Chinese

 

Photo of Joseph Marsella de Silva

My mother's side of the family is big, she is one of 10 siblings (now 8). When I was growing up it was common talk among everyone that this man in the above photo (my mother's grandfather) was of Spanish origin. My mother's father looked Spanish with his olive skin, dark hair and brown eyes as did most of his siblings, as does my mother, her twin sister, their oldest brother, my sister and some of my cousins so everyone accepted it.

Around 15 years ago I started working on my family tree. Everyone was easy to find except this man, for some reason I couldn't find him anywhere. A bunch of us; me, my mother, my sister, my brother, some cousins, an aunt and uncle took DNA tests and we were most surprised to see that he was not Spanish but instead Chinese from the south eastern part of China.

It explained alot. After looking through all the family photos we had, we realised that the Chinese ethnicity was staring at us in the face. So why the lies about being Spanish? Well after digging into New Zealand's history I realised that my great grandfather probably said that to avoid racism. I also found an article online about my grandfather's brother Jose being racially abused in Wellington many years ago when he was playing the violin. 

It's been quite a journey...