Roots, Routes, and Ethnicity : Alex Haley and Extended Genealogical Imagination

Abstract

Alex Haley, a famous African American novelist, wrote Roots in 1976. This book fueled a genealogy boom in Western countries, especially with reference to diaspora. After World War II, many Americans made it a point to establish their ethnic identity, and Roots became the symbol of this movement. However, it was very difficult at that time to conduct genealogical research on ethnic minorities, especially on Africans and Native Americans. Haley had attempted to devise new research methods to extract information on his ancestors, who were slaves, because there was very little information available on them. From this endeavor, ethnic genealogy, a new field in the study of genealogy, was derived. Ever since, ethnic genealogy has helped ethnic minorities establish their identities. Further, it is possible that the quest for roots would connect with the routes taken to complete this quest, a notion advocated by anthropologist James Clifford. In Roots, Haley depicted his mother's family tree; in the following novel, Queen, he traced his ancestors on his father's side of the family. Queen revealed that his paternal line included white Irish American ancestors. His last novel, Mama Flora's Family, is the story of how the heroine Flora's African American family survives severe conditions by using various practices of resistance. In some of Haley's works, we can see the plural phases of identities. The methods of genealogy have evolved in the twenty-first century. Black genealogy today can find ancestors who lived in ancient Africa. The famous scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., who supports the concept of "Roots for the twenty-first century," uses genetic (DNA) profiling, the newly created database of slave ships that crossed the Atlantic, and other such methods to help people trace their ancestors. Genealogy will influence social formations of ethnicity in the future. However, it is almost impossible that the genealogical imaginations of the white majority will change because many among this group do not like sharing common ancestry with ethnic minorities. In 2008, Gates was wrongly arrested because of the color of his skin. This instance is symbolic of the American social situation. However, extended genealogical imagination and related methods, brought about by Haley's Roots, open up the possibility that the concept of ethnicity will change as a result of questioning our ancestry on a global, historical, and sometimes even prehistorical level.