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Thursday, May, 20, 2010
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by John Fischer
In a three-part series for the Los Angeles Times, Joe Mozingo, staff writer for the Times delved into the best-kept secrets of his family name. For more than a year, he traveled across the country meeting Mozingos and researching his ancestry in courthouses and libraries and online.
Most of his life, Joe Mozingo had been haunted by his name. How come his ancestry was such a mystery? Why were there no stories about great, great grandparents? Why were his relatives sure Mozingo was Italian but couldn't produce any connection to Italy or find Mozingo in any registry of common Italian surnames? Curiosity turned to compulsion and for more than a year, Joe traveled across the country meeting Mozingos and researching his ancestry in courthouses and libraries and online. The results of his research were published this week in the Los Angeles Times where Joe Mozingo works as a staff writer.
What he unearthed was a minefield of emotional responses. He was able to get as far back as a common ancestor to all living Mozingos—a black man named Edward Mozingo who lived in the time of James Madison and may very well have served him. He was an African from the Congo whose name has Bantu roots, and whose memory had been all but lost and whose color had faded to white. The article he wrote was more about how the Mozingos in his family reacted to this news.
As for his own parents, he said this, "My parents have always been fairly liberal in accepting other people's differences. But recognizing the other as an element of ourselves was harder." Indeed it would be.
I couldn't help thinking about this in relation to how Christians see sinners. It's one thing to think we are being open-minded toward sinners; it's another thing to actually see their sin as a part of us. It's one good way to avoid being judgmental. See the sin of the worst as a part of you and rejoice in your salvation.
It was discovered that one Mozingo Joe found had an ancestor who was most likely a member of the Klu Klux Klan. Imagine if he had found out about his own roots. Would he have been in for a surprise! What we hate is most often in us anyway. Might as well get used to knowing that.
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