Meet the Spanish Heritage in Me – Chapter 1 of the Chronicles of Heritage

If you know me at all, you probably know that I am very proud of my Spanish heritage. After all, it has so much to do with where I am today. What I love even more is that I am also a wonderful blend of Dominican, Scottish, Irish and American. Yet what does heritage mean?

One definition from the Oxford English Dictionary is ‘property that is or may be inherited; inheritance’, while the meaning I am referring to is ‘relating to things of historic or cultural value that are worthy of preservation’. In my case, these things especially come from my family and they are my ethnic and cultural background. So with that clear, I want to introduce you to the Spanish heritage in me.

This post was previously on my other website, AmaliaVida. 

This post includes affiliate links that we may receive a commission from, at no extra cost to you.

A Little Background on Me

To understand where I come from, it’s good to have the initial rundown as of when I was born. Try to keep up! I was born in the tiny town of Titusville, Pennsylvania. My father is originally from nearby Meadville, Pennsylvania and had met and married my mother who is from the Dominican Republic. When I was turning one year old, they lived in the Dominican, trying to make it there, but then returned to the US and moved to central Florida, where there were more jobs at that time.

That’s right, Florida. I grew up in a little cattle ranching town called St.Cloud, not far from Disney World. I hear it’s not that tiny anymore. Over the years, we saw it and the surrounding area explode with growth. I never cared for Florida (still don’t). I had a great childhood there thanks to my parents, but I always wanted mountains and the change of seasons, snow for Christmas, and things like that. I blame it on our summer vacations to Pennsylvania and my dad raising us kids backpacking the Blue Ridge Mountains. We did also visit the Dominican Republic every few summers, but it was not nearly as much as we would have liked. The contrasts of these two cultures really made an impression on me growing up. As you can imagine, it also began my love for traveling.

So when it was time to go to college, I picked some of the biggest mountains in the US, Colorado, making my decision before I even visited. I lived all throughout the state of Colorado for about fourteen years, until moving to Spain in 2015. That brings us to where I still am now and call home in the Mediterranean beach town of Denia, Spain.

The Spanish Heritage of My Family History

Above Image – My abuelita (grandma) Dinorah on my right and my great aunt Rosita on Eric’s left.

I love history, always have, and especially my family history. My passion for traveling has only reinforced this. Even before my first experience visiting Spain in 2010, I enjoyed researching and learning about my ancestors.

One of my favorite memories as a child and then teen is going through the genealogy book my Aunt Kathy compiled of my father’s family, the Maloneys and Davisons. I would lose myself in the sepia-toned images and recovered stories of history when I would visit my grandparents in the verdant green hills of western Pennsylvania. This side of the family is my Irish and Scottish heritage, going back to ancestors who came over to the new colonies during the Revolutionary War and desserted Britain to join the Americans.

It was not until my early twenties that I was made more aware of my Spanish heritage, when I was presented with the opportunity to receive citizenship in Spain. What I began to discover from there was…well, life changing really. It made me realize there was more to me than what I had so far experienced and learned. It birthed new interests in me, the biggest one being the idea of not just traveling more but living abroad. While I believe in being the creator of my life, I could not ignore a feeling of destiny and being guided to something meaningful and important. Like all great things in life, it’s a story that continues to unfold.

The Dominican Republic

Above Image – My first birthday spent in the Dominican Republic with my abuelito and abuelita.

My mother was born in the Dominican Republic to a Dominican mother, Dinorah Abreu del Riego, and a Spanish father, Jose del Riego Orozco (known as Don Pepe). Now, a lot of people hear of certain places like the Dominican or Puerto Rico and think they’re all Spanish because they speak Spanish. Nowhere near close. We won’t even get into dialects here, but that is a whole other bucket of conversations for another day.

Here’s how I explain it: many Dominicans are Spaniard blood (people from Spain) mixed with the blood of the Taíno, an indigenious Caribbean people who were the natives of the island. Then, because the natives of Hispaniola were killed off so quickly, they were even more strongly blended with the blood of Africans who were soon brought over to the Dominican Republic as slaves.

I love how even today the evidence of certain genes are apparent in my family. My mother, her sister, and even one of my brothers, have corse, super curly hair that resembles African hair. My abuelita (grandmother), has a slightly darker color to her skin than my abuelito (grandfather) did.

READ MORE: The Ongoing Story About Spain that You Need to Know – The Spanish Civil War

Journeying Further Back to Spain, my Spanish Heritage

Above Image – The del Riego coat of arms on the family home in Tuña, Asturias, Spain, which is declared a Democratic Memory site. This is also the birthplace of my grandfather and the historical figure General Rafael del Riego.

Time to journey even further back in time… The reason my abuelito ended up in the Dominican Republic was because he was exiled during the Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1939). If he had stayed in Spain, trust me, he would have been killed. Just before he was able to flee his homeland, he was imprisoned in a concentration camp just across the Spain/France border along the Pyrenees Mountains. And yes, there were already concentration camps existing even though this was just before WWII.

If you think we’ve been taught about what was happening in our world around that time, go dig up stuff about the Spanish Civil War – you may be really surprised at how much has been glossed over and ignored about this period of history in this part of the world.

I used to think that the dictator of Spain at that time, Francisco Franco, and his Nationalist forces, especially disliked my family. But I realize that they didn’t like a lot of people, especially most of their own countrymen. What I’ve since discovered is that they were against what my family stood for, not just in the Spanish Civil War, but going even further back to the first Spanish Republic.

To be continued…

READ MORE: A Hero of the First Spanish Republic – Chapter 2 in the Chronicles of Heritage