“So my mom’s side of the family has lived in Española, New Mexico, since the 1600s. By the 20th century, my family owned nearly a third of the land in the entire state of New Mexico. They were really well-respected basically because of how long they had been there, and they benefitted financially from it. The twist comes in around 1960. Basically, due to some weird clerical error or something, my great-uncle Michael ended up in charge of managing all of the land my family had. Michael was kind of an ass to his family, so one day he decided to just sell almost all the land my family had, pack his things up, and move away to the East Coast. He screwed over a lot of people in the family, but they had a decent amount of money in the bank and were able to recover financially, but the land was lost forever.”

This one is from my friend here at USC from Texas, and his family has a deep history in the Americas, allegedly dating back to the time of Cortés’ conquest. He said that this is one of the stories his mom always alludes to in regular conversations among family. To him, it’s a bit strange since he’s never met his great-uncle, but he still loves to hear his mom’s stories because it gives him a sense of identity.