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Faces of America with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a new four-part PBS series from the producers of AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 1 & 2 and LOOKING FOR LINCOLN. The series explores America as a nation of immigrants and the richly diverse racial, ethnic, cultural and religious heritage that truly defines the American experience.
FACES OF AMERICA will be broadcast on February 10, 17, 24, and March 4. Check the Eight, Arizona PBS schedule for broadcast times.
Website From THIRTEEN: Thirteen has created a website that features an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of the series, including extra footage and commentary from Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and the producers. The website offers resources that viewers can use to learn about their own family histories, as well as information on the research, scholarship and science featured in the program. The website also includes lesson plans and media-rich classroom activities for teachers.
Episode Descriptions
Our American Stories
Episode One will explore 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. Yet, America was an ambivalent host. At its best, a place of refuge and salvation, as for film director Mike Nichols whose entire family escaped Nazi Germany. At its worst, a country that would imprison two generations of Japanese Americans, like the ancestors of Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi. Along the way, we'll discover the buoyant American optimism that shaped chance - as in a single encounter that changed musician Yo-Yo Ma's life forever - to pave the road to success.
Becoming American
Episode Two explores the many journeys to becoming American that defined the "Century of Immigration" (1820s - 1924) and transformed the United States from a sleepy agrarian country into a booming industrial power. Stephen Colbert's Irish great-great-grandfather escaped poverty and religious oppression in Limerick and never looked back, whereas Mario Batali's great-grandfather, who left the place where his family had lived for centuries, struggled to survive in the quartz mines of Montana. Her Majesty Queen Noor's Syrian great-grandfather quickly found his footing in New York's first Arab American community, while Kristi Yamaguchi's grandfather faced exclusionary laws and racially-defined barriers to citizenship for decades. The obstacles, short-cuts, tragedies and successes encountered or created by the guests' ancestors from around the world reveal the complexity of our shared history and identity as Americans.
Making America
Episode Three tells the story of the peopling of the New World, of how land came to define the settling and identity of America, and of how the guests' ancestors were part of this history. We discover descriptions of Meryl Streep's eighth great-grandfather, who fought in Metacom's War; records of a land dispute in Spain that pushed Eva Longoria's ancestors to leave for the New World; a treaty that Louise Erdrich's Native American ancestor was forced to sign; and Yo-Yo Ma's family genealogy in China, which gives insights into his identity he has longed for his whole life.
Know Thyself
Episode Four takes up the search for the guests' ancestries where the historical record leaves off and links their distinctive family histories to the broader history of "the family of man." Combining the documented stories of some of the guests' last known ancestors with DNA evidence, the series travels backward through time to reveal both distant relatives and surprising shared ancestral connections. Elizabeth Alexander learns that she is a direct descendent of Charlemagne, and that her paternal roots are not only European, but Jewish. Meryl Streep and Mike Nichols discover that they are distant cousins, as do Yo-Yo Ma and Eva Longoria. Interwoven with these stories and others is the journey of the host, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. as he and his father and brother undertake an historic project to have their entire genomes mapped, and thereby to learn everything they possibly can about their own family. This episode offers a compelling and thought-provoking meditation on the importance of ancestry, the meaning of family and the role of both in creating identity.
Teacher Training Event Resources
Featured Keynote: Steven L. Packer
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Steven L. Packer of the Mesa Family Regional History Center will present Discovering Our Immigrant Roots as the featured keynote for the FACES OF AMERICA Teacher Training Event.
Steven L. Packer (Show biography)
Steven L. Packer
Born and raised in a mountain valley in Utah where I lived until I was 17 years old when the family moved to Salt Lake City to be near the University. My Mother was a German immigrant who came to America at the age of 18 years old. My Father's family traces their heritage back to the first immigrant who came to America from Dublin, Ireland in 1683 as an indentured servant.
I lived in Germany for a period of five (5) years, first as a missionary for the LDS Church and later in the international sales department of a German Company where I worked with 29 different countries. I am fluent in both spoken and written German.
I received my degree in Business from the University of Utah and after graduation, entered the field of sales with IBM. I worked with a variety of companies in the computer field and went into International Sales in 1982 where I spent the rest of my career. In 1989 I joined a start-up here in Arizona and stayed there until my retirement in 2006. We took the company from a start-up to over $130,000,000 in sales by 2006.
I have been to over 60 countries and have traveled over 3,000,000 miles on airlines during this career. In December, 2007 I began my service with the Mesa Regional Family History Center where I am still active. I am also a volunteer at the Banner Health Care System working at the Baywood Medical Center.
I was introduced to Genealogy by my father who in the 1970's researched the Packer family and contributed to a book that was published in 1988 on the English Packers.
I am the father of six (6) children, 4 boys and 2 girls.
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Download Powerpoint Presentation here.
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Closing Speaker - Dr. Pamela Marshall
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The closing speaker for the day is ASU Life Sciences Professor, Pamela Marshall. Dr. Marshall recently devised a new activity that high school science teachers could use to help their students master the structure and the attributes of DNA. This activity was recently selected to be published on the American Society of Microbiology website.
Professor Pamela Marshall (Show biography)
Professor Pamela Marshall
Pamela A. Marshall, Ph.D., was born and raised in Denton, TX. Her father is a chemistry professor, and in her youth, she and her brother experienced many types of exothermic reactions. She remembers distinctly learning about the process of DNA replication, transcription, and translation in 10th grade biology. This was a transformative moment in her life as as she decided that genetics and cell biology were extremely elegant and that was what she wanted to study when she grew up. Subsequently, she attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, majoring in Biological Sciences, and minoring in Chemistry and Women's Studies. She was very interested in cellular processes and attended the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, TX, studying the yeast peroxisome in the lab of Joel M. Goodman, earning her Ph.D. in Cell Regulation. At UT Southwestern, she won the Ida M. Green Award for outstanding service to the graduate school community. She performed postdoctoral research in the Biochemistry Department at UT Southwestern, as well, in the lab of Bruce Horazdovsky researching the yeast vacuole.
Her first faculty appointment was at SUNY College at Fredonia in Fredonia, NY, in 2000. She was drawn to the West campus of ASU in 2003 because of its commitment to the students. She engages undergraduate students in her laboratory research and won the 2008 ASU Faculty Achievement Award for Excellence in Student Mentoring. Since coming to ASU at the West campus, she has mentored over 30 undergraduate students, many of whom have gone onto medical school.
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2 websites referenced in Dr. Marshall’s presentation: Race the Power of Illusion and National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science.
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Session Presentor - Andrew Yamato
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Andrew Yamato of THIRTEEN will present an overview of FACES OF AMERICA and the accompanying resources found online at www.pbs.org/facesofamerica.
Andrew Yamato (Show biography)
Andrew Yamato
Andrew Yamato is an Outreach Producer for Thirteen/WNET.ORG New York’s Educational and Community Outreach department, the LAB@Thirteen, where he develops and manages educational outreach projects associated with PBS broadcasts. Formerly a curator at the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum, he has also developed historical exhibits for the United States Army and the City of New York. He previously worked in film, television, and publishing, and is currently self-producing a documentary feature about the hobby of World War II reenactment. He holds a B.A. in History and a B.A. in English from the University of Michigan and studied Theology and Philosophy at the University of Oxford.
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Overview of Faces of America
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Session Presentor - Janice Fuld
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Janice Fuld of THIRTEEN will conduct a lesson demonstration using educator resources from the FACES OF AMERICA website including hands on activities.
Janice Fuld (Show biography)
Janice Fuld
Janice Fuld is an Outreach Producer for the LAB@Thirteen at Thirteen/WNET.ORG in New York, where she develops and manages educational outreach projects associated with PBS broadcasts and conducts training sessions and workshops for teachers. Before joining Thirteen in 2007, she worked as an educator for more than 15 years, developing educational children's and family programs for communities, museums, Web sites and television programs. She has conducted research & training sessions and developed activities for families and teachers for a variety of programs including the PBS children's shows WordWorld and Between the Lions. She also worked for Sesame Workshop and was responsible for developing curricula, reviewing educational content and managing research studies for international adaptations of Sesame Street. Prior to working in educational television, Janice worked as a museum educator, developing and overseeing educational museum programs, materials and interactive exhibits for children, teachers and families. Janice has a B.A degree in psychology from Bryn Mawr College, a Master of Education Degree in Curriculum and Instruction/Literacy from Lesley College Graduate School of Education and a Master of Education in Educational Technology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
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Educator Lesson Plans from Faces of America
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In addition to an overview of FACES OF AMERICA broadcast program and website and a hands-on lesson plan demonstration, Eight's Educational Outreach staff provided an overview of our many services and resources. You can find those resources here.
A special thank you to the exhibits of many local cultural organizations that participated. Please explore their websites to find additional resources for your teaching. They include:
Virtual Pioneers in Second Life hosted a Faces of America professional development session in March 2010. Join Virtual Pioneers and get involved with social studies educators internationally!
Find more videos like this on Virtual Pioneers
Faces of America with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a production of Kunhardt McGee Productions, Inkwell Films and THIRTEEN for WNET.ORG in association with Ark Media. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., William R. Grant, Peter Kunhardt, and Dyllan McGee are executive producers. Barak Goodman and Sue Williams are senior producers.
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