Jewish Roots, Spanish Passport: Genealogy, Citizenship, and the Rediscovery of Sephardic Ancestry in Mexico

In 2015, Spain and Portugal passed laws offering citizenship to descendants of Sephardic (i.e., Iberian) Jews expelled in 1492. While these initiatives drew many applications from Sephardic Jews living in Israel, Turkey, the U.S., and elsewhere, they also created an attractive opportunity for an unexpected population: Latin American Catholics who claim descent from conversos, i.e., Jews forcibly converted to Christianity. Tens of thousands of middle- and upper-class Latin Americans have hired professional genealogists to trace their lineages and search for Jewish ancestors, often going back to the fourteenth or fifteenth century . Both Spain and Portugal have accepted such genealogical reports as valid proof of Sephardic origin, granting citizenship to many non-Jewish applicants. The study focuses on Mexico, drawing on over fifty interviews with citizenship applicants and genealogists. It examines the perspectives and practical strategies of professional genealogists, who play an indispensable role in the application process. First, it analyzes how genealogists produce new forms of genealogical knowledge using religious and secular archives (church and Inquisition records, civil registries) and how they legitimize that knowledge vis-à-vis Spanish and Portuguese authorities. Second, it investigates the emerging “citizenship industry” in Mexico, showing how genealogists, lawyers, and brokers have commodified a previously stigmatized Jewish ancestry and investigating the economic and symbolic competition around ancestral citizenship. This paper contributes to research on the unintended consequences of citizenship restitution and the formation of new identity categories based on institutionalized genealogical proof. It also expands the literature on migration industries by foregrounding genealogists as key intermediaries who construct both markets and meanings for ancestral citizenship.