SAN ANTONIO – Mara Benitez didn’t think there would be much to her Hispanic family tree, but when she started learning more about her genealogy she said it not only made her more proud of where she comes from, but realized her family had a story.
“I was just kind of like, you know, I’m your average Mexican-American from the San Antonio area, you know, your average Hispanic,” Benitez, the assistant librarian at the Seguin Public Library said.
For example she learned her last name used to be Benito before it was Benitez.
“A lot of people you’ll notice, that have a Hispanic name like Ramirez, Gomez, Perez,” Benitez said. “You don’t realize is that E-Z or E-S ending like, Cervantes, that actually denotes the word ‘of.’ So you come from the Benito family. I’m Benitez. That’s what I am, of Benito.”
She also always thought her family’s roots were mostly linked to the border towns near Brownsville, but she discovered that both sides of her family have links to the town of Venado, Mexico.
“I didn’t realize I had generations of rich history on one specific town until I did this research,” Benitez said.
It’s why Benitez is teaching a free “Find Your Roots” class in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month in the 2nd Floor Technology Lab at the Seguin Public Library on Sept. 30 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. You can register for the class by clicking here.
Benitez said in the class you will learn what to look for and how to get past certain road blocks. She says a lot of Hispanic family history can get lost or forgotten and it’s important to research and learn it.
“So that’s kind of what I want everybody to get out of this class, that you have your story and it’s just out there for you to find,” Benitez said. “You just have to go looking for it. A lot of our history sometimes can’t be found in a textbook. And mainly that’s because it’s just lost. You know, we’re in a country like America, the majority of us are immigrants whether it was thousands or hundreds of generations ago. You know, we all came from somewhere else for the most part.”
She said knowing your own history as a Hispanic is important because the word Hispanic is really an umbrella term.
“But really Hispanic covers all of Central and Latin America, you know, and each country is so different,” Benitez said. “The islands, even across the ocean in Spain, all of them bring their own flavor into the word Hispanic. So it kind of helps round that out. And knowing exactly where you come from, what all of your personal history is, all of your personal culture is and where that comes from. And that just kind of rounds yourself out as a person and you’re kind of helping the world uncover that story whenever you’re doing that,” she said.
For a full list of events happening during Hispanic Heritage Month, check out our full list here.