New Mexico's Crypto-Jews
A small Hispano group of Sephardic Jews in northern New Mexico may be one of the oldest groups of practicing Jews in North America, dating back to the early Spanish settlers of Jewish descent that were exiled from Spain as a result of the Edict of Expulsion and/or forcibly converted to Catholicism as Conversos or New Christians. Since reverting to Judaism or even Judaic customs and practices was punishable by torture and, usually, death, many fled to the northwestern frontier of the Spanish Empire in the "New World," now the American Southwest, for fear of being brought before the Spanish Inquisition. Only outwardly Catholic, these forced converts maintained Jewish practices and customs in secret, hence the name, "Crypto-Jews." The subject of recent academic study,[85] some of New Mexico's Crypto-Jews have begun to return to normative Judaism in recent years, through conversion.[86]
A recent genetic study has shown that many Hispanos of the American Southwest are indeed descended from Anusim (Sephardic Jews who were forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism). Michael Hammer, a research professor at the University of Arizona and an expert on Jewish genetics, said that fewer than 1% of non-Semites, but more than four times the entire Jewish population of the world, possessed the male-specific "Cohanim marker" or Cohen Modal Haplotype (which in itself is not necessarily carried by all Jews, but is prevalent among Jews claiming descent from hereditary priests), and 30 of 78 Latinos tested in New Mexico (38.5%) were found to be carriers.[87] DNA testing of Hispanic populations also revealed between 10% and 15% of men living in New Mexico, south Texas and northern Mexico have a Y chromosome that traces back to the Middle East. In 2008, moreover, a gene linked to a virulent form of breast cancer that is typically found only in Jewish women was discovered in a cluster of Hispanic Catholic women in Southern Colorado, many of whom trace their family's roots to northern New Mexico [88] Curiously, a Spanish dialect, so-called "Mountain Spanish", that is spoken by many of the old families of Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado - and chiefly only among themselves - appears to be Ladino, or Judezmo, a hybrid language of Old Spanish, Portuguese and Hebrew with sprinklings of Arabic, Greekand other languages, depending on the geographic region of the speakers or their ancestors.[89]
Intermarriage with local Pueblo, Navajo and Apache Indigenous Peoples has undoubtedly occurred since the 16th century, so it would not be inaccurate to describe these Jews as racially or ethnically mixed "Native American Jews," or "Hispano-Indian Jews," though it is doubtful any, as yet, self-identify as such. Furthermore, there is not yet any scholarly work and therefore no consensus about the extent to which, if any, these individuals' physical resemblance trends more toward either the Indigenous Peoples of the region or classic or modern Sephardim, or if it generally lies somewhere in between. Amongst themselves, they still use (and presumably prefer) the term, "Sefarditas."