Afro-Filipino Mongoys
Afro-Filipino Mongoys
The Afro-Filipino-Mexican sisters Martha Guadalupe and Norma Angelina Mongoy Maganda of Coyuca de Benitez, Guerrero are descendants of heroes. Arturo Mongoy was a much decorated World War II fighter pilot for a Mexican contingent within the United States Airforce. Earlier descendants of the Mongoy sisters include.the Mexican independence war heroes General Francisco and Capitain "El Ingeniero" Mongoy.
Other notable Mexicans of far eatern ancestry include Catarina de San Juan, the chef and religious mystic who was said to invent the dish "mole." Catarina lived in the 1600s and is the proto-type of a long line of "magic chefs" in Mexican folk stories, such as the tale in the film and novel LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE. Although of pure Asian heritage - apparently from Vietnam or Cambodia - Catarina was made legally African so that she could be enslaved. But she had a forceful enough personality that she obtained a clause in her contract for the second owner that they would have no sex.