text: My family did the same because many were American Indians. My Irish grandparents were hated by their English neighbors. My husband's family were German but forbade their kids from even learning the language for fear that they would be treated badly by their neighbors during WW1. Thankfully our Japanese family members lived in Hawaii where there were too many of them to be imprisoned during WW2. If you look back far enough, there will be some kind of secrets hiding back there. It's really ridiculous that people get so weird about race or color. We all bleed red.