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| Mozambique-born Teresa Heinz Kerry: ’I’m an African American’ | |
| 2004-02-24 | |
| First lady wannabe Teresa Heinz Kerry sometimes describes herself as an "African American," even though she grew up amidst segregated privilege in colonial Mozambique. Throughout the 1990s, Heinz Kerry referred to herself as "African American," the Baltimore Sun revealed on Tuesday. And when her use of the term set off a firestorm of controversy in 1993, she defended the claim. "African-hyphen-American belongs to blacks," Heinz Kerry’s spokesman told reporters, insisting that it was proper for his boss to call herself African American as long as no hyphen was used or intended. What a semantical embarrasment. The one-time Republican’s depiction of herself as African rankles some who knew Heinz Kerry in the days when her father ran a medical clinic in Mozambique. Some say the wealthy "African American" has snubbed blacks in her homeland, because she has done next to nothing with her vast Heinz Foods fortune to improve living conditions there. "We are proud she is a daughter of the land," Neo Simbine, 75, a retired black nurse who worked with Heinz Kerry’s father, told the Sun. "But you have to live what you say. If she really loves Mozambique and has lots of money, why doesn’t she build us a hospital?"
But aside from a contribution to her homeland’s Save the Children Fund, the woman who repeatedly invokes her Mozambican roots has limited her generosity. | |
| Posted by:ColoradoConservative |
| #11 Maria Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira You have to admit that it's a beautiful name. I wish us redneck types did more of that. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-2-24 6:25:36 PM |
| #10 What she is is a potential embarrasment and liability for Kerry. |
| Posted by: ColoradoConservative 2004-2-24 4:23:06 PM |
| #9 Ah! So she's really a Portuguese-Colonial-African-American. The mo' hyphens, the mo' better. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-2-24 4:18:53 PM |
| #8 Sista be doin' it fo' herself! So even if you were part of the European colonial power structure, you can be proud of your African heritage? Might want to ask the Angolans if they consider the Portugese that ran the place for awhile as "Africans". I seem to remember a bit of trouble between the two groups a few years back. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-2-24 4:18:53 PM |
| #7 From the Guardian, Jan. 25th: The daughter of a prominent Portuguese doctor, Heinz Kerry, née Maria Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira, grew up in Mozambique. She attended a school run by British nuns, and later studied Romance languages at senior school in South Africa, where she became involved in the nascent anti-apartheid movement of the late 1950s. At university in Geneva, she was a classmate of Kofi Annan at the city's School of Interpreters. Now fluent in five languages, she graduated and went to New York to become an interpreter at the United Nations, before marrying Heinz in 1966. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2004-2-24 3:23:40 PM |
| #6 One of our former fellows (now a wonderful colleague and friend) joked that he too was an "African American", since he was born in South Africa. Of course, he was white and Jewish, so he wasn't exactly what people had in mind when they use the phrase. By the way, Jewish white South Africans are abandoning the country in droves, and have been doing so in the last decade. They got caught in the middle during the civil war and now find it rather uncomfortable there. Many go to Britain but a fair number come to the U.S. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2004-2-24 3:20:54 PM |
| #5 Methinks the 'hyphen', 'no hyphen' argument is so much BS. Google "African American" and you'll get almost 5 million responses. Some have hyphens and some do not but all seem to speak of black Americans of African heritage. But what do you call a white or Arab native of the African continent who immigrates to America? Students in Omaha were disciplined last month for nominating a white student from South Africa as their school's "Distinguished African American Student Award". (Note the lack of hyphen.) My suggestion to Teresa: "if you're not satisfied with being just a plain ole American then call yourself a Mozambican and let it go at that". |
| Posted by: GK 2004-2-24 3:14:09 PM |
| #4 It all depends on what your definition of 'is' is..... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-2-24 2:54:50 PM |
| #3 'Tis a bit early to be playing the race card, isn't it? |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-2-24 2:46:14 PM |
| #2 Well, if Clinton was the first "black" president, I guess she was just staking her claim to be the first African (non-hyphenated) American First Lady. |
| Posted by: Steve 2004-2-24 2:27:45 PM |
| #1 Good to see that the Kerrys are living up to their common people theme. At what point will panicked Democrats start exhibiting serious buyer's remorse? |
| Posted by: Right on 2004-2-24 2:14:32 PM |