Hello to all!
Here I am again (Shit, the pest is back…!, I gather )
[I am posting this here tentatively, as I was suggested to group my posts here when asking about Churchill, but I will redirect my questions should you wish me to do so.]

Once done with "my" Churchill biography —a really, really interesting book—, I have started a new one on The untold history of class in USA (full of cultural coinages like "White Trash" "Cracker Land" and a zillion more hedaches for a Spanish translator.

I have just started the rendering of the Contents and got this "Bad Blood" chapter:



chapter six
Pedigree and Poor White Trash:
Bad Blood, Half-Breeds, and Clay-Eaters

I don't feel comfortable with Bad Blood being here an ill feeling, I think it has more to do with "impurity" of breed, sort of a deprecative way to talk of any of those alterities we humans so much love to create as a way for easy self-appraisal (of the worst kind indeed). I have the impression that this is about poor, different-looking people, with a supposedly "bad" or inferior ancestry, if you know what I mean.

My concern here is twofold: first I would like to know if there's in fact such meaning for "bad blood", as something close to "bastard", in English. Secondly I will be glad to get some English synonyms of this sense, so as to be able to work out a Spanish equivalence. If you know of some good American on-line dictionary or enciclopaedia that deeply tackles with cultural and historical expressions of USA I will also be glad to know.

I am happy to resume my contact; it makes me learn a lot.

Thank you for your sure help, which has always been awesome…

I include more context for the Contents, so that you get a better view of the general tone:

introduction
Fables We Forget By 1
Part I: To Begin the World Anew
chapter one
Taking Out the Trash:
Waste People in the New World 17
list of illustrations
preface xiii
chapter two
John Locke’s Lubberland:
The Settlements of Carolina and Georgia
chapter three
43
Benjamin Franklin’s American Breed:
The Demographics of Mediocrity 64
chapter four
Thomas Jefferson’s Rubbish:
A Curious Topography of Class 85
chapter five
Andrew Jackson’s Cracker Country:
The Squatter as Common Man 105
Part II: Degeneration of the American Breed
chapter six
Pedigree and Poor White Trash:
Bad Blood, Half-Breeds, and Clay-Eaters

You are completely correct, CM - in the USA, especially in the southern states, "bad blood" was certainly used to denote people regarded as being of inferior ancestry and could be used as a noun for one individual or as a collective noun for several sharing this perceived attribute. It's not the same as "bastard" though, which would imply illegitimacy, but would be more akin to any "lower caste" euphemism used in India or, as the chapter title also contains, "white trash" as used in the very same parts of the USA today to denote exactly the same thing.

OK, nordmann,
that gives me a precious hint for the Spanish translation. I see it then akin to "pariah", for example. From there I'll keep digging.

It's a pleasure to "see" you again, nordmann.

All the best,

CM

You're always welcome, CM.

I'd just add that "bad blood" as an insult is a little more nuanced than "pariah" - it wouldn't include for example people of African or Native American descent. These had even more racist and pejorative terms applied to them. It might extend to Spanish/Mexicans, but would more likely have been levelled against white people of more recent European descent who didn't satisfy a particularly Anglo-Saxon prejudice on the part of the insulters, and I imagine the Irish would have figured largely in that category, I'm afraid.

I don't really know enough about this and I certainly do not want to muddy the waters, but I would think too that those who were being classed as "bad blood", besides being just "not like us", probably differed in who they actually were in both time and place. Aspersions about black/slave ancestry were probably more sensitive in the Southern states throughout the 19th century; while the apparent stigma of having a trace of Jewish or hispanic ancestry was probably more a concern in the predominantly white/protestant New England townships around the end of the 19th century. The concerns of having possible Japanese ancestry were probably most acutely felt, and pejoratively expressed, in California in the 1940s, while today I guess it's probably those with an obviously Islamic name or perhaps the offspring of recent Islamic immigrants, who are generally considered "bad blood", regardless of how wealthy, successful, integrated and 'American' their family actually are.

Good to see you back CM. Unfortunately, from simple ignorance, I probably won't be able to help you much with your latest project. Although I doubt that will stop me 'chipping in' from time to time.

I will certainly be happy to see you "chipping in", as you say, whenever it suits you.
One of the first things I have to do is getting immersed in this thick soup of scornful vocabulary coming out from notions of "race", "skin colour", "poor means", etc. —the old "social classes" that most people in modern i-society tend to think have magically evaporated…
All what you say is a great help to me.
This forum is the torch that makes me see farther in the dark… (If you pardon my poetry…)

Comic Monster there is a saying (going out of fashion these days) "Bad blood will out" - which tended to be said when who came from a long line of rogue did something roguish (i.e. that their family, their ancestors had been rogues).  Of course in real life we probably all know baddies who are descended from goody-goodies and conversely goodies who are descended from baddies.  I doubt that is the meaning the words have in your translation piece anyway.