Knowing Your Roots

 

Knowing Your Roots

Investigating our genealogical roots has become popular in the past decade. Ancestry websites make following a family tree back centuries easy. Tracing your biological history is as simple as spitting into a tube and putting your DNA in the mail. Researching family history is easy. Understanding it can be hard.

 

The PBS series, Finding Your Roots, hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr, explores the family history of celebrities. Most are amazed by the hard work and harrowing times their ancestors endured. Some find heroes; many find relatives on the wrong side of history.

In a recent program, one celebrity explored his Latin heritage. Growing up in California, he had known his grandfather as a hard-working man who had come to the US during WWII as a farmworker when laborers were needed. The difficult work of migrant workers amazed this celebrity but he was even more surprised to discover that his grandfather had been deported in Operation Wetback, an official US program. Local men were afraid that migrant workers were taking jobs from them. Herded into holding pens, more than a million laborers were deported. Amazingly, his grandfather managed to return to the US, to become a citizen, to raise a family, and to pass on his principle of hard work.

Going further back in history, this celebrity learned that one of his several great grandfathers had come to America with the Spanish conquistadors in 1546. In a purge called “Pacification,” Spanish soldiers waged a genocidal war against indigenous peoples, capturing, killing, or enslaving them. In a short number of years, half of the six million natives in the central Mexican countryside had been killed. To his horror, he also learned that his ancestor had owned 20-50 enslaved people either of native or African origins. 

Every episode of Finding Your Roots uncovers surprising and fascinating information. Dr. Gates chaperones celebrities through difficult facts. Often, a celebrity feels guilt about what a distant ancestor has done. Gates tells them that, while “guilt is not inheritable,” it is good to know the deeds and misdeeds of your ancestors. Finding your roots leads to knowing your roots. Knowing your roots leads to a greater understanding of how history reflects on the world today. 

Like the celebrities on Finding Your Roots, we should be curious about our history. Knowing our personal history and the history of our nation opens our eyes and widens our perspective. History exposes what good came before and what evil we want to avoid. Lessons from the past provide insights into the future. Covering up the past does not erase it. Uncovering it and learning from it leads to a better future. Knowing our roots helps us understand where we have come from and where we want to go.