Ancestry: Roots

The experiment calls for us to trace our ancestry in any manner possible and trace where we as an ethnicity came from. I decided to concentrate on my mothers' side of the family because it is more interesting and something other members in my family have already started to investigate. I choose not to concentrate on my fathers' side because being Mexican is the general term people associate me with. I wanted to elaborate on the other part of my culture, being Native American.

From the stories my great grandmother told my mother back in the day, we have always known that we were Native American Indians. When my mother was told these stories it was not that big of a deal to be Indian, therefore she did not pay much attention to detail. After my great grandfather died, we found out his brother was receiving benefits from certain Indian tribes and was entitled to land. This information made my mother and her siblings start to question their original background in specific detail. When they contacted their uncle he had no information for them and told them that he would not share how he was able to receive benefits. He told my aunt that he wanted the family to work hard and not accept free money. My aunt explained that she just wanted to know about her father, who was deceased by now, so my great uncle shared some stories with her.

We found out that my great grandfather was from the Mascalero-Apache tribe in New Mexico. He was born in New Mexico, Katilino Quivas, in the late 1890's. He was kicked out of his own tribe for marrying my great grandmother, who was from a different tribe. Some people in my family say that he was the chief of the tribe, so then did he kick himself out? We are not sure if that is true and are trying to find literature on the notion. What we do know is that he changed his last name from Quivas to Beltran. At that time there was a lot of segregation and hostility towards Indians. His brother notes that it was better to be considered Mexican than Indian at the time, for Indians were lower than Blacks. They concealed their Native American background and hid the fact that they were from a tribe. Katilino Beltran then joined the army and fought in World War I.

The historical circumstance of my ethnicity is something I am very proud of and want to find more information on. I would like to learn more on the tribe my great grandfather was from. I think it is of great cultural significance