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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.
00:47You know, that we have a long, rich history.
00:52To uncover their roots, we've used every tool available.
00:57Genealogists 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.
01:34It'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.
01:48Burying their family's stories in the past.
01:51In this episode, those stories will be unearthed.
01:55Forever altering how Delroy and Liza see themselves.
01:59You because you're done with these things,
02:44Delroy Lindo may seem like a tough guy, but the imposing actor with the ice-cold stare
02:51is nothing like the fierce men he's portrayed on screen.
02:56In fact, in person, Delroy is warm, thoughtful, and profoundly sensitive, and when he tells
03:05his story, you understand why.
03:10Delroy was born in England, the son of Jamaican immigrants.
03:14He was raised in London by his mother, a nurse who struggled mightily in a place where she
03:20was made to feel like an outsider.
03:22As the only black child in his elementary school, Delroy often felt like an outsider himself.
03:30But when he was cast as one of the wise men in the school's Christmas pageant, his life
03:36was transformed.
03:39I was in the nativity play as a five-year-old when I played Balthazar.
03:44Yeah.
03:45The wise man of color.
03:51But what it was, and this is what I've learned relatively recently, it was not the aspect
04:01of performing, even though that was wonderful, what it was, was the teacher who was directing
04:12the pageant, the play, singled 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, just the way that I was saying the lines.
04:30Right.
04:30And she used me as an example, and I believe that was an affirmation for me.
04:35Yeah.
04:35That was an affirmation.
04:37And that's when a dime dropped that I was affirmed in a very singular way.
04:47That teacher put Delroy on the path he's still following today.
04:52But the journey would be a circuitous one.
04:56Over the next few years, Delroy and his mother would move from England to Canada, and then
05:03finally, to the United States, where Delroy would begin to study acting in earnest.
05:09But it would take him over a decade to find success, much to his mother's dismay.
05:17One of the things that my mom had a really, really, really hard time understanding, and
05:21I understand that, okay, you go and you work in the theater, and you go and you rehearse.
05:29You work for eight weeks.
05:31You rehearse for four weeks, and then you perform for another four weeks.
05:35And then you're unemployed.
05:38And she'd go, what's this about?
05:39What do you mean?
05:39You maybe get a job, and then you don't have a job?
05:42Uh-huh.
05:42And what happens in between?
05:43Uh-huh.
05:44A foreign concept, an alien concept.
05:47Yeah, but most people don't understand that.
05:49This is true.
05:50Most parents don't, you know.
05:50No, this is true.
05:51Yeah.
05:51But for the Caribbean, not necessarily just the Caribbean people, but for anybody who
06:01comes 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
06:15you to make your way through life.
06:18Right.
06:18And acting was not it.
06:19So you, did you break your heart?
06:21Yes.
06:21When you set up a be an actor?
06:23Yes.
06:23And she said, what's wrong with you?
06:24I could, yes.
06:26All of the above.
06:27I could have just as well have said, I'm going to the moon, Ma.
06:33Delroy eventually put his mother's fears to rest.
06:38In 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.
06:52He's worked almost constantly ever since, while also navigating an industry that can be fickle, particularly
07:00towards actors of color.
07:03But looking back on all he's achieved, Delroy's greatest pride is a simple one.
07:09He stayed true to his craft and true to himself.
07:14I'm proudest of the fact that the relationship between art and commerce, even though I have
07:23made missteps for sure, but it hasn't destroyed me.
07:31I'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
07:48your young self?
07:49If there is anything that you can do, if there's anything else that you can do and be happy,
07:56do that.
07:57Right.
07:58No, I'm serious.
07:59Mm-hmm.
08:00If you genuinely feel, in making this decision to become an actor, that this is your destiny,
08:11however 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
08:38hit series, The Bear.
08:40Much 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,
08:52at a time when there were very few Latinos in Hollywood.
08:56But even so, that did not stop her from dreaming.
09:01As 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.
09:13But 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
09:24is problematic, I don't know.
09:26But I was like, I want to live in a multicolored bus and play the tambourine and be with, you
09:33know, and she's a single mom.
09:34They'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.
09:46I'm going to replace the little girl, Tracy.
09:50And, you know, this is what I'm going to do, okay?
09:52I don't know. My plan was like to take a taxi or something. I don't know.
09:55But 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, the hugest laugh of my crush, of my, of this idea.
10:14And then I was like, later for you.
10:21As it turns out, Liza would not be able to hold back her dreams much longer.
10:27After high school, she enrolled at the University of Albany as a business major, but soon switched to acting.
10:37Was 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.
10:55Oh, that's terrible.
10:56But he meant well.
10:57Mm-hmm.
10:57And, and.
10:59And he was Latino?
11:00Yeah, he was Puerto Rican.
11:02Yeah.
11:02Yeah.
11:02Yeah.
11:03Professional.
11:05And he was like, I want us to be a family that, you know, has, you know, combined income, that's
11:12really good, and live in the suburbs.
11:13And he had these dreams, and I've, as a person already feeling unworthy of anything good, you know, it's like,
11:22okay, so maybe I'll, I don't know, I'll, I'll study economics.
11:27Mm-hmm.
11:27But then I saw that there was a, a, an original piece being performed in Albany, written and created by
11:36the, 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.
11:42Liza 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.
12:01But everything changed in 1995, when she wrote, produced, and starred in Sister Supreme, a one-woman show based on
12:14her own childhood.
12:16The show took Liza's career to the next level.
12:20But 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.
12:33That doesn't feel authentic to me or useful.
12:37Um, I, I like messy characters.
12:40And of course, I'm who I am, so she's going to be Latina, she's going to be Afro-Latina.
12:45But as long as there's humanity.
12:48Mm-hmm.
12:48And people want to see the journey.
12:50Um, 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, um, 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
13:17show.
13:18You know, we survive.
13:20My guests share a common thread.
13:22Both grew up focused on their careers, with very little knowledge of their family trees.
13:29It was time for that to change.
13:33I started with Delroy.
13:36And with his mother, Anna Moncrief.
13:40Anna was born in Jamaica.
13:43But in 1951, when she was 37 years old, she left her home behind.
13:50And boarded a ship for England, seeking work as a nurse.
13:56It would be the first of many journeys to come.
14:00Did she ever talk about what inspired her to make the move?
14:05No, she never talked to me about it at all.
14:09I-I knew, I knew, um, that it was career-oriented.
14:14Mm-hmm.
14:15Um, um, but my mom never talked to me about it.
14:19Do you think that she liked England?
14:22No.
14:22No?
14:23Why not?
14:25I-I just think, uh, it was too, um, too difficult.
14:30Too racist.
14:31Mm-hmm.
14:31Too confining.
14:32Mm-hmm.
14:34Too...
14:38...debilitating.
14:39Mm-hmm.
14:39Mm-hmm.
14:40And this is one of the things that I really respect about my mom.
14:43And I-my-the respect that I have for my mom has been-has increased, um, retrospectively,
14:53because I just feel like my mom saw the handwriting on the wall.
14:57Mm-hmm.
14:58In England.
14:59Mm-hmm.
14:59In 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.
15:08Getting out of England may have been a good thing, but it wasn't easy.
15:14In 1958, when Delroy was five years old, his mother sent him to live with another family
15:20in London and set off for Canada, where nurses were in high demand.
15:25She 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.
15:37It offered Delroy a glimpse of his mother at that pivotal moment.
15:44Yeah.
15:49Would you like to see that?
15:57On some- on some level, it's kind of mind-blowing, because seeing this is just, um, profoundly
16:12affirming for things, for feelings that I have, that I've- that I have and have had about
16:22my mom's history and about how my mom lived her life.
16:28And here is the tangible evidence of that.
16:35And 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.
16:51Ultimately, 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.
17:10We set out to fill them in, beginning with Anna's birth record, which contains a wealth of information
17:18about her family.
17:20We suspect that the informant listed here, a man named George Moncrief, was a relative of
17:27Anna'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?
17:41No.
17:43Wow.
17:44And you noticed something else about that record?
17:49Name of father, blank.
17:50So you know what that means?
17:53What?
17:54We suspect that your grandparents, Henry and Ida, weren't married at the time your mother
17:59was born.
18:00Yes, right.
18:00And in fact, the register clerks in Jamaica followed an old English law that if the parents
18:06were not married, the father's name would not be listed on the birth certificate.
18:10Blank.
18:10Yeah.
18:10That was the signal.
18:13Yep.
18:14Makes sense.
18:15Did your mother ever talk about this?
18:18Not 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
18:32it didn't last long.
18:33Because records show that in 1928, Henry married a woman named Letitia Beckford.
18:42So this is, this is my grandfather.
18:45Yes.
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.
19:03When her father married another woman.
19:07I don't know what the, I didn't know this, but it all makes sense.
19:15Mm-hmm.
19:17And, oh man.
19:22Um.
19:27It's cons, not the specifics of my grandfather marrying another woman.
19:36Not the specifics of that per se, but it's consistent with some things that my aunt told me about certain
19:48things that had happened that impacted them as children.
19:52Mm-hmm.
19:52Hmm.
19:53And that some of these things that happened when they were children had impacted my mother
20:01very negatively, harshly.
20:03Mm-hmm.
20:05Now I don't know if it's this per se, but it's just consistent with an impression that one has,
20:17an impression that one has that gradually becomes less impressionistic and more specific.
20:26Mm-hmm.
20:27It's as if figures are emerging through a fog.
20:34We now began to follow the roots of Delroy's grandmother, Ida, tracking back to her grandparents,
20:41Delroy'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
20:56Britain'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
21:12the year 1826.
21:15It lists the names of thousands of enslaved people, including several hundred owned by a sugar
21:22planter 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.
21:38African or Creole?
21:40Creole.
21:40So we have gone back into the bowels of slavery and found your ancestor by name and found the
21:47name of the white man who owned her.
21:49Owned her.
21:50Yeah.
21:52And that's where the Lang name came from.
21:55That's right.
21:55You got it.
21:56She was held at the Goshen Estate.
21:58We've marked its location right there.
22:01Goshen, mm-hmm.
22:02You been anywhere near there?
22:03Nope.
22:05You gonna go there now?
22:06Absolutely.
22:06Because you got roots there.
22:07Absolutely.
22:09Absolutely.
22:12Margaret was likely born on this estate in the early 1820s.
22:17And as we combed 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.
22:35She was born in the year 1797, meaning that Delroy's maternal roots can be traced back to the 18th century
22:46in a continuous paper trail.
22:50What's it been like for you to learn about your mother's family in so much depth?
22:58It's been elevating.
23:06It's been elevating.
23:08It's been elevating.
23:12It's been elevating.
23:15And if my 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
23:41reverse.
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.
23:56It is.
23:57And if, if anybody needed to be healed, it was my mom.
24:01Mm-hmm.
24:01And myself, yes.
24:03Mm-hmm.
24:03But 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.
24:14Like Delroy, Liza Colonzeus grew up very close to her mother, but came to me knowing little
24:21about her maternal roots.
24:24We started one generation back with Liza's grandfather, Pablo Marrero Almestica.
24:32Pablo was born in Puerto Rico in 1905.
24:36As a young man, he spent years struggling to support himself, moving from job to job in
24:43an 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
24:54States Merchant Marines, a decision that would change his life.
25:01Arriving at New York, name in full, Pablo M. Almestica, fire and water tender.
25:08Heh heh.
25:09Pablo M. Almestica.
25:11Ah.
25:12So you know what you're looking at.
25:13Yes.
25:13There's your grandfather working on a ship called the SS Black Eagle.
25:17What's it like to see that ship?
25:18Yeah.
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 on, you know, on deck posing.
25:34But I never saw, wow, the size of this.
25:39Heh heh heh.
25:41What have you heard about his job in the Merchant Marines?
25:46I don't, I never understood it.
25:48Um, I never really understood what he did.
25:53Well, as you read, he was a fireman and water tender, which means that he was running
25:58and maintaining the ship's boilers.
26:00So 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.
26:08Uh, can you imagine living and working on a ship like that for months?
26:13Mm-mm.
26:13He never wanted to go to the beach after they went to Puerto Rico.
26:18I wanted to go.
26:19He never wanted to see the beach again.
26:22Though he may not have enjoyed being on the water, Pablo stuck with the Merchant Marines,
26:28likely because they paid well and brought the stability he'd been seeking for so long.
26:34Even 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 in
26:46New York City.
26:47The situation became so stressful that Liza's grandmother eventually decided to join him in New York with their children.
26:57Did you know that?
26:58Uh, I knew that, yeah, uh, 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.
27:08So she was confused as to who this man was and telling her what to do and all that.
27:14Don't you have a ship to catch?
27:19Yes.
27:20That had to have been hard on your grandmother.
27:22Yeah, she was trying to, um, just survive, uh, as basically a single mom in a country, she didn't know
27:36the language at all.
27:37Oh, my God.
27:38Can you imagine?
27:38Very strong.
27:40Um, and she kept, you know, so much of it inside.
27:45We now turn to Liza's deeper roots and discovered something surprising in the marriage record of her grandfather's father, a
27:55man named Pablo Marrero Adolfo.
28:00Natural son of Juliana.
28:02Natural son of Juliana.
28:04Do you know what that means, natural son?
28:05No.
28:06I 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.
28:18And natural means the mother was not married to the father of the child.
28:25Wow.
28:27So your grandfather's father was, as we say, born out of wedlock.
28:32Did you have any idea?
28:34No.
28:35This is a wild ride.
28:37It is.
28:38This is...
28:40Wow.
28:43This story was about to take a somber turn.
28:47Pablo'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 woman, brought
29:00to Puerto Rico to work in the household of a sugar planter.
29:05Though Liza knew that slavery had played a significant role in Puerto Rico's past, seeing it connected directly to her
29:13family with such specificity was profoundly emotional.
29:19Wow.
29:22Did you ever think that you would learn the name of an enslaved ancestor?
29:31I thought I might.
29:33I thought I might.
29:34I thought I might.
29:34But I...
29:34It breaks my heart and I'm crying, not because it's a total shock to me, it's because now there is
29:41a name to this person.
29:42Hell yeah.
29:44Ugh.
29:47We had one more name to share with Liza, the name of the man who fathered Juliana's son.
29:54He was called Amadei Marrero.
29:57And this was especially meaningful to Liza because Amadei was a nickname that her grandfather chose for himself and used
30:07throughout his life.
30:09That's where he got the nickname?
30:11That's where he got the nickname.
30:13And we also suspect that like Juliana, Amadei may also have been enslaved.
30:19We just can't prove it.
30:22Because remember, she's enslaved.
30:24Yeah.
30:25And there is your grandfather bonding to this family tradition, bonding.
30:31Your grandfather is bonding to his grandfather.
30:35So that would make Don Amadei my great-great-great-great-grandfather.
30:42That's wild.
30:45That's wild.
30:46That's wild.
30:46That's wild.
30:46How do you think your mother will react when she finds out about all this?
30:52Yeah.
30:54I got to come over with a bottle of a coquito and then we're going to have to sit in
30:59it.
31:01Her whole reality is going to get shaken.
31:05We'd already explored the secrets hidden in Delroy Lindo's mother's family tree.
31:10Now, we encountered a man whose entire life was shrouded in secrets.
31:16Delroy's own father, Ivan Lindo.
31:20Like Delroy's mother, Ivan immigrated to England from Jamaica.
31:25But this shared experience did not bind Delroy's parents together.
31:30To the contrary, Delroy told me that he only saw his father a few times over the course of his
31:38life.
31:38And that their interactions were almost always painful.
31:43Leaving 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.
31:53Mm-hmm.
31:54One possibility is that he just was a sociopath who couldn't do any better.
32:03The other possibility, the other possibility is that, and this is a, this is something we're
32:17all aware of as black men.
32:21Um, he just was beaten and battered.
32:24Sure.
32:25And, and devalued.
32:27Right.
32:28And told he was nothing.
32:29Mm-hmm.
32:30Um, constantly.
32:31Despite 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.
32:37And despite whatever his sense of himself was, um, there was no outlet for that.
32:43Yeah.
32:43And so, you know, how can one be constantly knocked around and not be impacted by that?
32:49That's right.
32:50And I think that's part of, I think that's a significant part of what happened with him.
32:55Um, and coupled with whatever his natural tendencies were.
33:02Uh-huh.
33:03It made for an individual who certainly was not as caring toward my mom as he could have
33:14been.
33:15Mm-hmm.
33:15And...
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
33:25many questions that we could not fully answer.
33:29The first concerns his name.
33:32There are almost no records of anyone named Ivan Lindo, either in Jamaica or England, that
33:39matched Delroy's father.
33:41The reason?
33:42At some point, likely in his youth, Ivan began to call himself Austin Stanford.
33:50Did he ever say why or do you know why he did that?
33:57No and no.
33:58I 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.
34:06There is no...
34:07We have found no record that he did it officially.
34:10Yeah.
34:10Yeah, yeah.
34:11Yeah.
34:12Yeah.
34:12Yeah.
34:13I think I surmise that he did this because it was a better representation.
34:27It sounds more elegant.
34:30Austin Stanford.
34:31Austin Stanford.
34:33Like Austin Healey, one of my favorite cars.
34:35Yeah, yeah, yeah.
34:37It has a certain ring to it.
34:40And I think he probably took that on 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 time that I knew him.
34:57Oh, okay.
34:57As my father, I never knew him as Ivan Lindo.
35:00I always knew him as Austin Stanford.
35:03Gotcha.
35:03Well, knowing that your dad used that name proved to be very helpful to our researchers.
35:08Let me show you what I mean.
35:10Please turn the page.
35:11Okay.
35:14Whoa.
35:17This is a British electoral roll, one of dozens that we found listing Austin Stanford, or some
35:24variant of that name.
35:27Taken together, these rolls show that Delroy's father moved around frequently.
35:32Records also show that in June of 1955, Delroy's father chose to do something that he had not
35:42done with Delroy's mother.
35:44He got married.
36:09This is a marriage record for your father under the name Austin Ivan Stanford.
36:14Yep.
36:15This is par for the course for my father.
36:18And what I mean by that is that it doesn't surprise me that he wasn't thinking about me.
36:28He wasn't thinking about my mom.
36:29So, um, and so, uh, I am not surprised that he, he got married, uh, actually, this is before
36:41my third birthday.
36:44It doesn't surprise me.
36:46Wow.
36:46It's unfortunate.
36:50After his marriage, Delroy's father continued his peripatetic ways, moving three times in
36:58four 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
37:12find any record of his journey.
37:15In fact, by that time, Ivan had completely vanished from the paper trail.
37:21He just disappears.
37:24And Delroy, not one place have we been able to find any evidence under either of his two
37:32names, unless he picked a third name that we don't know.
37:35You know what, I have no idea, but once again, that doesn't necessarily surprise me about
37:44my, 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.
37:55And, you know, cause I didn't want to disappoint you.
37:57I wanted to pull a rabbit out of the head.
37:59And our head genetic genealogist said, we're not going to find this guy.
38:04We 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, man, just as he had a habit of not showing
38:28up for
38:29me in my life, not showing up for my mom in her life, flitting in and out randomly.
38:38It, 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.
38:49No, and there's, and 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
39:02reveals he passed away in Jamaica in 1996.
39:06But 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.
39:32So to look at this and to have this and to have this is kind of in keeping with, unfortunately,
39:42what my experience was.
39:44Yeah, I'm sorry.
39:46No, 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.
39:54Right?
39:55Um.
39:59And, and, 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, because the shipping records, passenger lists, you know, we found them for everybody
40:25else.
40:25Right.
40:26But that was, that was my dad, man.
40:28Yeah.
40:29This, this, this, um, this notion that I have of him.
40:37Of, of, I'm not, I will not say a non-person, but a shadowy person.
40:44Mm-hmm.
40:46And I, and 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, he's someplace between being real, which I know he was, and
41:00a, and an appar, apparition.
41:02Yeah.
41:02And 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.
41:14Yeah.
41:14Yeah, it is.
41:16We'd already traced Liza Colon Zayas's maternal roots from New York to Puerto Rico.
41:23Now, 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 Little
41:41General.
41:43Julia 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?
42:01Not really.
42:02No?
42:02Sometimes.
42:03If I asked direct questions, um, she would, and then, like, you know, I asked her, like,
42:10well, what was it like when you got here?
42:12And, or, you know, she told me, like, the wages, um, what she did.
42:18And then I think I tried to ask about her parents, and she was like, why are you asking
42:22so many questions?
42:24End of conversation.
42:26Yeah.
42:27Well, I want to show you what we found.
42:29Could 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 19th, 1960.
42:42Would you please read that transcribed section?
42:44From the bride, Julia Irisari, number of times previously married, once.
42:52I knew it.
42:55Full name of former husband, Pedro Mangual.
43:02Wow.
43:05This 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 to
43:19a man named Pedro Mangual.
43:22Within three years, the couple had had two children together.
43:27But their happiness didn't last.
43:30In December of 1928, their youngest child passed away when he was just four months old.
43:42I didn't know this at all.
43:47Wow.
43:49No wonder she didn't want to talk about these things.
43:51Yeah.
43:52She never talked about it.
43:54Mm.
43:56How do you think that affected her?
44:02Probably contributed to the title, Little General.
44:06Where she had to arm her up.
44:08Yeah.
44:09And be strong and carry on.
44:14Unfortunately, Julio would have to carry on through a great deal more heartache.
44:22Four years after losing her child, her husband died of tuberculosis.
44:27And though Julio would remarry and start a new family with Liza's grandfather, another cruel blow lay ahead.
44:37When the United States entered World War II, Julio's eldest son, Pedro, volunteered to serve.
44:45He would be killed fighting Japanese forces in the Pacific.
44:51Pedro is Liza's half-uncle.
44:54She had heard about his fate, but never seen any evidence of it until now.
45:01From Commandant of the Marine Corps II, Mrs. Julia Colon, mother,
45:08I deeply regret to inform you that your son, Private First Class Pedro H. Mangual,
45:14was killed in action, 10th of April, 1945, at Okinawa Island.
45:36I'm glad to see it on paper.
45:39Mm.
45:44I saw my father once tell this story after many scotches, which he didn't do often, but I'm grateful to
45:52see it recorded.
45:53He 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.
46:07I know. So Julio is just being buffeted by fate.
46:12That's right.
46:15Following her son's death, Julio received a letter from the Marine Corps informing her that Pedro's remains
46:23had been interred on Okinawa, the island where he was killed.
46:28In response, Julio 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.
46:46Mangual,
46:47please, I want to ask you a favor for my sake.
46:51Please do not have his clothes sent back to me.
46:57Please do not send nothing home.
47:00I also have to ask you that as my son gave his life for his country and he joined the
47:07Marines of his own free will,
47:10after this war is over.
47:13After this war is over, I would like to have his remains brought back to the United States.
47:19I am asking you this favor as his mother.
47:26I remain very truly yours, Julia Colon.
47:35That is just so heartbreaking when I read that.
47:42Wow.
47:45You know, she just, she always just seems so solid and steady.
47:55Julia's wishes ultimately were granted.
47:58After 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.
48:20And a ribbon bar with one star and victory medal World War II.
48:28Wow.
48:29Yeah.
48:31Yeah.
48:33So you know what that means.
48:34Pedro and his unit received multiple awards, including the Presidential Unit Citation.
48:40And 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.
48:57We bring it all and this is more proof and I'm so relieved that he was acknowledged.
49:15There is a final beat to this story, a far happier one.
49:20When we set out to trace Julia's roots, we found a treasure trove of documents.
49:26They allowed us to go back over 200 years and introduce Liza to her fourth great-grandparents who married in
49:37Puerto Rico in 1799.
49:41Wow.
49:43I have to ask you, what is it like learning this?
49:48But I'm grateful for this.
49:50I'm so, like, yeah, my people go back from 17 until 1799.
49:57Easy.
49:58Easy.
50:00What do you think your father would have felt?
50:02Because after all, these are his ancestors.
50:06He would just be grunting.
50:11That's what he did when he was impressed.
50:13Huh.
50:14Huh.
50:15Because he'd be doing a lot of that.
50:17Yo, I got news for you.
50:18When I saw this, I went, huh, too.
50:23The paper trail had now run out for Liza and Delroy, but there were surprises still to come.
50:30When we compared their DNA to that of others who've been in the series, we found a match for each
50:38of them.
50:39Evidence within their own chromosomes of distant cousins that they never knew they had.
50:45But for Delroy, this meant a new connection to an old friend.
50:51You know LeVar Burton?
50:53Yes, I do.
50:53That is your DNA cousin.
50:57Wow.
50:57You 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.
51:12Yeah.
51:13Wow.
51:14Wow.
51:15Isn't that cool?
51:15That is.
51:16And he would love to know that.
51:19That's way cool.
51:20Liza, too, was about to discover that she has a new relative among her friends.
51:26Turn the page and meet your cousin.
51:31Yes, I knew it!
51:36Liza shares a long stretch of DNA with fellow actor and fellow Puerto Rican, Justina Machado.
51:45I love her.
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.
51:57Wow, this is fantastic.
52:03That's the end of our journey with Liza Colon Zayas and Delroy Lindo.
52:09Join me next time when we unlock the secrets of the past for new guests on another episode of Finding
52:18Your Roots.
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