Seeing Into The Past, is a project that focuses on tracing my lineage and personal history. An influence for this project
oddly was the breeding of carrots and their color change over time. carrots were often white until they were later domesticated and became the orange color we know today. I found parallels with the gradual change of the white carrot to the recent discovery of my great grandfather. Using a combination of oral interviews with relatives and genetic analysis my goal is to find out my African roots to gain a better understanding of where I come from. As an art student, most of my projects have focused on identity because this was something I never was able to explore in high school. As an African American high school student I rarely had opportunities to explore my culture and history, unless it was African American history month. I was raised by a single mother in the public school system where the education overall wasn’t too great.
Growing up, people would tell me how interesting my eyes were; hazel, that sometimes turn green in sunlight. My mother told me that this trait was inherited from my grandmother. Wanting to dig deeper, my mother contacted an aunt (my grandmother’s sister) , who to her and my surprise told my mother that her grandfather was a white man and that his eyes “changed colors with the seasons”. I then contacted an uncle on my father’s side and his story was more or less the same. His grandfather had hazel eyes as well and was described as “really light”. Still wanting to know more I researched some of the genomic testing services like Ancestry and 23 And Me, and ran across African Ancestry.
The goal for this project is to not only find out where my eye color trait comes from but also where my family/culture originate. African Ancestry, unlike the others, specifically focuses on the genealogy of African Americans. It is my hope to contact and work with the African American studies program at MSU to deepen my understanding of this project and myself.