i just heard the one about thomas edison being mexican

[rlanpo]

today at a training about culturally relevant teaching the presenter insisted that thomas alva edison was part mexican.

her reasoning:
1. someone had told her
2. his middle name is "alva"
3. there are schools where mexican-americans attend that are named for him
4. thomas can also be tomas

:smack:

now it would be great to show this cultural relevance to my students, but this was not quite compelling evidence. i needed documentation. i searched all over google and google scholar and all i got was encarta saying he is dutch and british and another site referring to the legend that he was actually a part-mexican orphan adopted by an american couple.

i just wanted some more backup on this story to reinforce that what we want to be true or politically useful may not be, actually.

[bradministrator]

I don't see any "Mexican" names on his family tree here:

http://www.genealogy.com/famousfolks/thomas-edison/

[racer72]

1. Hearsay. Objection sustained.

2. Alva is a common middle name in my family tree on my mother's side and there is no Mexican blood in any of us from what I can tell.

3. Lots of Mexican-Americans attend schools named after Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, I don't believe any of them are Mexican-American.

4. So everyone that has a middle name that easily translates into a Hispanic name is Mexican? Should we now call former presidents Jorge Washington, Ricardo Nixon, and Juan Kennedy?

I say the presenter is whacko.

[rlanpo]

thank you!

now unfortunately i must disillusion my fellow teachers. that will be fun. by fun i mean we'll play shoot the messenger and i'll be the messenger. whee.