Far From the Tree

Abstract

This project focuses on how race and space are experienced in the United States by drawing on my family history and my own experiences as a person of mixed racial heritage. Here, I incorporate genealogy, personal narrative, self-reflection, examination of historical documents and patterns of family migration, as well as oral histories from family members to analyze and document these experiences. Using autoethnographic and other research methods, I have attempted to construct the collective voice of ancestors in order to recreate memory. This journey has exposed me to a historical narrative that has long sat in the shadows of United States history. Even though some aspects of the lives of several of my ancestors have been documented, this information was mostly unknown, especially to the descendants. This project became a process of filling in the blanks, and constructing a fuller historical view of my ancestors and the places where they lived and died as well as broadening my own understanding of United States history. Fall Far from the Tree increases the understanding of the human experience by telling the stories of a people and places that have gone mostly untold.