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00:15I'm Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
00:18Welcome to Finding Your Roots.
00:21In this episode, we'll meet Delroy Lindo and Liza Colon Zayas,
00:27two actors hoping to learn secrets that their ancestors tried to hide.
00:33Pieces of myself are being filled in.
00:37If this is a jigsaw, you know, this is another piece in the jigsaw.
00:42I want the next generation to know that we didn't just emerge out of the South Bronx.
00:48You know, that we have a long, rich history.
00:52To uncover their roots, we've used every tool available.
00:56Genealogists comb through paper trails stretching back hundreds of years.
01:01Get out of here.
01:02While DNA experts utilize the latest advances in genetic analysis
01:07to reveal secrets that have lain hidden for generations.
01:11This is epic.
01:13And we've compiled it all into a book of life.
01:16A record of everything we found.
01:19That fascinates the hell out of me.
01:21Did you ever think you would learn the name of an enslaved ancestor?
01:25I thought I might.
01:27I thought I might.
01:28But it breaks my heart and I'm crying.
01:31Not because it's a total shock to me.
01:33It's because now there is a name to this person.
01:37My two guests have deep roots in Jamaica and Puerto Rico.
01:42But their parents left those roots behind.
01:45And rarely spoke about them.
01:47Burying their family stories in the past.
01:50In this episode, those stories will be unearthed.
01:55Forever altering how Delroy and Liza see themselves.
02:00Reloading Howe Dope
02:25Delroy Lindo may seem like a tough guy,
02:48but the imposing actor with the ice-cold stare
02:52is nothing like the fierce men he's portrayed on screen.
02:56In fact, in person, Delroy is warm, thoughtful,
03:01and profoundly sensitive.
03:04And when he tells his story, you understand why.
03:09Delroy was born in England, the son of Jamaican immigrants.
03:14He was raised in London by his mother,
03:17a nurse who struggled mightily
03:19in a place where she was made to feel like an outsider.
03:23As the only black child in his elementary school,
03:26Delroy often felt like an outsider himself.
03:31But when he was cast as one of the wise men
03:33in the school's Christmas pageant,
03:36his life was transformed.
03:40I was in the nativity play as a five-year-old
03:43when I played Balthazar.
03:44Yeah.
03:45And...
03:46The wise man of color.
03:47And, um...
03:50I, um...
03:52But what it was,
03:54and this is what I've learned relatively recently,
03:58it was not the, the, the aspect of performing.
04:03Even though that was wonderful,
04:05what it was, was the teacher who was, um,
04:10directing the pageant, the play,
04:14singled me out as an example of what to do.
04:19Huh.
04:20Watch what Delroy does.
04:22Uh-huh.
04:23Do it like that.
04:24What she was talking about was projecting.
04:26Uh-huh.
04:27But she didn't say that.
04:28She, just the way that I was saying the lines.
04:30Right.
04:31And she used me as an example.
04:32And I believe that was an, an affirmation for me.
04:35Yeah.
04:36That was an affirmation.
04:37And that's when a, a dime dropped
04:40that, that I was affirmed in a very singular way.
04:48That teacher put Delroy on the path he's still following today.
04:53But the journey would be a circuitous one.
04:56Over the next few years, Delroy and his mother
05:00would move from England to Canada,
05:03and then finally to the United States,
05:06where Delroy would begin to study acting in earnest.
05:10But it would take him over a decade to find success,
05:13much to his mother's dismay.
05:16One of the things that my mom had a really, really, really hard time understanding,
05:21and I, and I, and I understand that, okay, you go and you work in the theater.
05:25And you, you, you, you go and you, you, you rehearse.
05:29You work for eight weeks.
05:31You rehearse for four weeks, and then you perform for, for, for another four weeks.
05:35And then you're unemployed.
05:36And she'd go, what's this about?
05:38What do you mean?
05:39You maybe get a job and then you don't have a job.
05:41And then, and what happens in between?
05:43A foreign con, an alien concept.
05:46Yeah, but most people don't understand that.
05:48Most parents don't.
05:49This is true.
05:50No, this is true.
05:51Yeah.
05:52But, but for, for the Caribbean, not, not necessarily just the Caribbean people,
05:58but for any, any, any, anybody who comes from a generation for whom education was everything.
06:06Everything.
06:07Everything.
06:08And then once you got your education, you found a solid occupation that was going to allow you
06:16to, to, to make your way through life.
06:18Right.
06:19And acting was not it.
06:20So you, did you break your heart?
06:21Yes.
06:22When you set up a be an actor?
06:23Yes.
06:24And she said, what's wrong with you?
06:25I could, yes.
06:26All of the above.
06:27I could have just as well have said, I'm going to the moon, Ma.
06:34Delroy eventually put his mother's fears to rest.
06:39In 1992, when he was 40 years old, he landed a role as a Harlem gangster in Spike Lee's masterpiece,
06:48Malcolm X, and found fame.
06:51He's worked almost constantly ever since, while also navigating an industry that can be fickle, particularly
07:01towards actors of color.
07:03But looking back on all he's achieved, Delroy's greatest pride is a simple one.
07:10He stayed true to his craft and true to himself.
07:15I'm proudest of the fact that the relationship between art and commerce, even though I have made missteps for sure, but it hasn't, it hasn't destroyed me.
07:32I've continued to work, and I'm really proud of that.
07:36If you could go back to the nativity play and pull Balthazar aside, what would you say to your young self?
07:49If there is anything that you can do, if there's anything else that you can do and be happy, do that.
07:58Right.
07:59No, I'm serious.
08:00If you genuinely feel, in making this decision to become an actor, that this is your destiny, however you interpret that, don't let anybody stop you.
08:15Mm-hmm.
08:16But for God's sake, if there's anything else you can do and be happy, do that.
08:20Why?
08:21It's a beautiful craft.
08:23Yeah.
08:24But you've got to know what you're getting into.
08:29My second guest is Emmy Award-winning actor Liza Colon Zayas, famed for her star turn in Hulu's hit series, The Bear.
08:41Much like Delroy, Liza grew up far from the spotlight.
08:45Both of her parents are Puerto Rican, and Liza was raised in a housing project in New York City at a time when there were very few Latinos in Hollywood.
08:57But even so, that did not stop her from dreaming.
09:02As a child watching television, she became enthralled with the Partridge family and hatched a plan to change her life.
09:10A plan that her older brothers would thwart.
09:14But only after Liza had taken it to an extreme.
09:19You know, I had the biggest crush on Keith Partridge, but I wanted to be one of the siblings, which is problematic.
09:25I don't know.
09:27I was like, I want to live in a multicolored bus and play the tambourine and be with, you know, and she's a single mom, they're doing good.
09:36It seemed like everything happy was happening in California with the sunshine and the palm trees and everything looked great.
09:44So I wrote this whole letter that I was going to run away.
09:47I'm going to replace the little girl Tracy.
09:50And, you know, this is what I'm going to do.
09:52Okay. I don't know.
09:53My plan was like to take a taxi or something.
09:55I don't know.
09:56But my, I think my one, I don't know which one, one of them found the letter and opened it.
10:04And just, they began to have the biggest laugh.
10:08The hugest laugh of my crush, of my, of this idea.
10:14And then I was like, later for you.
10:18As it turns out, Liza would not be able to hold back her dreams much longer.
10:28After high school, she enrolled at the University of Albany as a business major, but soon switched to acting.
10:36Was there a, a, a click moment, a certain moment when you said, I'm not going to be an accountant.
10:43I am going on the stage.
10:45Yeah. My boyfriend at the time, well-meaning, please.
10:49I just like, he was like, yeah, I don't think anybody wants to see a chubby Latino on TV.
10:55That's terrible.
10:56But he meant well.
10:57And, and.
10:59And he was Latino?
11:00Yeah.
11:01He's Puerto Rico.
11:02Yeah.
11:03Yeah.
11:04Professional.
11:05And he was like, I want us to be a family that, you know, has, you know, combined income that's really good and live in the suburbs that he had these dreams.
11:15And I've, as a person already feeling unworthy of anything good, it's like, okay, so maybe I'll, I don't know, I'll study economics.
11:27Mm-hmm.
11:28But then I saw that there was a, a, an original piece being performed in Albany, written and created by the, uh, indigenous women.
11:38Hmm.
11:39And I went and I watched it and I was like, that's it, I'm going to do it.
11:43Liza has never regretted that decision, though it wasn't easy to make it pay off.
11:49After college, she returned to New York City, moved in with her mother and set out to find work.
11:56She started slowly, with small roles in off-Broadway plays.
12:02But everything changed in 1995, when she wrote, produced and starred in Sista Supreme, a one-woman show based on her own childhood.
12:16The show took Liza's career to the next level.
12:21But more importantly, it helped her understand how she wanted to represent herself and her people.
12:30I don't want to play sanitized characters.
12:33Mm-hmm.
12:34That doesn't feel authentic to me or useful.
12:37Um, I, I like messy characters.
12:40Mm-hmm.
12:41And of course, I'm who I am.
12:42So, she's going to be Latina, she's going to be Afro-Latina.
12:46But as long as there's humanity.
12:48Mm-hmm.
12:49And people want to see the journey.
12:51Um, and there's nuance, there's layers.
12:54As long as I can bring that to the surface.
12:58Mm-hmm.
12:59You know, at the very least.
13:01Um, if I can reflect our strength.
13:07Mm-hmm.
13:09And our value, our worth, then no matter how messy it gets, that's what I want to, I want to show.
13:18You know, we survive.
13:19My guests share a common thread.
13:23Both grew up focused on their careers, with very little knowledge of their family trees.
13:30It was time for that to change.
13:34I started with Delroy.
13:37And with his mother, Anna Moncrief.
13:41Anna was born in Jamaica.
13:43But in 1951, when she was 37 years old, she left her home behind.
13:51And boarded a ship for England, seeking work as a nurse.
13:56It would be the first of many journeys to come.
14:01Did she ever talk about what inspired her to make the move?
14:04No, she never talked to me about it at all.
14:09I knew, I knew that it was career oriented.
14:14Mm-hmm.
14:17But my mom never talked to me about it.
14:19Do you think that she liked England?
14:21No.
14:22No?
14:24Why not?
14:25I just think it was too difficult, too racist, too confining.
14:32Mm-hmm.
14:33Too...
14:38debilitating.
14:39Mm-hmm.
14:40And this is one of the things that I really respect about my mom.
14:43And I, my, my, the respect that I have for my mom has been, has increased, um, retrospectively, because I just feel like my mom saw the handwriting on the wall.
14:57Mm-hmm.
14:58In England.
14:59Mm-hmm.
15:00In the United Kingdom.
15:01And got the hell out.
15:02Right.
15:03And it was a good thing.
15:04And it was a good thing.
15:05Getting out of England may have been a good thing.
15:11But it wasn't easy.
15:14In 1958, when Delroy was five years old, his mother sent him to live with another family in London and set off for Canada, where nurses were in high demand.
15:26She and Delroy would be separated for almost seven years.
15:31We uncovered the passenger list of the Arcadia, the ship that took Anna to Canada.
15:38It offered Delroy a glimpse of his mother at that pivotal moment.
15:43Yep.
15:45What's it like to see then?
15:50On some, on some level, it's kind of mind-blowing because seeing this is just, um, profoundly affirming for things, for feelings that I have, that I've, that I have and have.
16:08About my mom's history and about how my mom lived her life and about how my mom lived her life and here is the tangible evidence of that.
16:33And I'm not, I'm not, I'm not really, I'm not sure why it's, it's moving.
16:42It's, it's, it's, um, emotionally impactful, but it is.
16:47Ultimately, Emma was able to make a home for herself and bring Delroy from London to Canada.
16:58But along the way, like many immigrants, she chose to block out her past.
17:04And Delroy's roots in Jamaica were a blank slate.
17:08We set out to fill them in, beginning with Anna's birth record, which contains a wealth of information about her family.
17:20We suspect that the informant listed here, a man named George Moncrief, was a relative of Anna's father, Delroy's grandfather, Henry Moncrief.
17:32And the name listed here, Ida Lang, is Anna's mother, Delroy's grandmother.
17:39Ever heard of her?
17:40No.
17:41Wow.
17:42And you notice something else about that record?
17:48Name of father, Black.
17:50So you know what that means?
17:52What?
17:53We suspect that your grandparents, Henry and Ida, weren't married at the time your mother was born.
17:59Yes.
18:00Yes, right.
18:01And in fact, the register clerks in Jamaica followed an old English law that if the parents were not married, the father's name would not be listed on the birth certificate.
18:10Blank.
18:11Yeah.
18:12That was the signal.
18:13Yep.
18:14Makes sense.
18:15Did your mother ever talk about this?
18:17Not at all.
18:20Henry and Ida had two children together, but chose not to marry.
18:25And while we don't know anything about the nature of their relationship, we do know that it didn't last long.
18:34Because records show that in 1928, Henry married a woman named Letitia Beckford.
18:42So this is, this is my grandfather.
18:46Yes.
18:47Finally marrying somebody else.
18:49Someone else.
18:50Yeah.
18:51That's your grandfather, Henry, getting married to someone other than your grandmother, Ida.
18:56Other than the woman he's had these kids with.
18:58Yeah.
18:59And your mom was 14 years old at the time when her father married another woman.
19:06I don't know what the, I didn't know this, but it all makes sense.
19:16And, and, oh man.
19:21Um, it's cons, not the specifics of my grandfather marrying another woman.
19:37Not the specifics of that per se, but it's consistent with some things that my aunt told me about certain things that had happened that impacted them as children.
19:52Mm-hmm.
19:53And that some of these things that happened when they were children had impacted my mother very negatively, harshly.
20:05Mm-hmm.
20:06It's not just this per se, but it's just consistent with an impression that one has, an impression that one has that gradually becomes less impressionistic.
20:24Mm-hmm.
20:25And more specific.
20:26Mm-hmm.
20:27It's as if figures are emerging through a fog.
20:33Mm-hmm.
20:34We now began to follow the roots of Delroy's grandmother, Ida, tracking back to her grandparents, Delroy's great-great-grandparents, a couple named James Lang and Margaret Campbell.
20:48We believe they both were born in Jamaica in the early 1800s, when the island was one of Great Britain's richest colonies, with an economy powered by slavery.
21:03Searching for traces of their lives, we uncovered a registry of Jamaica's enslaved population from the year 1826.
21:15It lists the names of thousands of enslaved people, including several hundred owned by a sugar planter who shared the surname of Delroy's ancestors, Lang.
21:29And one of these names stood out.
21:32Margaret Campbell.
21:34Color, Negro, age, two.
21:37African or Creole?
21:39Creole.
21:40So we have gone back into the bowels of slavery and found your ancestor by name and found the name of the white man who owned her.
21:49Owned her.
21:50Yeah.
21:51And that's where the Lang name came from.
21:54That's right.
21:55You got it.
21:56She was held at the Goshen Estate.
21:58We've marked its location right there.
22:01Goshen.
22:02Mm-hmm.
22:03You been anywhere near there?
22:04Nope.
22:05You gonna go there now?
22:06Absolutely.
22:07Because you got roots there.
22:08Absolutely.
22:09Absolutely.
22:10Margaret was likely born on this estate in the early 1820s.
22:17And as we comb through the estate's archives, we made a precious discovery.
22:23Margaret's mother, a woman named Louisa Thomas, is listed by name on multiple documents.
22:31Louisa is Delroy's third great-grandmother.
22:36She was born in the year 1797, meaning that Delroy's maternal roots can be traced back to the 18th century in a continuous paper trail.
22:50What's it been like for you to learn about your mother's family in so much depth?
22:56It's been elevating.
23:03It's been elevating.
23:08It's been elevating.
23:17My response, you know, it's, it's, it's, um, my response has brevity.
23:28It's just because I, I can't, I can't articulate every, I can't articulate.
23:33Of course.
23:34But if, I feel like I'm a, well, a comet does that, but I feel like I'm a comet in reverse.
23:42What would your mom have made of this?
23:45I, I'm sure my mother would have appreciated this, man.
23:49Mm-hmm.
23:50I'm, I'm, I, I, cause it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's healing.
23:55Yeah, it is.
23:57And if, if anybody needed to be healed, it was my mom.
24:01Mm-hmm.
24:02And myself, yes.
24:03Mm-hmm.
24:04But my mom needed healing.
24:05My mom needed a laying on of hands.
24:07My mom needed a laying, laying on of hands that she didn't even know she needed.
24:12Like Delroy, Liza Colon Zayas grew up very close to her mother, but came to me knowing little
24:22about her maternal roots.
24:24We started one generation back with Liza's grandfather, Pablo Marrero Almestica.
24:33Pablo was born in Puerto Rico in 1905.
24:37As a young man, he spent years struggling to support himself, moving from job to job in
24:44an economy that had been devastated by the Great Depression.
24:48Finally, when he was in his thirties, already with a wife and children, he joined the United
24:55States Merchant Marines, a decision that would change his life.
25:01Arriving at New York, name in full Pablo M. Almestica, fire and water tender.
25:08Pablo M. Almestica.
25:11So you know what you're looking at.
25:13Yes.
25:14There's your grandfather working on a ship called the SS Black Eagle.
25:17What's it like to see that ship?
25:19I never saw full pictures of him on the ship.
25:23I would see, like there were pictures of him down in the basement working on machines
25:30or in his little bunk, you know, on deck posing, but I never saw, wow, the size of this.
25:42What have you heard about his job in the Merchant Marines?
25:46I don't, I never understood it.
25:50I never really understood what he did.
25:53Well, as you read, he was a fireman in water tender, which means that he was running and
25:58maintaining the ship's boilers.
26:01So it was hot and very dirty work.
26:03And when he was on a job, he'd ship out for days or even months at a time.
26:08Can you imagine living and working on a ship like that for months?
26:13Mm-mm.
26:14He never wanted to go to the beach after they realized Puerto Rico.
26:17Yeah.
26:18I wanted to go.
26:19He never wanted to see the beach again.
26:21Though he may not have enjoyed being on the water, Pablo stuck with the Merchant Marines,
26:29likely because they paid well and brought the stability he'd been seeking for so long.
26:35Even so, the job was very hard on his family.
26:39When he wasn't on his ship, Pablo was rarely able to return to Puerto Rico, as his base was
26:46was in New York City.
26:48The situation became so stressful that Liza's grandmother eventually decided to join him
26:54in New York with her children.
26:57Did you know that?
26:59I knew that, yeah, my mom didn't really know her father until she was 11.
27:05Mm-hmm.
27:06Because he had been away at sea all of those years.
27:08Yeah.
27:09She was confused as to who this man was instead of telling her what to do and all.
27:14Don't you have a ship to catch?
27:16Yes.
27:17That had to have been hard on your grandmother.
27:22Yeah, she was trying to just survive as basically a single mom in a country where she
27:36didn't know the language at all.
27:37Oh, my God.
27:38Can you imagine?
27:39Very strong.
27:41And she kept, you know, so much of it inside.
27:46We now turned to Liza's deeper roots and discovered something surprising in the marriage
27:52record of her grandfather's father, a man named Pablo Marrero Adolfo.
28:00Natural son of Juliana.
28:02Natural son of Juliana.
28:04Do you know what that means, natural son?
28:06No.
28:07I assume gave birth to him?
28:09It means his mother was not married at the time of his birth.
28:14There were two categories, legitimate or natural.
28:19And natural means the mother was not married to the father of the child.
28:26Wow.
28:27So your grandfather's father was, as we say, born out of wedlock.
28:33Did you have any idea?
28:34No.
28:35This is a wild ride.
28:37It is.
28:38This is...
28:40Wow.
28:41This story was about to take a somber turn.
28:48Pablo's mother Juliana was not only unmarried, she was also enslaved.
28:54Records show that she was born into slavery on the island of Guadalupe, and then, as a young
28:59woman, brought to Puerto Rico to work in the household of a sugar planter.
29:06Though Liza knew that slavery had played a significant role in Puerto Rico's past, seeing it connected
29:12directly to her family with such specificity, was profoundly emotional.
29:19Wow.
29:21Did you ever think that you would learn the name of an enslaved ancestor?
29:29I thought I might.
29:33I thought I might.
29:34But it breaks my heart, and I'm crying, not because it's a total shock to me.
29:39Mm-hmm.
29:40It's because now there is a name to this person.
29:43Hell yeah.
29:44Ugh.
29:48We had one more name to share with Liza, the name of the man who fathered Juliana's son.
29:55He was called Amadei Marrero.
29:58And this was especially meaningful to Liza, because Amadei was a nickname that her grandfather
30:05chose for himself, and used throughout his life.
30:09That's where he got the nickname?
30:11That's where he got the nickname.
30:14And we also suspect that, like Juliana, Amadei may also have been enslaved.
30:20We just can't prove it.
30:23Because remember, she's enslaved.
30:25Yeah.
30:26And there is your grandfather bonding to this family tradition, bonding.
30:32Your grandfather is bonding to his grandfather.
30:35So that would make Don Amadei my great-great-great-grandfather.
30:42That's wild.
30:44That's wild.
30:46How do you think your mother will react when she finds out about all this?
30:49Yeah.
30:50I got to come over with a bottle of a coquito, and then we're going to have to sit in it.
31:01Her whole reality is going to get shaken.
31:04We'd already explored the secrets hidden in Delroy Lindo's mother's family tree.
31:11Now, we encountered a man whose entire life was shrouded in secrets.
31:17Delroy's own father, Ivan Lindo.
31:21Like Delroy's mother, Ivan immigrated to England from Jamaica.
31:26But this shared experience did not bind Delroy's parents together.
31:31To the contrary, Delroy told me that he only saw his father a few times over the course of his life, and that their interactions were almost always painful, leaving Delroy, even now, still trying to make sense of Ivan.
31:49There are a couple of possibilities as to why he was the way he was.
31:54One possibility is that he just was a sociopath who couldn't do any better.
32:04The other possibility, the other possibility is that, and this is something we're all aware of as black men.
32:22He just was beaten and battered and devalued and told he was nothing, constantly, despite the fact that you look at this photograph and you see he had a sense of himself.
32:35Yeah, he's a handsome man.
32:36Yeah.
32:37Yeah.
32:38And despite whatever his sense of himself was, there was no outlet for that.
32:43Yeah.
32:44And so, you know, how can one be constantly knocked around and not be impacted by that?
32:50That's right.
32:51And I think that's part of, I think that's a significant part of what happened with him.
32:57And coupled with whatever his natural tendencies were, it made for an individual who certainly was not as caring toward my mom as he could have been.
33:16Or to his son.
33:17Or to me.
33:19Ivan would prove to be as complicated to our researchers as he was to Delroy, raising many questions that we could not fully answer.
33:30The first concerns his name.
33:32There are almost no records of anyone named Ivan Lindo, either in Jamaica or England, that matched Delroy's father.
33:41The reason?
33:42At some point, likely in his youth, Ivan began to call himself Austin Stanford.
33:51Did he ever say why or do you know why he did that?
33:54No and no.
33:59I have a theory.
34:00But no, I do not know why he changed his name.
34:03I don't know that it was ever legal.
34:06Yeah, there is no, we have found no record that he did it officially.
34:11Yeah, yeah.
34:12But I think, I think, I surmise that he did this because it was a better representation.
34:28It sounds more elegant.
34:30Austin Stanford.
34:31Austin Stanford.
34:32Like Austin Healey, one of my favorite cars.
34:35It has a, yeah, yeah, yeah.
34:37Yeah.
34:38It has a, it has a, it has a certain ring to it.
34:40And I think he, he probably took that on as a, as a way of presenting himself in a more elegant fashion.
34:49When you saw him later in life, was he Austin?
34:51Yeah.
34:52He was Austin the whole, the whole time that I knew him.
34:57Oh, okay.
34:58I knew, as my father, I never knew him as Ivan Lindo.
35:00Ah.
35:01I always knew him as Austin Stanford.
35:03Gotcha.
35:04Well, knowing that your dad used that name proved to be very helpful to our researchers.
35:08Let me show you what we, what I mean.
35:10Okay.
35:11Please turn the page.
35:12Okay.
35:15Whoa.
35:16This is a British electoral role, one of dozens that we found listing Austin Stanford, or some
35:25variant of that name.
35:27Taken together, these roles show that Delroy's father moved around frequently.
35:33Records also show that in June of 1955, Delroy's father chose to do something that he had not done with Delroy's mother.
35:45He got married.
35:46Name and surname, Austin Ivan Stanford, age 34.
35:53Rank or profession, machine hand.
35:56Residence at the time of marriage, 56 Inch Mary Road, Catford.
36:03Name and surname, Ethlyn Med Green.
36:09This is a marriage record for your father under the name Austin Ivan Stanford.
36:14Yep.
36:15This is, this is par for the course for my father.
36:18Um, and as much, what I, what I mean by that is that, um, it, it doesn't surprise me that he, uh, he wasn't thinking about me, he wasn't thinking about my mom.
36:30Um, and so, uh, I am not surprised that he, he got married.
36:38Um, actually, this is before my third birthday.
36:42Oh.
36:43It doesn't surprise me.
36:46Wow.
36:47It's unfortunate.
36:50After his marriage, Delroy's father continued his peripatetic ways, moving three times in four years, before briefly settling down in the Lewisham neighborhood of London.
37:04Delroy told me that his father then moved to Toronto, sometime in the 1970s, but we couldn't find any record of his journey.
37:15In fact, by that time, Ivan had completely vanished from the paper trail.
37:22He just disappears.
37:24Yeah.
37:25And Delroy, not one place have we been able to find any evidence under either of his two names.
37:33Unless he picked a third name that we don't know.
37:36You know what?
37:37Uh, I have no idea, but once again, that doesn't necessarily surprise me about my, my dad.
37:44Man, we hired researchers in England, in Canada, in Jamaica.
37:48They went over every single archive that they could find.
37:51We even had a conversation about it.
37:53And, you know, cause I didn't want to disappoint you.
37:57I wanted to pull a rabbit out of the head.
38:00And our head genetic genealogist said, we're not going to find this guy.
38:04Right.
38:05We have looked everywhere.
38:06It will be a miracle.
38:07So look, this, A, I'm absolutely not surprised or disappointed.
38:13I'm not disappointed.
38:15I'm also not surprised because he, he disappeared, man.
38:20He has, he had a habit of just as he, I mean, just as he had a habit of not showing up for
38:29me in my life, not showing up for my mom in her life, flitting in and out randomly.
38:39It, it, it does not surprise me that he, he randomly shows up in Toronto and nobody, nobody
38:48can figure out how he got there.
38:50No.
38:51And there's, and I, we're expert on tracking people.
38:54I hear you.
38:56We tried to learn more about Delroy's father and uncovered his death certificate, which reveals
39:03he passed away in Jamaica in 1996.
39:07But unfortunately, after that, we hit brick wall after brick wall.
39:14So when our team built out Delroy's family tree, his mother's side stretched back into
39:20the 1700s while his father's contained just two names, a stark contrast that nevertheless
39:29held meaning to Delroy.
39:31So to look at this and to have this and to have this is kind of in keeping with, unfortunately,
39:43what my experience was.
39:44Yeah.
39:45I'm sorry.
39:46No, no, no, no, no, no.
39:47I don't say that from a place of disappointment.
39:50I say that it's, it's more of a kind of a pragmatic assessment.
39:54Right.
39:55Right.
39:56And, and also it's curious as hell to me that you say that none of your researchers
40:10could find any evidence of how he got from the United Kingdom to Canada.
40:18That fascinates the hell out of me.
40:20Yeah.
40:21Because the shipping records, passenger list, you know, we found them for everybody else.
40:25Right.
40:26But that was, that was my dad, man.
40:28Yeah.
40:29And this, this, this, this, this notion that I have of him, of, of, I'm not, I will not
40:41say a non-person, but a shadowy person.
40:44Mm-hmm.
40:45And I, and I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm not using that as pejorative.
40:49Mm-hmm.
40:50I, I use it as a, as a physical.
40:53He's someplace between being real, which I know he was, and a, and an app, apparition.
41:02Yeah.
41:03And in retrospect, I'm sure that none of his dreams came true.
41:08Mm-hmm.
41:09None of his aspirations for himself were fulfilled.
41:12And that's.
41:13That's so sad.
41:14Yeah.
41:15Yeah.
41:16It is.
41:17We'd already traced Liza Colon Zayas' maternal roots from New York to Puerto Rico.
41:24Now, turning to her father's ancestry, we'd followed a similar path, only to end up in
41:31a very different place.
41:33The story begins with Liza's grandmother, Julia Irisari, or as her family called her, the
41:41little general.
41:42Julia was born in Puerto Rico in 1908, then moved to New York as a teenager.
41:50Liza knew that she had had a dramatic life, but Julia herself rarely spoke about it.
41:58Was she a storyteller?
41:59Not really.
42:00No?
42:01Sometimes.
42:02If I asked direct questions, she would, and then, like, you know, I asked her, like,
42:11well, what was it like when you got here?
42:13Or, you know, she told me, like, the wages, what she did.
42:18And then I think I tried to ask about her parents, and she was like, why are you asking
42:23so many questions?
42:24End of conversation.
42:26Yeah.
42:27Well, I want to show you what we found.
42:30Could you please turn the page?
42:33We're back already 64 years.
42:36This is a record from the city clerk's office in New York City, dated November 19, 1960.
42:42Would you please read that transcribed section?
42:45From the bride, Julia Isari, number of times previously married, once.
42:53I knew it.
42:56Full name of former husband, Pedro Mangual.
43:02Wow.
43:06This record indicates that Liza's grandfather was not Julia's first husband.
43:12Digging deeper, we discovered that she married for the first time when she was just 17,
43:19to a man named Pedro Mangual.
43:23Within three years, the couple had had two children together.
43:28But their happiness didn't last.
43:31In December of 1928, their youngest child passed away when he was just four months old.
43:42I didn't know this at all.
43:48Wow.
43:50No wonder she didn't want to talk about these things.
43:52Yeah.
43:53She never talked about it.
43:55Mm.
43:57How do you think that affected her?
44:02Probably contributed to the title, little general.
44:05Where she had to arm her up.
44:08Yeah.
44:09And be strong and carry on.
44:12I would think so.
44:13Oh, my God.
44:16Unfortunately, Julia would have to carry on through a great deal more heartache.
44:21Four years after losing her child, her husband died of tuberculosis.
44:28And though Julia would remarry and start a new family with Liza's grandfather, another cruel blow lay ahead.
44:36When the United States entered World War II, Julia's eldest son, Pedro, volunteered to serve.
44:46He would be killed, fighting Japanese forces in the Pacific.
44:51Pedro is Liza's half uncle.
44:55She'd heard about his fate, but never seen any evidence of it until now.
44:59From Commandant of the Marine Corps to Mrs. Julia Colon, mother, deeply regret to inform you that your son, Private First Class Pedro H. Mangual, was killed in action 10th of April 1945 at Okinawa Island.
45:29I'm glad to see it on paper.
45:39Mmm.
45:45I saw my father once tell this story after many scotches, which he didn't do often, but I'm grateful to see it recorded.
45:54He was just 18 years old. The irony is, he lied about his age to get in.
45:59He was only 15 when he joined the Marines shortly after Pearl Harbor.
46:05Wow. 15.
46:08I know. So Julia is just being buffeted by fate.
46:12That's right.
46:14Following her son's death, Julia received a letter from the Marine Corps, informing her that Pedro's remains had been interred on Okinawa, the island where he was killed.
46:29In response, Julia made a series of simple, yet agonizing requests.
46:35Dear sir, in regard to your letter dated May 14th, 1945, in report to my son's death, PFC Pedro H. Mangual, please, I want to ask you a favor for my sake.
46:52Please do not have his clothes sent back to me.
46:58Please do not send nothing home.
47:01I also have to ask you that as my son gave his life for his country and he joined the Marines of his own free will, after this war is over, I would like to have his remains brought back to the United States.
47:18I am asking you this favor as his mother.
47:25Thank you. I remain very truly yours, Julia Colon.
47:31That is just so heartbreaking when I read that.
47:41Wow.
47:42You know, she just, she always just seems so solid and steady.
47:52Julia's wishes ultimately were granted.
47:59After the war, her son's remains were transferred to a military cemetery in the United States.
48:06What's more, in 1948, she received yet another letter from the Marine Corps.
48:12This one detailing the honors that Pedro was to receive posthumously.
48:21And a ribbon bar with one star and victory medal World War II.
48:28Wow.
48:30Yeah.
48:32Yeah.
48:33So you know what that means.
48:34Pedro and his unit received multiple awards, including the Presidential Unit Citation.
48:41And they received this award for their quote unquote extraordinary heroism in fighting at Okinawa.
48:47What's it like to see that?
48:50You know, my people fight hard.
48:56We bring it all and this is more proof.
49:01And I'm so relieved that he was acknowledged.
49:13There is a final beat to this story.
49:18A far happier one.
49:20When we set out to trace Julia's roots, we found a treasure trove of documents.
49:27They allowed us to go back over 200 years and introduce Liza to her fourth great grandparents, who married in Puerto Rico in 1799.
49:41Wow.
49:42Wow.
49:43I have to ask you.
49:44Wow.
49:45What is it like learning this?
49:48But I'm grateful for this.
49:50I am so, like, yeah, my people go back from seven till 1799.
49:58Easy.
49:59What do you think your father would have felt?
50:02Because after all, these are his ancestors.
50:04He would just be grunting.
50:11That's what he did when he was impressed.
50:13Huh.
50:14Huh.
50:15He'd be doing a lot of that.
50:17Yo, I got news for you.
50:18When I saw this, I went, huh, too.
50:20The paper trail had now run out for Liza and Delroy, but there were surprises still to come.
50:31When we compared their DNA to that of others who've been in the series, we found a match for each of them.
50:39Evidence within their own chromosomes of distant cousins that they never knew they had.
50:46For Delroy, this meant a new connection to an old friend.
50:51You know LeVar Burton?
50:53Yes, I do.
50:54That is your DNA cousin.
50:57Wow.
50:58You and LeVar share a long identical stretch of DNA on your 16th chromosome.
51:02That means you have a distant common ancestor somewhere on your family tree.
51:06Some...
51:08Does he know that?
51:09No.
51:10No, because you hadn't done me when you did him.
51:12Yeah, that's right.
51:13Yeah.
51:14Wow.
51:15Isn't that cool?
51:16That is.
51:17And he would love to know that.
51:19That's way cool.
51:21Liza, too, was about to discover that she has a new relative among her friends.
51:27Turn the page and meet your cousin.
51:31Yes!
51:32I knew it!
51:33Liza shares a long stretch of DNA with fellow actor and fellow Puerto Rican Justina Machado.
51:46I love her so much.
51:47We met a handful of times and it's like we fall into each other.
51:51Well, there you go.
51:52You got good reason.
51:53With hugs and laughter.
51:55You can call her when you get home.
51:58Wow.
51:59This is fantastic.
52:03That's the end of our journey with Liza Colon Zayas and Delroy Lindo.
52:10Join me next time when we unlock the secrets of the past for new guests on another episode of Finding Your Roots.
52:20The next episode is called the Thee.
52:22Thee.
52:23Thee.
52:24Thee.
52:25Thee.
52:26Thee.
52:27Thee.
52:28Thee.
52:29Thee.
52:30Thee.
52:31Thee.
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