First lady wannabe Teresa Heinz Kerry sometimes describes herself as an "African American," even though she grew up amidst segregated privilege in colonial Mozambique.
"My roots are African," she told a reporter in 1995. "The birds I remember, the fruits I ate, the trees I climbed, they're African."
Throughout the 1990s, Heinz Kerry referred to herself as "African American," the Baltimore Sun revealed on Tuesday. And when her use of the term set off a firestorm of controversy in 1993, she defended the claim.
"African-hyphen-American belongs to blacks," Heinz Kerry's spokesman told reporters, insisting that it was proper for his boss to call herself African American as long as no hyphen was used or intended.
The one-time Republican's depiction of herself as African rankles some who knew Heinz Kerry in the days when her father ran a medical clinic in Mozambique.
Some say the wealthy "African American" has snubbed blacks in her homeland, because she has done next to nothing with her vast Heinz Foods fortune to improve living conditions there.
"We are proud she is a daughter of the land," Neo Simbine, 75, a retired black nurse who worked with Heinz Kerry's father, told the Sun. "But you have to live what you say. If she really loves Mozambique and has lots of money, why doesn't she build us a hospital?"
Heinz Kerry's fortune is equal to nearly a quarter of Mozambique's annual Gross Domestic Product.
But aside from a contribution to her homeland's Save the Children Fund, the woman who repeatedly invokes her Mozambican roots has limited her generosity.
A spokeswoman for the Heinz Foundation said the prospective first lady would give more if she were more confident the money would be managed properly.
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