Looking beyond the African-American experience to the wider immigrant story, Professor Henry Louis Gates , Jr. unravels the American tapestry, following the threads of his guests’ lives back to their earliest origins around the globe. Along the way, the many stories he uncovers - of displacement and homecoming, of material success and dispossession, of assimilation and discrimination - illuminate the American experience.
Episode one explores the dynamic and shifting relationship America had with her new immigrants in the 20th century. World war tore apart families and sundered the fabric of many lives, but America beckoned and millions came. America was an ambivalent host, however.
Mike Nichols
At its best, it was a place of refuge and salvation, as it was for film director Mike Nichols whose entire family escaped Nazi Germany. At its worst, it was a country that would imprison two generations of Japanese Americans, including the forebears of Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi. Viewers will discover the buoyant American optimism that shaped chance — as in a single encounter that changed cellist Yo-Yo Ma’s life forever — to pave the road to success
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