By Zadi Zokou
I immigrated from Côte d’Ivoire to the United States in 2005, a year after my wife and our 2-year-old daughter had fled the mounting political violence in my country. We settled in Natick, Massachusetts, a predominantly white suburb in the Boston area.
By 2010, while researching Praying Town, my documentary film that recounts the history of Native Americans in Natick, I uncovered a wealth of information about African Americans in Natick’s early days and felt compelled to share their stories as well.
This introduction to African American history sparked my interest in the African American experience and led to my next project, Black N Black, a film that explores the relationship between African Americans and African immigrants to the United States.
Early into my research, my wife suggested that I take a DNA test and her enthusiasm was so contagious that I agreed.
I was shocked when the results arrived a few months later. My ethnicity estimate showed I had 100% West African heritage, mainly from the Ivory Coast and Ghana. My matches were all Black and the overwhelming majority had American names. And there were not just a few matches, but hundreds, including a dozen fourth cousins, people with whom I share at least 20 cM. In genetics, a centimorgan or map unit is a unit for measuring genetic linkage.
Filmmaker Zadi Zokou with his newly discovered cousin, Tonya Satterwithe-Mosley. Photo courtesy of Zadi ZokouPhoto courtesy of Zadi Zokou
These are individuals with whom I might share a third great-grandparent, a person probably born in the first half of the 19th century. I thought the DNA company must be mistaken, maybe they confused my DNA with an African American’s DNA. Yet, when our teenage daughter’s DNA test results arrived later, they validated mine.
Reactions to my results were mixed. While some Black folks saw my experience as a hopeful way to reconnect families separated by the Transatlantic Slave Trade, many others were skeptical.
I suspected the skepticism was rooted in the lingering legacy of slavery. The methodical slave-acculturation process that forcibly cut the cord to enslaved people’s African roots and culture; the intentional non-recording of slaves’ names during census operations prior to 1870 makes it difficult to trace genealogies.
How did my connection to so many African Americans happen? I have several possible explanations, but three seem most plausible.
My first hypothesis is related to the Bétés people, the ethnic group to which I belong. Located in the mid-west of present-day Côte d’Ivoire, the Bétés is composed of about 93 tribes, all part of the larger linguistic and cultural group called Kru, which spans to Liberia.
According to oral traditions and some scholars, some of the tribes might have migrated from present-day Liberia. If this is true, the common ancestor may have had some relationship with African Americans who, as early as 1822, were settled there by the American Colonization Society, and on July 26, 1847, declared the independence of the Republic of Liberia.
The second theory is that Kru people, especially those living along the Atlantic Coast, but also those from the hinterland looking for trade opportunities or jobs on the coast, were hired as free sailors on European ships. Some of them may have settled in coastal cities in the Americas. The common ancestor may have been among them.
The third explanation could be found in today’s deeper understanding of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in my country. A recent study, conducted by the UNESCO-funded Slave Route Project, reveals the existence of several slave routes in Côte d’Ivoire. Many of them lead to two coastal towns directly south of my parents’ area of origin. In his book “L’Esclavage dans les Sociétés Lignagères de la Forêt Ivoirienne (Slavery in Lineage Societies of the Ivorian Forest - 17th to the 20th century),” Ivorian anthropologist Harris Mémel Fotê documented these towns, then called Sassandra and Lahu-Kpanda, as important points of embarkment of enslaved people. Fotê states that the Dutch deported as many as 95,000 captives from these shores. While along the Windward Coast, presently Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia, an estimated 337,000 captives were shipped to the Americas. My ancestors might have been one of them.
While I’ll continue to search for answers about my family history, I feel I have a second and equally important task.
During the production of Black N Black, an African American interviewee said that not knowing where she is from makes her feel like she’s not a complete person. With the erasure of the enslaved Africans’ past by the slavers, a growing number of African Americans are turning to DNA testing to find their African roots.
DNA tests help identify geographical ties and tribal groups from which their ancestors originated. By embracing the power of DNA and expanding the pool of matches, continental Africans can give African Americans a biological family and a specific community and place of origin. I hope that by sharing my own experience, other Africans might feel moved to try the same.
Zadi Zokou is a documentary filmmaker from Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa. He immigrated to the United States in 2005 and settled in Natick, Massachusetts where he lives with his wife Karen Ryder and their daughter Fiona Zokou. His film Black N Black explores the relationship between African Americans and African immigrants in the United States.
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
Here’s how to submit an op-ed or Letter to the Editor. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.com’s newsletters.
"Opinion" - Google News
September 22, 2021 at 10:19PM
https://ift.tt/3ocEnPZ
My reverse roots | Opinion - NJ.com
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FkSo6m
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment