Converting and Mixing

Abstract This article asks how familiarity with debates about the conversion of indigenous and Afro-Latin Americans, as well as about colonial mixing, can contribute to illuminating discussions regarding the experiences of former Jews in Iberian territories. The aim is not to survey similarities and differences but instead to highlight questions that have preoccupied historians of Latin America yet have not been central to those studying the Jewish experience. This method shows that, on both sides of the ocean, memory and forgetfulness played major roles because at stake in both conversion and mixing was a struggle not only over the present and the future but also over the past. Oblivion might have been necessary to ensure a new beginning, yet recollection was constantly invoked as individuals and groups remembered (or allegedly forgot) who they and others had been.