Summary Of Motherland: A Genetic Journey

Motherland: A Genetic Journey, was a very interesting and educational film that explains how knowing about one’s genetic heritage may change an individual’s identity of themselves. In this presentation, three participants were interviewed: Mark, Jaqueline, and Beulah. Each of these three individuals explored through research and DNA testing, where their families’ lineage emerged from.

My thoughts on Mark were shocking. At the beginning, Mark was confused and unsatisfied with his results. They had told him that his paternal lineage had come from Europe, knowing that he was African American. On the other hand, they had no records of were his mother’s lineage came from, which became harder to figure out where his family had emerged from. Having his genetic journey in jeopardy, Mark decided to search more in depth and went to see a scientist who focused more on African decedents, to see if he could get information from his mother’s lineage. Surprisingly, results showed some close family relatives from Qunari in Niger, Chad, Nigeria and Cameroon. This symbolized that part of Mark’s blood line came from the Canary people. When Mark found

The results showed that her Y chromosome came from inner Spain or Turkey. At the beginning, she had a very positive response to this, but throughout her journey her mindset changed. In Jaqueline case, when she found out the story about slavery, and how her people where abused and taken away by white people, she was no longer pleased in being from white descendants. In her case, I would definitely agree with her mindset changing. Knowing the history of slavery and everything that slaves had to go through, is more than just a thought, it can be emotional hurting, especially knowing that your family members had to go through it. I agree with her emotional connection to the African people, because that is what believes she