Paola M.

Feliciano Pabn INGL 3211 Advanced English I 26 October 2012 There is a section in the Finding Your Roots website titled Share Your Story. This section helps people share the story on how they found their roots or if someone can help them find their roots through the story they narrate. This section lets you browse the stories by theme because the stories are divided into different categories, such as, adoption, ethnicity, immigration, family name, etc. These divisions help us find stories with a theme that some of us could relate to similar situations of our own. The people that write these stories are just average people in search of their roots and want their descendants to know from where they came from. This section compliments (maybe complements, or search for a different word) the work of Henry Louis Gates Jr. in a more personal way, providing average people the opportunity to share their own anecdotes because the people that were subjects on Gatess research for finding individual roots were celebrities. Even though we can identify ourselves with these celebrities, average people have similar stories to the ones we have. People from all backgrounds get the opportunity to narrate their stories, whether they are celebrities or average people. (Confusion: do you mean genealogical roots, or their childhood roots, like something you would read in a memoir? In that case, then I think you need to change the word roots into something more appropriate) In We All Come From Somewhere, written by Ashley Jackson-Cooper, the ancestors of the protagonist (I presume) are from various areas in the Caribbean, but she was born in the United States. When Ashley visited her cousins on the islands they teased her because of her

Yankee accent and her rejection of the popular foods and drinks. Growing up in a particular Manhattan neighborhood she was the only Caribbean descendant she knew and all of her friends where either Jewish or white. I spent a lot of my childhood and adolescence feeling like I had no roots anywhere that I was just floating around in space (Jackson-Cooper). She felt jealous of all her friends that could say from where they came from. Everything changed after seeing her great uncles more than 200 page manuscript of all his genealogical work from the past decade, which he showed to his family members, including Ashley. She realized that her roots on the islands were really deep and decided to find out more about her mothers side and, therefore, started her own research. She wrote about her roots: According to 23 and me, Im 70% African, 27% European and 3% Asian. My maternal line is very likely Mandinka and today is found mostly in Senegal, Cape Verde, Mali and Guinea-Bissau. Ive found connections to people all over the Caribbean, US and Latin America, and as far away as the British Isles, the Netherlands, Argentina, Spain, Russia and Morocco (Jackson-Cooper). Ashley learned that no one is just floating in space, even if we feel like it because we all come from somewhere. The next story is Red Pants No Shoes by Yung Hee Kim and she is trying to find the real her. I too have a basic drive to discover who [I am] and where [I] come from (Hee Kim). Yung Hee Kim doesnt know when or where she was born or even her birth name. On October 26, 1973, Yung Hee Kim was found on the streets of Korea by a Yeongdeungpo police officer. The paper says that apparently that she was abandoned on the Street. When she was found she had red pants and no shoes, also she has no memories of her early years of life. Four

days after Hee Kim was found she was flagged for overseas adoption. But she stayed with a Korean foster family for a year. Starting in the 1950s and continuing to this day, there have been almost 200,000 Korean adoptees that have been relocated without their consent to other countries. Besides losing a mother and/or father, Korean adoptees have lost their culture, language, roots and identity. (Hee Kim) Because of this Hee Kim may never know the details of her birth and early upbringing. In addition to hurdles such as sloppy record keeping and storage, some institutions give higher precedence to protecting the confidentiality of the birth parent/parents. (Hee Kim) She feels that she has the right to know from where she came from, when she was born and her real birth name. Information is being withheld and documents have been fictionalized in order to create a seemingly seamless paper trail. When my children make a family tree for a school project, there will be nothing on my side of the family. (Hee Kim) These people arent fully accepted in the country they were sent to but they are full strangers to their homeland Korea. The last story is Triplet Sisters Lost in Holocaust by Lilly Feit and she is trying to solve the mystery of her two lost sisters. Lilly was born in Germany 1934, one of triplet sisters. Her parents escaped to America but only came with her and one older brother. Through her mothers life she told Lilly that her sisters died in their infancy and she began to question this as an adult. Her mother was at a resting home after their birth and she was told about the babies death and that the hospitals doctor had arranged the religious burial. She decided to write to the Jewish hospital in Berlin since it sounded weird asking for the death certificates of her sisters. She received as an answer that these documents did not exist. For years Lilly has been haunted by the idea that her sisters survived the Holocaust. She spent many years in Jerusalem, Israel; because she figured that if anyone would know what happened to these children she would find them in

Israel. Lilly told her story to anyone that would listen to it. One day Lilly meets an elderly lady who mentioned in a casual conversation that she worked as a baby nurse at that hospital during the time of her birth. Lilly identified herself as the survivor of triplets born in June, 1934 and this friendly woman froze and refused to speak to her and give her any more information. She did not come again to the swimming club where they met and she even looked terrified after Lillys story. These challenges have made Lillys search for information on her sisters difficult. Even though these stories present us with different scenarios, they all have in common that they are people in search of their roots. For some people is easier to find out from where they came from and for others it is not that easy to find their roots. Ashley was feeling out of place because she felt that she had no roots. In Ashleys case it was easier to find out from where she comes and who her ancestors where, all thanks to her great uncles research. This even motivated Ashley to keep exploring her roots in specific her mothers side. In Yungs case she does not have a clue of where to begin with her research since she was stripped from possibly never knowing who her ancestors were. Yung was sent to America after she was found on the street abandoned. She is part of approximately 200,000 Koreans living in other countries that were relocated because they couldnt be taken care of. She was part of the child exportation that made her lose track of her real family. In the last story, we have Lilly that is looking for her two lost sisters. Lilly and her two sisters where born during the first years of the Holocaust that caused her family to immigrate to America because of her parents Jewish religion. Her sisters were possibly stripped from their mother by saying the girls died at birth and that they had already arranged the funeral. For Yung and Lilly in specific is really hard to trace their families because of the lack of documentation on their family members, contrary to Ashleys case.

These three stories are an example of contemporary individuals in search of their own roots. These individuals come from different ethnic backgrounds but they have the ambition to find out from where they came from. The individuals are ready to face the challenges that come with the search of ones roots. Some have clues from where they came from; some dont even have a clue of where to start in search of their roots. These individuals provide us with stories that Henry Louis Gates Jr. didnt share with us in his research. We get the chance to relate more to these stories than the ones Gates shared during his research because these are common person like us and not celebrities, which makes it easier for us to relate to their stories.