growing up cuz my Dad's work kept him moving. When Dad retired they moved back to New Orleans and still live there along with almost all the rest of my gazillion cousins, uncles, aunts and extended family.

Met my wife here in Watsonville, and she is Honduran so our daughters are 3/4 Honduran.

 

Wife has a huge family in Honduras still, and so do I....after my grandma left my grandad got married like 6 more times and had a bunch of kids with each wife and with a bunch of girlfriends. When I visited there when I was single I had to watch which girls I was hitting on cuz I was related to so many.

 

Cool topic Eric!

 

Sincerely,

Jim

I'm Filipino Mexican with a hint of Irish  hence the screen flipback. Lol. My dad if full Filipino and my mom is Mexican and Irish mix.
Rey....

Of Hmong decent - born in Thailand, but parents crossed the Mekong in the dead of night from Laos to escape the Communist Pathet Lao army at the end of the Vietnam war. If you type in the tags Hmong, Secret War and Laos in Google you'll get about 300,000 hits.

Entire family Immigrated to US in the late 70s from refugee camps in Thailand. First thing that my parents sought out was the lush soil of the central california valley because all that the Hmong people really knew were agriculture so that's what we did - farming. The second thing my parents sought out was US citizenship.

I grew up in Stockton and moved out to the Bay Area when I was 18 for college and never could go back over the altamont pass. I've been married for 10 years and my beautiful wife is also of Hmong decent, but since I've picked up kayak fishing the past few years, she's threatening to leave me because all my weekends are spent out on water.

This is a great thread. One thing that I do notice is that every single Yak fisherman that I've encountered has been completely friendly and always willing to help. Although I'm a new member, I'm very proud to be a part of NCKA.
 

Santa Cruz/Monterey County born and raised.  Living  on 1/3 of my gradparents original piece of land where they raised Pheasants.  Learned the passed down trades of woodworking from my Grandparents who retired after many years owning their own furniture refinishing and crafting business in the Salinas area.  They also had extreme talents in painting and the arts.  My dad passed down his lifelong experience of metal crafting and working.  Combined, I am combining my own twist on craftsmanship combining medias of wood, metal and glass.  So, my heritage is a mixed bag of craftsmanship meets arts.  Dad's family is from the Oklahoma area where, as I understand it, the high school has 5 floats in the Homecoming parade ....  Freshman, Soph, Jr, Senior and the Curtis Family float.  Turns out they are huge in the media business and own/operate a great number of the radio stations in the state.  Guess this makes me a Ca-oakie.

Mom's parents are from Sicily .dad's parents are from Italy. it's no wonder I can't agree with myself. Grandma says sicilians are dirty and the other side grandma says Italians are snobbs...

@bottom feeder: Did your grandparents use the phrase, "Testa dura" to describe either a Sicilian or a Calabrese? Did you ever hear a northern Italian refer to anyplace south of Rome as Africa? We Italians believe our place of origin is the only worthwhile place on Earth.

HA!  My grandpa was born in Rome, and he convinced me at a young age that it is indeed the center of the entire universe.

On Dad's side my great grandparents and Grandfather lived and died on the Res. Ogalala Sioux. From my mom we could trace to the mayflower over the pond to English, Scottish, dutch, and Italian. Took me a looong time to learn to control that temper. lol

I'm supposedly related to Sir Francis Drake. Not sure if it's true, but it sounds cool.

Born and raised in Salinas, CA and still living there. My main lines include Dutch, French, Irish and German so yeah pretty much a euromutt. The Babione name is French and came over in the 1780's which is obviously my father's side and my mother descends from a second generation Irish mother and a first generation Dutch father. The only thing notable in the family history is that my grandfather fought in WWII as a sergeant in Army intellegence.

This is a really interesting thread.

Born and raised in Tondo the slum capital of the Philippines at that time.  Father moved us into a nicer Barrio Kapitolyo neighborhood in Pasig after my father got a decent job at the U.S. Embassy.  Our entire family was allowed to immigrate to the U.S. when I was 14.  I am now a proud citizen of the United States of America the greatest country in the world!  Still visit the Philippines almost every year to play golf and fish.  My last name is Santos but it's not because I'm part spanish or portuguese.  Spain's influence on status quo made many filipinos change their last names during the occupation.

Rey

My parents are both from the Philipines. FOB after WWII. My father is Philpino, German French, my mom is Philipino Spanish ( guess that makes me a member of the HAC being a Flip!) . I was born here in SF and have resided here most of my life. I have tons of relatives who live here in the bay area too.

Yakhopper - I am proud to say that I am over 80% Hawaiian blood.

That explains Tiki Lagoon. 

I am a California native ( born in SacTown) and from 6 months on grew up in Monterey / Seaside / Del Rey Oaks.   I am Scottish / German from my father and some sort of Missouri hillbilly mix from my Mom.
Mom's family farmed grapes and peaches in Delhi near Turlock before moving to Soquel. Interestingly my wife ( born & raised in Fremont) her Japanese Canadian side farmed peaches and apples etc in the Okanagan Valley, BC and some of of her father's Japanese American family farmed near Turlock and still do today. Her father's side was interned at Topaz Lake Relocation Center, although he was already in the Army, just out of bootcamp, when WWII broke out.
My father was born and raised in Capitola. Grandpa worked on the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges and later owned a Phillips 66 gas station in Capitola. The most famous Graebe relative is Herman (Fritz) Graebe who built railroad bridges on the Russian front / Ukraine using Jewish and Gypsy labor. He and his secretary forged papers to allow hundreds of his laborers to escape, He willing testified for the prosecution at Nuremberg  and was driven out of his village because he did. He then moved to California - as is chronicled in the book - The Moses of Rovno. Hollywood wanted to make a movie about it, but to spice it up they wanted to imply an affair between he and his secretary. He said NO! Shortly after that a movie came out about a guy named Schindler. Very similar stories including both stealing trains  for their labors to escape the Final Solution.

Poor white trash, (Seattle area from one side, and a mix of Oklahoma redneck and Cherokee on the other).  Born in San Jose. 

Mom's family moved to Cali from NY state because her dad like bolo ties & cowboy boots

My dad's family were old style Santa Barbara.

My waterman mentor (my sister's husband) came from Hawaii by way of Taiwan &  surfed the west coast right here in SC at Steamers sometime in the mid 1960's.

I was lucky enough to be born & raised in the beachside university slum of Isla Vista. Wish I'd had a kayak back in those days!