At LMU’s Global Conversations Series, Julia Lee, BCLA associate professor of English, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard’s Alphonse Fletcher university professor, came together to discuss the expansiveness of ancestry. As professors of color trained in the field of English and having written memoirs, both look at ancestry with a critical lens to not only document and legitimize their lived experiences but to document and understand the powers at play that contribute to their experiences.
At the event, Lee discussed the ways in which a lot of her work was inspired by a desire to understand the almost inherited racism that she herself and her Korean community contributed towards. One of the most violent demonstrations of that hate played out during the LA Riots when Korean Americans armed themselves and shot Black American youths in the name of protecting their businesses. It was then that Lee was called to specialize in Black literature to understand and make peace with the anti-Black rhetoric she was born into as a Korean American, but especially as an American.
Gates followed Lee’s statement, saying that anti-Blackness is one of the hateful veins that runs through the core of America’s conscious and subconscious mind. It is this fact that inspired his show “Finding Your Roots.” The show originally stemmed as a way for Gates to find his own roots, to connect back to his ancestors and the ancestral land of Africa that was stripped from him and his community during the West’s plundering of Africa, a plundering in which African bodies were stolen for capitalist gains.
Gates was excited to see which African tribe he would originate from, only to discover that for around 200 years, he and his ancestors stayed within his hometown. This fact was both surprising for Gates and important because he remembered vividly when his father pulled him aside to show him and his brother a photo of a woman. Their father said, “This is the oldest known Gates. I want you to remember her face and never forget her.” Recalling this interaction, Gates credited this moment as what possibly called him to do what he does now. He jokingly stated, “So, instead of becoming a medical doctor, against my parents’ wishes, I became a literary doctor.”
Unfortunately, he was not of the tribe that he wanted to be in, but found out his ancestors came from the tribe that was known for being kings and scholars. Through “Finding Your Roots,” he was able to give back to his Black community. As the show continued to gain fame, he was later asked for the show to cover more than just Black people so that it could reach wider audiences.
Ancestry is an important theme for Lee and Gates as it, in many ways, binds them together. Lee first met Gates at her alma mater, Harvard University, when she was touring with her parents. She saw Gates walking in their direction and immediately knew who he was. When he passed her, he paused to greet her, then paused again to greet her parents. She views this interaction as the first, if not one of the first, times that someone acknowledged her parents. Someone of his success and academic prestige acknowledging her parents, as people, and looking at them directly even as they stood behind her. To Lee, Gates was not just an academic mentor but a model for what academia could be and what it could look like if all people were treated kindly and empathetically. Gates jokingly does not remember the interaction and Lee credits that to his thoughtful and kind character, emphasizing how impactful his mentorship has been.
To both scholars, ancestry is not simply about understanding your predecessors for the sake of understanding, nor is it solely about blood-related predecessors. Ancestry can take on different forms, but to them it is to inform the self by understanding critically the histories that brought us here.
Izabel Mah y Busch is a double major in English and Chicana/o Latina/o Studies and a student in Dr. Lee’s “Memoir and Personal Essay” class this semester. To watch a recording of the event, visit the LMU YouTube channel.