Brandon Melendez: My father’s family is Puerto Rican and Catholic and my mother’s is European and Jewish—I was raised as a Jew and consider myself to be one despite what closed-minded and exclusionary sects (that I don’t personally consider to be Jewish) of people may argue. Similarly, my wife’s parents are a flipped mix, her father’s family is European Jewish and her mother’s family is Filipino—though religion has played no particular role there (if anything I’d say my mother-in-law is a Beatlemaniac)—and my wife was raised Jewish and considers herself to be Jewish also in spite of the same sects of Judaism that I mentioned.
