Ethnicity Profile

After taking an Ethnicity in America course I became interested in discovering who it is I came from and how those people have indirectly formed who I am today. After extensive research and interviews with family I was able to trace back my lineage and see how different decisions by family members lead to where I am today.

One indicator of become an adult is learning the secrets of your family and understanding where you came from. Knowing about your family and how they moved around and how the lived is important to understanding why you are how you are. Being able to talk to multiple family members and getting to heat them remember about their lives and the life of my ancestors was an enlightening experience.

My mother, Maria Haydee Fiallos was born and raised in the small town of Leon, Nicaragua. She is the daughter of Maria Antonieta Gutierrez Arana and Alvaro Jose Fiallos Oyanguern, both who were born and raised in Leon, Nicaragua. My grandfather is the son of a Spanish woman and a Nicaraguan man. This Spaniard blood is the reason for the fair skin, light eyes, and blonde hair that runs in the family.

My great grandmother, Soledad Oyanguren emigrated from San Sebastian, Spain to Nicaragua. Soledad came to Latin America with her mother Micaela, three brothers, and one sister. They did not travel with their father Eugenio Oyanguren because he was a musician in the opera of Madrid. He would return every couple years to see my great great grandmother and after each visit she would shortly then fall pregnant and then he would leave again to work. Eugenio left to Brazil to play music and Micaela went with him and there she became pregnant with her youngest and last child but she returned to Spain to give birth. That was the last time Eugenio was ever seen.

Soledad’s oldest brother, Ernesto, was the reason for their migration. In 1910, he was a priest in Spain and was invited by the bishop of Nicaragua to go and be his assistant. The family first travelled to Peru, where they resided for only a few months before continuing the journey to Nicaragua. The family settled in the town of Nicaragua where Ernesto worked with the church and the youngest brother, Benito studied to also become a priest. It was in Leon that Soledad met my great grandfather Mariano Fiallos Gil.

Marian Fiallos Gil was born in Nicaragua to two Nicaraguans, Rosario Gil and Mariano Fiallos. Rosario was the daughter of Francisco Gil, a Spaniard who left Spain at the age of 17 on a boat and later became a captain and owner of his own boat. The boat docked in Nicaragua and burnt down leaving him to move to El Viejo, a small town in the municipal of Chinandega, Nicaragua. There he married a woman whose last name was Rojas and had many children.

Rosario was a friend with Mariano’s first and late wife. Once she passed away the two remained friends. It is said that Rosario loved music and dancing and would often visit Mariano to play the piano. Upon one of the visits Mariano proposes to her by taking her in front of a mirror and telling her she was looking at his new wife. Mariano bought a small estate in the Valle de las Zapatas where they had many different crops like coffee and cotton. My great grandfather and their son Mariano inherited the estate.

Soledad and Mariano were neighbors and then later married. They had five children, my grandfather being one. Mariano and the family moved to Guatemala where he was the ambassador of Nicaragua. During this time there was coup of the Nicaraguan government by Anastasio Somoza in 1936 and the family was not allowed to return to Leon. They spent 4 years exiled in Guatemala until Soledad was allowed to return with only her youngest children. My great grandfather was not allowed to return and went to Washington to find work while the family was in Nicaragua. He was not able to return until 1948 where they lived in Leon.

In 1991, my great grandmother was the oldest Spanish woman in Nicaragua. She had retreated to speaking the basque language of her hometown. This status of being the oldest living Spanish woman led to King Juan Carlos de Borbon of Spain to go and visit her. She could not walk up to where he was being presented so he walked down to her home to create and speak with her.

My grandmother, Maria Antonieta Gutierrez Arana was born in Nicaragua to Nicaraguan parents. Her family can be traced back to the early 1800s all having lived in Nicaragua. Her father, Rafael Gutierrez studied medicine in Leon. It was in Leon where he met his wife Haydee Josefa Arana, who my middle name is credited to. They married in 1944 and moved to Managua to where they settled down and had children. He was practicing medicine and later on in 1956 took the family to Chicago for two years to specialize in dermatology. They returned to Nicaragua where he abandoned being a dermatologist and took up psychiatry, he was one of the first psychiatrists in Nicaragua. During this time Nicaragua was going through multiple liberal movements challenging the government. My great grandfather Rafael was a conservative man and was put in jail on multiple accounts because of his opposition to the liberals.

The family lived in Managua but had a home at the beach in Poneloya. It is here that my grandparents meet at the age of 13. They both had houses at the same beach and one day ran into each other leaving their homes. My grandmother was sent to New Orleans, to a catholic school to complete high school and prevent her from marrying my grandfather too soon. Once graduating high school, she went to San Francisco to study secretarial work because he father did not allow her to study medicine like she wanted to because it was a mans.

She returned to Nicaragua and in 1964 they marry and move to Leon where my grandfather was finishing his thesis. There they had their four children and my grandfather was a professor of biology at the UNAN. During this time there were multiple movements by a group called the FSLN that were opposed to the government. A civil war broke out and the family moved to Leon in 1979 to Managua once the war is over. In Managua, my grandfather worked as secretary of agriculture for the Minesterio de Agricultura and had one more child.

My father, Rodrigo Royo was born and raised in Cali, Colombia to two Colombian parents. Both of my paternal grandparents have ancestors that came from Spain and can be traced back to the 1700s. Antonio Royo, who we call Avi (the Catalan word for grandfather), was born in Cali but his father Antonio Royo Martin was a Spaniard from La Fresneda. My great grandfather came to Colombia at the age of 18 to work with his older brother, Emilio. Emilio travelled to Chile alone as a book whole seller but was not successful so he decided to move to Barranquilla, Colombia in 1915 because it was a booming town for commerce. While there he opened a print and bookshop that was called Libreria e Imprenta Cervantes. The store was so successful that he brought his brother, my great grandfather to help him. Antonio was there for a few years but did not like it so he returned to Spain. The situation in Spain was deteriorating and two years later he and his sister go to Colombia to join Emilio.

At the end of the 1930s, Emilio sold the company and Antonio marries a Colombian woman, Ligia Mesa. Together they move to Cali because it became a booming town due to the opening of a railroad. Antonio opens a marketing company called Mulitmarcas, which becomes very successful. The success of the company led to Antonio to bring many Spaniards over to Colombia to help and work with him. Ligia and Antonio have five children, one of which is my grandfather Antonio. After graduating from high school, my grandfather Antonio went to Spain to study mechanical engineering for eight years to return and work for the family business.

The company continued as a family company changing gears into different printing presses. The family business has been in the family for three generations starting with Emilio and now with my father. The business began with selling books and evolved into selling the machinery involved in all kinds of printing.

My grandmother Consuelo Dominguez Rebolledo was born in Colombia to Colombian parents but has Spanish ancestry. The family can be traced to Burgos, Spain in the 1700s but the reason for their travel is unknown. Both Consuelo’s mother and father come from families that owned estates of sugar cane and were very wealthy. Consuelo’s father, Luis Ernesto Dominguez Sanclamente was a painter, professor, poet and farmer. His family owned lots of land in Buga, Colombia producing brown sugar from sugar cane crops. He married Maria Josefa Rebolledo who too came from a wealthy family of landowners.

Maria Josefa had four sisters and one brother each inheriting land to tend and live on. Her brother, Aristobulo had down syndrome and was always kept on the estate because of societies perception of those who were mentally ill. Maria Josefa and Luis Ernesto married and move to the inherited land and name it Rancho Grande. They lived there for many years but eventually had to sell the land because of tensions in the government between liberals and conservatives.

My grandfather and grandmother met in 1966 at a party in the country club, Club San Fernando. This country club was very well known in society and was filled with people of Spanish descent like them. In 1967 they married and had four children, my father being one.

Both my mother and father came to the United States for university. When my mother graduated from high school in 1990 she got her visa to go study electrical engineering at San Francisco State University. She chose San Francisco because she had two aunts that lived there, although she did not know them prior to studying she still went to live with them. My mother moved to San Francisco months before the school year began to learn English. Most of her classmates were Asian and she found it hard to meet people. She was only able to call home about once a month for five to ten minutes because it was very expensive and could only visit once a year during Christmas.

Along with her student visa, my mother got a work visa to be able to work part time at places like a dry cleaner, bank, and music store. Where she studied there were Asians, Latinos, some first or second generation and Americans. She says she felt excluded and had a hard time making friends because of her appearance and accent. Her intentions were to study and graduate in San Francisco and then return to Nicaragua but she met my father.

In 1989, my father spent six months in Washington D.C. where he studied English and lived with his aunt. After the six months he returned to Colombia and started university. He did about a year before receiving his green card in 1991 and moving to California to study mechanical engineering and live with another aunt. He first took classes at San Mateo College, where there were more Latin people. The next year he changed schools and went to San Francisco State University. The idea was to graduate from mechanical engineering and return to Colombia to work at the family business but the situation with drugs and violence in Colombia was getting worse.

My parents met at the end of 1992 through a mutual friend and began dating. In 1994 my father graduate but my mother still had a year left of school. In August of 1994 my parents married in Nicaragua, where they were had a traditional wedding ceremony. In my family there are two ceremonies the civil wedding and the church wedding. By the end of the year a previous employer of my father told him that if he moved to Miami and found a market to sell his products he should go.

My parents took the opportunity of starting their own business that was an extension of the family business and moved to Miami in 1995. My mother did not graduate from San Francisco State but once in Miami took classes at Florida International University. Miami was filled with Latin influence and my mother had some family already living here. Once settled in to life in Miami my father’s younger brother and younger sister came to live with them. In 1996 my brother was born and was name after my father and two years later in 1998 I was born.

I am a first generation American and I consider myself to be a Latina. I was born and raised in Miami, Florida so the Latin culture was always around me. My parents raised my brother and I surrounded by Latin traditions and ensured it was always a part of us. Living in Miami meant that not only at home was a mix of Spanish and English spoken but at school and with friends, but this did not seem like enough to make me a Latina.

When I would go to visit family in Latin America to them and their friends I was “gringa.” which means American, but then when I was in the US I didn’t feel completely “gringa.” I don’t look like the stereotypical Latina and I often surprise people when they find out I speak fluent Spanish. This made me question whom I was growing up. I was not ashamed of being in either category but I didn’t feel like I was in one more than the other; it was like I was in a limbo. Leaving Miami and coming to DC away from that prominent Latin culture made me realize I do identify more with the Latin part of who I am and embrace it more.

I am a Colombian and Nicaraguan American. I eat the traditional foods of arepas, quesillo, pan de bono, gallopinto and more. Growing up, every summer for about two weeks my parents would send my older brother and I to stay with my grandparents. During this time we would only speak Spanish and indulge in the Nicaraguan culture learning about where we came from. Visiting and constantly talking about where I came from helps me understand more and more who I am.