Faces of America is a four-part Public Broadcasting Service Public television television series hosted by Professor Henry Louis Gates. The series originally aired February 10 – March 3, 2010 from 8–9 p.m. ET. In Australia, this program aired on SBS One each Sunday at 7:30pm from 9 -30 January 2011. It uses genealogical research and genetics to find the family history of 12 Americans: Elizabeth Alexander, Mario Batali, Stephen Colbert, Louise Erdrich, Malcolm Gladwell, Eva Longoria, Yo-Yo Ma, Mike Nichols, Queen Noor of Jordan, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Meryl Streep, and Kristi Yamaguchi. In the series finale, Gates explored the emerging use of full genome sequencing to understand personal ancestry and health, by learning what might be inferred from his whole genome sequence, and that of his father, through in-depth analysis by a personal genomics company and the Broad Institute. In 2012, PBS aired another miniseries entitled Finding Your Roots also examining questions of genealogy and genetics, and hosted by Gates.
Director Mike Nichols' family escapes Nazi Germany; Japanese Americans were imprisoned, including forebears of skater Kristi Yamaguchi; an encounter changes the life of cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Becoming American explores the many journeys to becoming American that defined the “Century of Immigration” (1820s – 1924) and transformed the United States from a sleepy agrarian country into a booming industrial power. Stephen Colbert’s Irish great-great-grandfather escaped poverty and religious oppression in Limerick and never looked back, whereas Mario Batali’s great-grandfather, who left the place where his family had lived for centuries, struggled to survive in the quartz mines of Montana. Her Majesty Queen Noor’s Syrian great-grandfather quickly found his footing in New York’s first Arab American community, while Kristi Yamaguchi’s grandfather faced exclusionary laws and racially-defined barriers to citizenship for decades. The obstacles, short-cuts, tragedies and successes encountered or created by the guests’ ancestors from around the world reveal the complexity of our shared history and identity as Americans.
Making America tells the story of the peopling of the New World, of how land came to define the settling and identity of America, and of how the guests’ ancestors were part of this history. We discover descriptions of Meryl Streep’s eighth great-grandfather who fought in Metacom’s War; records of a land dispute in Spain that pushed Eva Longoria’s ancestors to leave for the New World; a treaty that Louise Erdrich’s Native American ancestor was forced to sign; and Yo-Yo Ma’s family genealogy in China, which gives insights into his identity he has longed for his whole life.
Know Thyself takes up the search for the guests’ ancestries where the historical record leaves off and links their distinctive family histories to the broader history of “the family of man.” Combining the documented stories of some of the guests’ last known ancestors with DNA evidence, the series travel backward through time to reveal both distant relatives and surprising shared ancestral connections. Elizabeth Alexander learns that she is a direct descendent of Charlemagne, and that her paternal roots are not only European, but Jewish. Meryl Streep and Mike Nichols discover that they are distant cousins, as do Yo-Yo Ma and Eva Longoria. Interwoven with these stories and others is the journey of the host, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. as he and his father and brother undertake an historic project to have their entire genomes mapped, and thereby to learn everything they possibly can about their own family. This episode offers a compelling and thought-provoking meditation on the importance of ancestry, the meaning of family and the role of both in creating identity.
