Claiming my roots

A reflection of Ancestry, Identity, and Becoming

I have had this specific reflection sitting on the back burner for a very long time. There were many feelings of insecurity that surrounded it. I’ve done a lot of healing, and when I say healing, I mean releasing. The more I let go of, the more room I have for loving myself. This piece reflects that love. I’m not standing on a soap box or attempting to convince anyone of my right to claim my inheritance. I’m just claiming it.

Photo by rishi on Unsplash

My DNA says I’m European. Those roots stretch from Croatia to Iceland. There are thick Celtic threads woven through me, which feels right since Scotland has always felt familiar in a way I could never explain.

I traced my white ancestry to multiple locations while in school, because that was the environment I was surrounded by. I discovered that I have a few ancestors whose signatures are listed on the Declaration of Independence. The one that stands out in my mind the loudest is William Whipple. (Here’s a link if you want to know more about him)

I grew up feeling proud of my European roots and appalled by them in equal measure. And while my white family had their subtle prejudices, they claimed me. For better or worse.

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My DNA also says that I am African. I have deep roots in West Africa, largely in Nigeria, among the Edo and Igbo people. It feels like a privilege to know that, as if I carry honor in my bones.

But that honor was never offered to me as something I had any right to claim. That land is sacred, and I was a dilution of that sacred energy. My family had acquired beliefs of their oppressors and didn’t even realize it.

I did my best to trace my black ancestry back as far as I could on my own. But it’s not easy to trace African American heritage. All roads lead to ledgers.

As a child, I thought that having one white parent and one Black parent meant I would be a perfect fifty-fifty split. I didn’t yet understand that mixed doesn’t mean halved, it means blended. That confusion makes sense though, when you are raised as one race and rejected by the other.

My mother’s genetics took the lead in my creation. My hair is curly and frizzy, but not coarse. My skin is light, but not so light that the Blackness in my veins disappears. My mother shows up in my eyes and hands, my father in my nose, my lips, and the shape of my body. I am a living collaboration of many generations.

I have often struggled with feeling like I was too much and not enough of either race. I grew up white, but I was constantly reminded that I wasn’t. When I met my father’s family, my grandfather sat me down and told me how we got our last name. It was an all-too-common tale of a family that owned our ancestors and branded them with their name. He explained that the spelling was later altered when the bell of freedom rang, to reclaim some small piece of identity.

Even as he taught me this history, he made it clear that my Blackness was not enough to claim.

I was told many times that I didn’t know what racism was because I wasn’t really Black. All while they called me yellow, and my voice and speech were mocked. They did try to know me. The attempt was heavy with prejudice, but it was an attempt, so I did my best to hold onto the hope that they would embrace me and allow me to claim my heritage. As if it was theirs to give.

I tried to fit in. I let them relax my hair, though it didn’t need it. When that failed to achieve the look they were going for, another family member came in and braided my hair into cornrows. That one filled me with joy. I had always wanted braids. They felt like proof. Proof that I belonged. Proof that I was one of them.

I was fifteen, when I realized that my grandfather didn’t want to know me, he just wanted to shape me. His religion taught that men sat on thrones of authority, and that wisdom flowed downward, never up. When I trusted him with my trauma, he called it a disgrace. He then told me I should come live with them so I might be among the chosen for heaven. My one and only visit with them (that I was old enough to remember) ended shortly after that, and my grandfather never spoke to me again.

(My father was not part of this picture. I met him a couple of times. But he had left the family many years prior to my visit to Georgia.)

I didn’t take a DNA test because I needed coordinates. I took it because I thought I needed permission. I wanted proof that I had the right to claim all of my roots.

I am American. But my American-ness is only a branch on a much older tree. This country (not the land) has always demanded allegiance to sides; beliefs boxed in possibility, and freedom stitched with control.

My roots are not distant. They move with me. They heal each time a generation chooses love over fear.

My skin tells part of my story, but not the whole one. That story runs deeper than pigment, and it is older than any test can trace. If you looked beyond my image and into my roots, you would see how they intertwine with yours. You would understand that the land beneath us is not where we connect, it is where we meet.

Loving me is me loving you. When we love ourselves, there is no room for hatred. When we honor our roots, we recognize the beauty of each other’s.

I don’t blame my parents for their ignorance. They offered me clarity without knowing it. Every time they told me who I was or wasn’t, and it rang false, I learned something true. It hurt then. I see it differently now.

My life has been a series of invitations to remember myself.

So, I am claiming my roots, not because they were ever withheld, but because they have always been mine. I stand in them with honor, gratitude, and a smile full of pride.

I am.

And therefore, so are they.

These “receipts” were never permission, they have always been a documentation of how far my roots stretch.