Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (2012–…): Season 8, Episode 5 - Mexican Roots - full transcript
GATES:
I'm Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Welcome to "Finding Your Roots."
In this episode, we'll meet
talk show host Mario Lopez
and comedian Melissa Villaseñor.
Two people who are about
to uncover the long-lost stories
of their Mexican ancestors...
LOPEZ: That's crazy when
you just think about it
in and of itself.
You're going to these lands;
you have no idea what's there.
Isn't that crazy
just to think about.
GATES: They didn't even
know if they were going to fall
off the earth.
LOPEZ: Right!
GATES: You ever think of
yourself as an indigenous woman?
VILLASEÑOR: No.
GATES: No.
VILLASEÑOR: But,
but I, I love that.
GATES: To uncover their roots,
we've used every
tool available...
genealogists combed through
the paper trail their
ancestors left behind,
while DNA experts utilized the
latest advances in genetic
analysis to reveal secrets
hundreds of years old.
LOPEZ: Really?
GATES: And we've compiled
everything into a
book of life...
VILLASEÑOR: I'm nervous.
GATES: A record of all
of our discoveries...
LOPEZ: Oh wow!
GATES: And a window
into the hidden past...
GATES: So, did you ever think
of your ancestors as refugees
fleeing a war?
LOPEZ: No.
GATES: But they did.
LOPEZ: That's kind of cool.
GATES: It's very cool.
It's not what we think
of Mexican immigration, right?
LOPEZ: No, I'm blown away.
VILLASEÑOR: It's,
it's wild to see this.
GATES: Yeah.
VILLASEÑOR: This is
making me emotional.
GATES: My two guests have
roots that crisscross Mexico,
Spain and California...
In this episode, they'll
see what makes their family
experiences unique...
Exploring the sacrifices
their ancestors made in
coming to this country and
the hardships they faced,
and overcame, once they arrived.
(theme music plays).
♪ ♪
GATES: Mario Lopez
is a multi-talented,
multi-media phenomenon.
Over the last three decades,
the actor, producer,
Emmy-award-winning host,
and best-selling
author has become a fixture
of American popular culture...
And his story is a
quintessential example of
the American dream.
When Mario was just
ten years old,
he was cast in "A.K.A. Pablo"
an ABC sitcom from
the legendary producer,
Norman Lear, about a
Mexican American family in
southern California.
Mario got the role, in part,
because his character's
background was so
similar to his own...
Both of his parents
were born in Mexico,
and Mario grew up in
Chula Vista, California...
just a few miles
north of the border.
The experience would
shape him in ways both
obvious and surprising.
LOPEZ: It wasn't
necessarily the most, uh,
upscale neighborhood and,
and the potential for a lot
of trouble to get into.
So, you know, my mom, kept
me busy and with a lot of
different activities.
So, I was the only dancing,
theater, wrestling,
karate kid I knew,
because I usually had an
activity after, after school.
So, I was busy, and I...
And it worked.
I was so busy, I never
had time to really get in any
kind of trouble.
GATES: But how does a
ten-year-old land a
Norman Lear sitcom?
LOPEZ: When my mom
got me into dancing,
there was a local talent
agent in San Diego that, uh,
saw me dance and
approached her and said,
"Hey, have you ever thought
about getting your kids into
commercials and print work?"
And my mom was like,
"Well, he reads well,
and he doesn't shut up,
and he's not shy, so I,
I don't know, let me ask him."
GATES: "A.K.A. Pablo"
was not a hit,
but Mario was
just getting started.
Soon he landed a lead role
in "Saved by the Bell" a show
that made him a household name
and launched his career...
And even though he
spent much of his childhood
in front of the camera,
Mario kept his head by
staying close to his parents,
who were not the types
to be dazzled by fame.
LOPEZ: Oftentimes, a lot of
these parents want to live
vicariously through their kids,
and that wasn't the
case with my parents.
They obviously didn't know
anything about it, had no, uh,
history or background in
the entertainment field.
But, um, they were
just supportive.
And if it worked out, great.
If it didn't, that's fine,
but you know, to this day,
I'm, I'm always so
appreciative of my mom, uh,
and my dad for driving me up
a few hours every day for an
audition that maybe
was five minutes and then
come right back.
And uh like, every reaction,
whenever I did land something,
it'd always be like,
"Oh, that's nice, mijo."
No one ever got too excited.
(laughter).
LOPEZ: Like my dad
always says, uh,
"You still have never
had a real job."
GATES: This sense
of perspective, and humor,
would serve Mario well as
he grew into adulthood,
helping him plot a
successful career path...
an accomplishment that
eludes many child stars.
A key moment came when
Mario met Dick Clark,
the iconic television host,
who saw something of himself
in the younger man.
LOPEZ: We really hit it off,
and he became a
friend and mentor.
And he said, "Mario, you've
got a personality for hosting."
Because I do like to host,
whether it's hosting
game night at my house or
having people over.
I love to entertain.
GATES: Yeah.
LOPEZ: I love to make sure
people have a good time.
GATES: Yeah.
LOPEZ: I love to make sure
everyone's having fun and,
and, uh, and, and
just kind of, uh,
be the host of the party.
And that's essentially
what you're doing on TV.
So, Dick Clark sort of
opened my eyes to this world,
and he goes,
"You want to be on TV
for the next 50 years,
I'm telling you,
you have the personality,
you should look into doing
some hosting, be a host."
And it kind of like
light bulb went off,
and I'm like I want to be
the Latino, Dick Clark.
GATES: That's great.
LOPEZ: And that, that was my,
and that was my new plan.
GATES: My second guest is
comedian Melissa Villaseñor,
one of the leading lights
of "Saturday Night Live"
since 2016, and a mainstay
of the comedy circuit
for more than a decade.
VILLASEÑOR: It stinks,
cause once guys find out,
"Oh, Melissa does voices."
"Well, do the hot voice."
But I can't help it if, like,
a little bit of me pops out.
You know?
"What do you want
to do tonight, babe?"
(sultry) Um, how about a
bath or something?
"Ooh yeah. What else?"
(normal) How about,
let's make some popcorn?
"What did I say
about the voice?!"
GATES: Like Mario,
Melissa grew up in a
Mexican American community
in southern California.
But while Mario got his
start on the set of a
Norman Lear sitcom,
Melissa found her calling
in a less auspicious venue...
As a sophomore in high school,
she got on stage
for a talent show,
tried out some
celebrity impressions,
and discovered that
she had a special gift.
VILLASEÑOR:
I did Britney Spears...
"Oh, yeah."
A little Christina Aguilera...
"Oh, oh, oh, oh!"
GATES: What was the reaction?
VILLASEÑOR:
Oh, it was amazing,
a lot of people
stood up, clapped, and, and,
and everyone was laughing and
I felt like there was this
fire in my chest that just
lit up and I woke up
in a way of, like,
"This is what I'm
doing for my life."
GATES: What did your parents
think when they heard that
you had, you know,
blown the roof off?
VILLASEÑOR:
I think they thought,
"Oh, that's cute.
That's nice. But go to college."
(laughter)
GATES: Melissa would
follow her parent's advice and
enroll in a local
community college.
But, at the same time,
she was also following
her passion for comedy,
and the classroom
simply couldn't compare,
causing Melissa a
great deal of sorrow.
VILLASEÑOR: I went,
but I didn't show up.
I, I didn't like it.
And I always felt like the
sadness was a clear sign that
I needed to be on stage.
Every time I avoided, like,
oh maybe I
shouldn't be a comedian,
it's not working out.
Like, I, you know I auditioned
for "SNL" when I was 21,
I didn't get it.
I was like,
"Maybe it's not working out.
Maybe..."
You know, I mean, obviously,
I was so young then,
I shouldn't have got it.
But, but I,
uh, I think when I...
When I tried to avoid it,
there was always a
feeling like, something is off,
something is not right,
and it's because I'm
supposed to be performing.
GATES: When Melissa finally
accepted her calling,
she faced another challenge:
Stand-up comedy
is grueling work.
VILLASEÑOR (impersonating):
Hi, I'm Sara Silverman and um
Oh, my God.
GATES: She spent almost a
decade trying to break in,
taking her act to
talent shows and small venues
across the country,
all the while living
at home with her parents.
In the end, her
determination paid off.
After submitting
audition tapes every
year for seven years,
she finally won over
"Saturday Night Live's"
executive producer
Lorne Michaels,
landing her dream job.
How did your parents
react when you told them, uh,
that Lorne had called?
(sighs).
VILLASEÑOR: Well, this
is how this is how lovely
my parents are.
So, they were actually
in New York still when I
got the call.
So, what happened was,
that week I flew out
for meetings with,
to meet Lorne and
the writers on the show.
They wanted to meet
me and just chat.
Uh, and my parents surprised me.
They flew out.
GATES: Oh.
VILLASEÑOR: Just to be
there in support of me.
GATES: Oh, well that's great.
VILLASEÑOR: Yeah,
I called them, I said,
"Put, put this on speaker.
You all need to hear."
And they're like, "What?"
I was like, "I'm on Saturday,
I got Saturday Night Live.
I'm going to be on the cast."
And they're screaming,
they're crying,
they're hugging each other.
It was unreal.
It felt magical because they
are all a part of the journey.
My parents, since day one they
would drive me to comedy clubs
and improv classes,
or, you know...
GATES: You're lucky.
VILLASEÑOR: Lucky. Yes.
GATES: Yeah.
VILLASEÑOR: Very, very lucky.
GATES: Meeting my guests,
it was clear that both are
the products of
tight-knit families,
but as the descendants
of recent immigrants,
they also had fundamental
questions about how those
families had been shaped.
It was time to provide
them with some answers.
I started with Mario,
and his paternal grandfather,
Luciano Lopez-Burgos.
Luciano was born
in Mexico in 1926,
and ended up in
San Diego, California,
supporting eight
children as a laborer.
Along the way, he earned a
reputation for hard work that
awed his entire family...
GATES: Your father said that
for your grandfather, quote,
"Every day was
work, work, work."
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: Uh, is that
how you remember?
LOPEZ: Yeah, he
was always working,
even until his late years.
GATES: Gee.
LOPEZ: I remember that,
but that kind of, you know,
it kept him going
and stuff, and so, yeah.
GATES: As you got older, did
your grandfather's work ethic
make sense to you?
LOPEZ: Yeah.
I appreciated it, and then,
even when all my...
His kids were old enough
and had their own families
and were doing their own thing,
he continued that
strong work ethic, and I,
it was just sort
of instilled in me.
I never had friends spend
the night more than one night
because my dad would
put them to work.
He would hate to just
see us laying on the couch,
watching TV.
He'd get up and make
me do something.
GATES: While Mario proudly
celebrates all that Luciano
did to plant roots
in the United States,
he had no idea about the
efforts that his grandfather
had made simply to get
into this country...
The story begins with a
document that Luciano filed in
March of 1957...
GATES: Would you please
read the title at the top
of the page?
LOPEZ: "Application for
permission to reapply,
Tijuana, Mexico, 1957."
GATES: The keyword in
that sentence is "reapply."
LOPEZ: Reapply. Right.
GATES: Have you ever
heard anything about this?
LOPEZ: No.
GATES: Look at the transcribed
section at the bottom.
LOPEZ: "Removed from the
United States on or about 1952
to Mexico from the port
of San Ysidro, California,
I resided in the
United States for a period
of approximately one month.
At the time of removal,
I was living in
Hanford, California."
GATES: Do you know
what's happening here?
Did you ever hear this story?
LOPEZ: No. No.
GATES: Luciano's "story" is
a classic example of the
struggles faced by
migrant workers of his day,
in 1952, when he was
about 26 years old,
he sought work in farm
country north of Los Angeles.
Lacking a visa, he
was here illegally,
and soon that caught
up with him...
After roughly one month,
Luciano was detained by
immigration officials and
returned to Mexico via what
was known as a
"voluntary departure",
meaning no arrest warrant was
issued and no legal record of
the incident was preserved.
In theory, this should have
made it easier for him to
re-enter the United States,
as he attempted to do in 1957,
but, in the intervening years,
the United States had become
considerably more hostile
toward Mexican migration.
LOPEZ: Oh wow.
GATES: Please read
the transcribed section?
LOPEZ: Wow.
"Wetbacks herded
at Nogales Camp;
these unwitting victims
of the US Operation Wetback
milled around today for six hot,
miserable hours in the
process of being loaded
aboard a 15-car special
train for the final leg of
their unwilling journey
back into their native Mexico.
This is the end product
of the sweeping campaign
launched by the US Immigration
to clear the nation of
its illegal aliens."
So, wetback was a,
an actual, literal term?
It wasn't just a derogatory,
I thought it was just a
derogatory, uh, term used.
I didn't know that
they actually printed it.
GATES: They are
using it because the
United States government,
in 1954,
the US Immigration
and Naturalization Service
launched a program officially
known, governmentally, as...
BOTH: "Operation Wetback".
LOPEZ: Oh my god.
GATES: Can you believe that?
LOPEZ: Wow.
GATES: Can you
believe the name?
They didn't even
think anything about it.
LOPEZ: Wow. That's unbelievable.
GATES: "Operation wetback"
was the cynical meeting ground
of xenophobia,
racism, and economics...
During World War II,
the United States
created a guest visa program
that allowed Mexican workers
to find temporary employment
with American farmers.
The program helped alleviate
the enormous labor shortages
caused by the war.
But by 1954, the
war was long over,
and some Americans were
becoming increasingly
concerned that Mexican workers
were undercutting their wages.
In response, the
United States government
launched the largest
deportation effort it
had ever undertaken,
using military tactics to
detain suspected migrants in
holding camps before shipping
them across the border.
LOPEZ: Wow.
GATES: They went around
just rounding up people and
throwing them out
of the country.
LOPEZ: Wow.
GATES: You wanna
hear the numbers?
In 1954, there were
1.1 million removals.
LOPEZ: That's unbelievable.
GATES: That's unbelievable.
LOPEZ: That, wow.
GATES: Can you imagine just
how perilous your life was?
I mean, you're living in terror,
and you can just be swept up...
LOPEZ:
It's eye-opening, I mean...
My grandfather was
a tough guy, but I,
I regret not being
aware of this and,
and talking to him about
it when he was alive.
GATES: Why do you think
he never talked about it?
LOPEZ: Maybe he just
didn't want to go there and
put it behind him and,
and might make us angry.
GATES: Uh-huh.
Or hurt, and...
LOPEZ: Or hurt, yeah.
GATES: I mean, what kind of
person wants to inflict pain
on their grandchild, you know?
LOPEZ: Sure. Right.
GATES: Mario's grandfather
may have been angry about the
obstacles placed
in front of him.
But he was also doggedly
determined and soon he
set out for the
United States yet again,
embarking on a
remarkable journey...
We found the details
of that journey in
the national archives,
set down in a record
dated July 3rd, 1969...
LOPEZ: "My full, true,
and correct name is
Lucian Lopez Burgos.
My present place of
residence is 301918th St.,
National City,
San Diego, California.
I was born January 7, 1925 in
Ranchitos, Culiacán,
Sinaloa, Mexico.
Lawful admission for
permanent residence in the
United States was at
San Ysidro, California
under the name of
Lucian Lopez-Burgos on
September 10, 1957."
Wow.
GATES: You're looking at the
moment that your grandfather
declared his intention
to become a citizen of the
United States of America.
LOPEZ: That's awesome.
GATES: Yeah.
LOPEZ: That's very cool.
I love it.
GATES: And if you look
at it closely again,
you'll see that Luciano
legally entered the
United States on
September 10, 1957, on foot.
Can you imagine?
LOPEZ: Wow.
He walked, that's crazy.
GATES: He was living
in Tijuana at the time,
so he likely crossed into
the United States through,
the California
border town, San Ysidro,
and by the time he swore
his oath of allegiance
he'd been living in the
city for 12 years.
LOPEZ: Oh wow.
GATES: And you can see the
photo he submitted with his
application there on your left.
Does he look like
the guy you remember?
LOPEZ: Yeah.
I can't wait to show my dad.
GATES: Do you feel grateful
to your grandfather?
If he hadn't tried so hard
to immigrate, you, of course,
might not be here.
LOPEZ: Of course.
No, I, I appreciate, and I
just feel like going,
uh, uh, down rabbit holes,
just to kind of,
uh, even learn more,
and-and anxious to show
the family, you know?
But it does, you know,
makes you kind of proud.
GATES: We now wanted
to see what we could learn
about the history that
Mario's family left behind
when they immigrated.
Turning from
Luciano to his wife,
Mario's grandmother
Alejandra Perez,
we got more than
we bargained for.
We were able to trace
Alejandra's roots back four
generations in one area:
The Mexican state of Zacatecas,
uncovering a baptismal
record from the year 1817...
LOPEZ: Wow.
GATES: Would you be kind enough
to read the translated section?
LOPEZ: How'd you get that?
That's amazing.
"Solemnly baptized a Spaniard
of 7 days, Jose Prudenciano,
born in Los Castañedas,
legitimate son
of Jose Maria Perez
and Maria Gertrudis Bañuelos,
GATES: Any idea what
you're looking at?
LOPEZ: That my
great-great-great-great-
grandfather's birth certificate?
GATES: That is his
baptismal record.
LOPEZ: Oh, and his baptism.
So, wait, why are they
referring to him as a Spaniard?
GATES: Would you
please turn the page?
LOPEZ: Not a Mexican,
but a Spaniard.
They didn't list you as Mexican.
They either were
Spaniard or Native?
GATES: Well, more
complicated than that.
LOPEZ: Okay.
GATES: You ever
seen one of these?
LOPEZ: No.
GATES: This is what was
called a Casta painting.
LOPEZ: Okay.
GATES: Mario, it's a depiction
of the racial designation
system instituted by the
Spanish in Colonial Mexico
beginning in the 16th century.
LOPEZ: So, they
would look at you and
see where you fell into...?
GATES: Yeah.
LOPEZ: Wow. Unbelievable.
GATES: Casta paintings may
seem shocking to modern eyes,
but they provide a revealing
window onto the past,
they were used to illustrate
the many ostensible "racial"
differences among
colonial Mexicans,
differences that were the
essential components of an
emerging social order in a
land where Spanish, native,
and African populations
were mingling...
GATES: This particular
illustration shows and ranks
subcategories within the caste
system that were created as a
result of intermarriage...
Intermarriage also meaning
just inter sexual relations,
ranging from rape to actual,
you know, love and marriage.
LOPEZ: Yeah, whoa.
GATES: And it produced
a mixed-race population.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: That was a lot more
complicated than just someone
who looked like they had been
born in Madrid and someone who
looked like they'd
been born in Zacatecas.
LOPEZ: Right.
GATES: So, the
Casta System had 16 categories
of racial mixture.
16!
That means 16 shades of
Blackness or brownness.
LOPEZ: Wow.
GATES: Isn't that crazy?
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: The three main
categories were, one, Spaniards,
like your third
great-grandfather, Indios,
who were the Indigenous
people of the Americas...
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: And Negros, who were
the Black people from Africa.
And you could see the
various color mixtures.
LOPEZ: Yes.
GATES: it was such
a crazy system,
and they illustrated it
so that you could, like,
I could look at you, and I go,
"Mario, you're
in the, this caste."
LOPEZ: Yeah. I'd fall
in about number five, right?
GATES: Yeah. Yeah.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: Isn't that?
LOPEZ: That's a trip.
GATES: It is horrible, man.
LOPEZ: And that
was important why?
GATES: Because of racial purity.
LOPEZ: They just wanted to?
GATES: Caste was class.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: A color was caste.
Who was on top,
who was on bottom,
just the nature of exploitation.
LOPEZ: Unbelievable, yeah. Wow!
GATES: Mario wondered how his
ancestors had ended up within
this system in the first place.
The answer would
transport us back into
some terrible history...
In 1546, Spanish explorers
discovered silver ore in the
mountains surrounding Zacatecas.
Soon, merchants and miners
were flocking to the region,
and they would need
military force to subdue the
native Americans who had
lived there for centuries.
Mario's eleventh
great-grandfather,
a Spaniard named
Baltasar Temiño de Bañuelos,
was a part of that force...
Baltasar likely arrived
in Mexico as a teenager,
and ended up serving,
as a soldier of fortune in
a brutal new economy.
So, you raise the forces,
you go get the silver,
subdue the Native Americans,
you keep the money.
You know, it was
kind of like that.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
How did they raise the money?
GATES: This is the bad part.
LOPEZ: Okay.
GATES: Many used their
personal funds, of course,
supplemented by capturing and
selling Indigenous people.
LOPEZ: Really?
GATES: Yeah.
LOPEZ: So, the
Indigenous people are,
just get taken and they're?
GATES: They get taken and, yeah.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: At the same time,
Europe is quote-unquote
"discovering" Africa and
enslaving Africans and
then bringing them over.
LOPEZ: Got it.
GATES: One of the reasons...
LOPEZ: So, it was like
almost simultaneous?
GATES: Yes.
LOPEZ: Got it.
GATES: And it was
all driven by...
LOPEZ: Sure...
GATES: I mean, it was
a really ugly business.
LOPEZ: Yeah, I'd say.
GATES: Baltasar was involved
in many "ugly" businesses,
in addition to the military,
he also ran silver mines,
and owned at least two mills,
as well as a
silver ore refining plant.
And that wasn't all he owned...
GATES: Your ancestor,
I'm sorry to say,
was one of the largest
slaveholder's in Zacatecas,
he owned between 20 to 40
Indigenous Native American
enslaved people...
LOPEZ: Damn.
GATES: And ten to 15
African enslaved people.
How does learning
that make you feel?
LOPEZ: I'm kind of speechless.
I, I didn't, uh, obviously,
I had no idea, but oh my god.
GATES: It was horrible, man.
LOPEZ: Can you imagine
being born during that time?
GATES: Oh yeah.
LOPEZ: Oh my god.
Oh my god.
We're so, that's unbelievable.
GATES: No, imagine minding
your business in Zacatecas,
and you look up, and
there are these white guys.
You go, "Hey, should we
invite them to dinner?"
LOPEZ: Right.
GATES: You're like no.
LOPEZ: No. Right. Exactly. Damn.
GATES: Baltasar died sometime
around the year 1600,
but his memory lived on.
When the Spanish crown
recognized what would become
the state of Zacatecas by
granting it a coat of arms,
the design featured a
crowned female figure,
flanked by the four men
who were thought to be the
founders of the original
Spanish settlement.
One of the four, the
man on the far left,
is Mario's eleventh
great-grandfather...
GATES: What do you
make of your ancestor?
I mean, he was not
Abraham Lincoln.
LOPEZ: Right. Right.
I mean, you know, it's...
That's oof.
It, I, it just...
It's, it's hard to kind
of process all of it,
and you know, there's no
justifying it other than that,
I mean, that just,
it is what it was, right,
during that time,
and so, you know?
GATES: Sure.
LOPEZ: It's, it's
just awful to hear.
GATES: Oh, yeah.
LOPEZ: It's just so...
When you take it back,
you're like,
"Oh my god, what an,
what an awful era in history."
GATES: An awful era.
LOPEZ: You know?
It's just like what
an incredible, like,
how did people,
how did, how did,
how did society just
go about living?
It was just so ruthless.
Man, I'm just blessed
to be born when I was.
GATES: Yeah.
GATES: Like Mario,
Melissa Villaseñor came to me
knowing that she had deep
roots in Mexico but wondering
how her ancestors had
made the journey north.
On her father's side,
our research soon focused on her
great-grandmother, a
woman named Mercedes Muro.
Mercedes was familiar to
Melissa because she's the
mother of her grandmother
Carmen, who's been a constant,
joyous presence in
Melissa's life...
Yet Carmen never
spoke about her mother...
In effect: Mercedes'
story had been lost.
We set out to recover it...
Starting with a birth
record from the year 1908...
VILLASEÑOR:
"In Aguascalientes,
the fifth of October.
Mr. Leobardo Muro, married,
28 years old, farmer,
presented a child born the
29th of the previous month
given the name
Maria Merced Muro,
legitimate child of the
appearing party and of
Maria de la Torre,
20 years old."
GATES: This is the
birth record of your
great-grandmother Mercedes.
VILLASEÑOR: Oh, whoa.
GATES: That is
Mercedes' birth record.
VILLASEÑOR: Whoa.
GATES: Isn't that cool?
VILLASEÑOR: Yes.
GATES: From 1908.
What's it like to see that?
(sighs).
VILLASEÑOR: That's crazy.
(sighs)
It's wild.
That's making me emotional.
GATES: This record indicates
that Mercedes' father,
Leobardo Muro, was a farmer
and we believe that her mother,
Maria de la Torre,
came from a farming
family as well.
We know little about their
life together in Mexico,
but it cannot have been easy...
Most farmers in their
region ran small operations,
leaving them at the mercy
of fluctuating prices not to
mention the vagaries
of the weather,
making each year a
struggle simply to survive.
Sometime after 1910,
the Muros decided to
abandon this struggle and
moved to El Paso, Texas,
where wages were higher.
Tragically, they were soon
confronted by a challenge even
greater than
the lack of money...
VILLASEÑOR: "Full name,
Maria de La Torre de Muro.
Date of death,
June 17, 1914. Age 27."
GATES: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
VILLASEÑOR: Ohhhh.
GATES: Yeah.
VILLASEÑOR: Oh, gosh.
GATES: That's a death record
for Mercedes' mother, your
great-great-grandmother Maria.
She died of cancer in
El Paso when she was just
27 years old.
VILLASEÑOR: Ohhhh.
GATES: Your great-grandmother
Mercedes was five years old
when she lost her mother.
Did you have any idea?
VILLASEÑOR: Unh-uh.
GATES: Can you imagine?
VILLASEÑOR: Poor girl.
That's so sad.
GATES: Mercedes' troubles
would soon be compounded.
In 1917, her father
remarried and left her to be
raised by her grandmother.
She wasn't even ten
years old and effectively
she'd lost both of her parents.
Many people would have been
broken by the experience,
but not Mercedes...
We found her in the
1930 census for Arizona,
starting a family with
Melissa's great-grandfather,
Jesus de la Torre,
a railroad engineer...
Unfortunately, their
happiness didn't last.
Arizona was hit hard
by the great depression,
and Mexican workers were
often the first fired as
employers battled
to keep their businesses afloat.
By the early 1930s,
Mercedes and Jesus
had returned to Mexico,
along with their three children.
Then tragedy struck yet again.
In November of 1934,
Jesus was shot dead,
after standing up for
a friend at a party...
VILLASEÑOR: "We were
all in a good mood
when Heriberto arrived.
He was wearing his
gun in plain sight,
stuck into his belt.
He started in on
one of my friends trying
to humiliate him.
That's when Jesus Maria
stepped in.
Jesus Maria took three
steps toward him,
ready for a fistfight.
Heriberto surprised everyone
by pulling out the gun and
making the first shot at
Jesus Maria's feet as a warning,
but he didn't back off and
when he took the next step,
Jesus got a bullet
to the thorax.
And when he buckled over,
took two more in the back.
There was nothing
that could be done."
Oh, man.
GATES: How do you think your
great-great-grandmother coped
with so much loss in her life
at that age with three kids?
VILLASEÑOR: I don't know,
but I'd be, I'd be a mess.
GATES: Mercedes was 26
at the time of the murder.
Her youngest daughter Carmen,
Melissa's grandmother,
was just an infant.
It's difficult even to imagine
how the family carried on,
but it seems that carrying
on was Mercedes specialty.
Mercedes would never remarry.
Instead, she'd focus her efforts
on supporting her children,
which, to her, meant leaving
her homeland once more...
VILLASEÑOR:
"Mercedes Muro de la Torre.
Passage paid by self.
Purpose, reside
permanently." Wow.
GATES: In 1947 when
she was 38 years old,
Mercedes decided
to move permanently to
the United States.
VILLASEÑOR: Ah.
GATES: She settled in LA where
her daughter Teresa lived and
where we believe
your grandmother Carmen
was also living.
VILLASEÑOR: Yeah.
GATES: We think Mercedes brought
Carmen into the United States
sometime around 1944.
VILLASEÑOR: That's awesome.
Ah. I like seeing that.
GATES: Yeah, me too.
I've got something
else cool to show you.
Please turn the page.
VILLASEÑOR: Okay. Wow.
"Mercedes de La Torre was
admitted as a citizen of the
United States of America
this seventh day of December
in the year of our lord 1962."
Whoa. Aww.
Like, that, that was
everything for them.
Like, for her to
get this probably was
like the biggest...
GATES: Totally.
VILLASEÑOR: Wow.
GATES: She became a citizen of
the United States of America
on December 7, 1962,
47 years after she first
came to this country,
VILLASEÑOR: Mmm.
GATES: And look
at that photograph.
That's her.
VILLASEÑOR: I know.
I feel like she's, like,
giving a Mona Lisa-type smile
where she wants to
smile but she's trying to
keep her excitement in.
GATES: In California,
Mercedes found work as a
nurse's assistant at
a catholic hospital,
and lived the rest of her
life, surrounded by family,
in Los Angeles...
Learning her story
drew Melissa closer to
her grandmother Carmen,
allowing her to appreciate
that Carmen, too,
had endured a great deal and
had found a way to do more
than simply survive.
VILLASEÑOR: I feel like
with my grandma it's,
she does anything for
us, for us grand kids.
Like, she lets us
have all the fun.
I don't know.
I feel like maybe giving
extra love because of what
she went through,
saw her mom go through.
GATES: I'll bet.
VILLASEÑOR: Yeah.
GATES: What do you think
all these people would
have made of you?
VILLASEÑOR: First,
I think they'd be like,
"Oh, look at this loony."
But then, uh, but I
hope they're all watching
and being and proud
and, um, know that I'm very
grateful for them for carving
such a great path for me.
GATES: Mm-hmm.
VILLASEÑOR: Yeah.
GATES: We'd already traced
Mario Lopez's paternal roots
back five centuries,
from southern California
to Mexico to Spain,
a progression that
is not uncommon in
Mexican American families.
Now, turning to Mario's
mother's ancestry,
we would find ourselves tracing
a far more unusual journey.
It began in Mario's
childhood home,
with his great-grandmother,
Soledad Alatorre,
a beloved figure in his life...
LOPEZ: She was awesome.
She used to, okay,
so she had a little
bedroom, uh, that she,
I don't know where she
kept her clothes, actually,
because she took the
closet and converted it into
like a little store because
she used to run a little store,
I guess, back in Mexico.
And she used to sell
candies and sodas and stuff
outside of her window.
GATES: Oh yeah?
LOPEZ: Out of her chair,
yeah, to all the
kids in the neighborhood.
So, she was like a little
businesswoman, and so...
GATES: Oh, that's great.
LOPEZ: Yeah. Yeah.
GATES: Hey, come on, come on.
LOPEZ: Yeah. No.
All the kids would just
line up, and after school,
they'd know, and so, she'd
have, she'd have uh, you know,
sodas or candy and all that.
I remember that specifically.
GATES: Oh,
I think that's cool.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: That's great.
LOPEZ: Yeah. That was great.
She was a little hustler.
GATES: Mario knew that
Soledad had immigrated to the
United States in the
1950s along with her son,
Mario's grandfather Rafael,
and he knew that the two
came from Baja California Sur,
the northernmost
state in Mexico.
But beyond that, this part
of Mario's family tree was a
blank slate.
We began to fill it in,
starting with a man named
Salomé Trasviña, Rafael's
father, and, for a time,
Soledad's partner...
LOPEZ: "In the City of
La Paz, Salomé Trasviña,
of 27 years of age,
single, carpenter,
native to this district,
presented a child born the
day 24th of last October,
who he named Rafael Trasviña,
first natural son he
has had with his partner,
Soledad Alatorre."
GATES: That's your
grandfather's birth record.
GATES: And as you can see,
Rafael was a natural child.
You know what a
natural child is?
LOPEZ: No? What is it?
GATES: Out of wedlock.
LOPEZ: Oh, so natural
child means out of wedlock?
GATES: Salomé and Soledad were
not married when he was born.
LOPEZ: Got it.
First, oh, that's a, that's a,
that's a kind way to put it.
GATES: Yeah, a natural child.
LOPEZ: Oh, so they
say natural child.
Has, is that a term used
just in Mexico or all over?
GATES: Yeah. No, all over.
There are, there are
different euphemisms in
different countries,
at different times.
LOPEZ: Because they did say
bastard at some point, right,
which is much more harsh.
GATES: Yeah, but they
wouldn't have probably put that
on a legal document, right?
LOPEZ: Got it.
Well, never, never did
I think they'd put wetback,
either, but so...
GATES: No, no,
that's true, that's true.
But Salomé and uh Soledad
weren't married when, uh,
Rafael was born,
and in fact, they eventually,
they split up.
LOPEZ: Really?
GATES: Yes.
LOPEZ: Oh wow.
I had no idea.
GATES: As it turns out,
when Salomé left Soledad,
he erased an entire branch
of Mario's family tree and,
along with it, a
fascinating story...
That story begins in 1917,
five years before
Rafael's birth,
with the arrival of a ship in
the port of San Francisco...
on board was Salomé, and
he wasn't traveling alone...
LOPEZ: "Salomé Trasviña,
22, carpenter,
last permanent residence,
La Paz, Mexico,
Rodolfo Trasviña, 16, student,
Leonor Trasviña, 21, student."
Who are those guys?
GATES: There's your
great-grandfather, Salomé,
landing in the United States
with his younger siblings.
LOPEZ: Oh, those
are his siblings?
Oh wow.
GATES: Yes,
Rodolfo and Leonor.
Did you have any idea that
your great-grandfather had
been to the United States?
LOPEZ: No. That's so random.
How and why?
GATES: Your great...
LOPEZ: And why didn't he stay?
GATES: Yeah!
When Salomé and his siblings
arrived in San Francisco,
the city was in need
of skilled laborers,
but there was likely
another factor that had
drawn them north:
War.
In 1910, a revolution
erupted in Mexico challenging
the regime of
dictator Porfirio Díaz.
The fighting intensified
over the following years,
as various factions
battled for control.
At its height, the war
stretched from coast to coast,
and likely killed more
than half a million people...
Many of them civilians.
The unrest triggered
a mass migration,
as about a quarter of a
million Mexicans sought refuge
in the United States...
Mario's ancestors
were among them.
Salomé traveled for
nine days from La Paz to get
to San Francisco,
more than 1,000 miles.
LOPEZ: Oof.
GATES: According to a
scholar we consulted,
they likely traveled
by ship to avoid danger
throughout Mexico.
LOPEZ: Oh wow. Smart.
GATES: And they arrived
in San Francisco well before
most of the fighting
ended in 1920.
LOPEZ: Got it. Okay.
GATES: So, did you ever think
of your ancestors as refugees,
fleeing a war?
LOPEZ: No.
GATES: But they did.
LOPEZ: That's kind of cool.
GATES: It is very cool.
It's not what we think of
Mexican immigration, right?
LOPEZ: No.
In fact, I'm blown away.
GATES: We believe Salomé
and his siblings were not
just looking for
work in San Francisco,
but rather a safe
place to settle,
partly because soon
after they arrived,
they did something unusual:
They sent for their parents.
Indeed, within a month, Mario's
great-great-grandparents
Epigmenio and Jesus Trasviña
followed their children
to the city and,
to all appearances,
started to put down roots...
GATES: Ever see
that picture before?
LOPEZ: Never in my life.
What am I looking at?
GATES: That is the
Trasviña family.
LOPEZ: That's the Trasviñas?
GATES: 1910.
That's your great-grandfather
Salomé and his parents.
LOPEZ: Oh wow. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. I can tell, wow,
this is, this is a trip.
This is so cool.
There's a dog there, even.
GATES: The Trasviña family
may well have flourished in
San Francisco,
but their story was about to
take another twist...
Within a decade, they
would all be back in Mexico...
Driven, yet again, by forces
beyond their control...
In 1918, a recession
hit the United States.
The unemployment rate soared,
and newcomers were
hit especially hard...
GATES: About 20% of the
immigrants enumerated in the
1920 census subsequently
lost their jobs.
LOPEZ: Got it. Okay. Go it.
GATES: So, meanwhile,
Mexico, ironically,
was in the midst
of economic growth.
LOPEZ: Wow. So, they went back.
You don't hear that often.
GATES: No. You don't. No.
LOPEZ: You know? Uh...
GATES: No.
It's a one-way ticket.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
And then and then, obviously,
my grandfather came back.
GATES: Yeah.
LOPEZ: So, yeah,
that's a trip.
GATES: Constructing
your family tree,
you have Spanish heritage that
comes to Mexico 500 years ago,
and then, they live in
Mexico for 500 years, right?
LOPEZ: Unbelievable.
GATES: Then they come
to the United States.
So, what does being
a Mexican American
mean to you now?
LOPEZ: That's a good question.
I mean, I've always been proud
of my roots and my ethnicity,
and, and, uh, I don't
think that that changes.
But I love the knowledge
that I now have.
GATES: Oh, that's good.
LOPEZ: It's so incredibly
cool to get all this history.
It makes me what to rush
home and tell my family,
which I'm going to do.
You know, I can't
appreciate it enough.
And it makes me swell
with even more pride.
GATES: We'd already traced
Melissa Villaseñor's paternal
roots back to her
great-grandmother Mercedes,
who spent decades
crisscrossing the border
between the United States
and Mexico,
enduring tumult and tragedy.
Now, following another
line of her father's family,
we came to an ancestor
who made a very different
kind of journey...
The story concerns
Diego Ochoa Garibay,
a man who died around
the year 1620 in Zamora,
a city in western Mexico...
GATES: You have never
heard of this guy.
VILLASEÑOR: No.
GATES: You just met your
12th great-grandfather.
VILLASEÑOR: Geez...
GATES: Your
great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-grandfather.
Did you ever in your
wildest dreams think we could
go back this far?
VILLASEÑOR: Twelve? No!
GATES: And look at
that map on your left.
That is Zamora.
VILLASEÑOR: Mmmm.
GATES: Melissa, your
roots there go back at least
392 years.
VILLASEÑOR:
This is, this is amazing.
GATES: According to records
held by the Catholic church
in Zamora,
Melissa's 12th
great-grandfather Diego came
from a family of
low-level nobility,
a family that originally
hailed from what was known as
"the lordship of Biscay",
which is now part of the
Basque region of Spain...
VILLASEÑOR: Basque Country.
GATES: Yeah.
That is where your
Spanish ancestors, I mean,
have you ever wondered where
in Spain you came from?
VILLASEÑOR: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
GATES: That's where
you come from.
VILLASEÑOR: Biscay.
GATES: Yeah.
VILLASEÑOR: I'm Basque, baby.
I, I want to shout it
from the mountaintops.
GATES: Well, there are a lot
of mountains up there too,
to shout from.
VILLASEÑOR: That's so cool.
GATES: We know nothing about the
circumstances of Diego's birth,
but we have a very good idea
of how he ended up in Zamora.
Just as we'd seen on
Mario's family's tree,
Melissa's ancestor
came to conquer...
Records place him in western
Mexico around the year 1570.
At the time, of course,
the land belonged
to its indigenous owners,
but their numbers were
dropping precipitously as the
Spanish engaged in what
they called "pacification"
a polite term for genocidal war.
It is estimated that over
6 million native people were
living in Mexico in 1545...
But by 1570, more than
half of them would be dead.
VILLASEÑOR: Mm.
GATES: So...
VILLASEÑOR:
That's a lot of battles.
GATES: That's what
"pacification" meant.
(Villaseñor sighs).
You know, brutal warfare
against the Native Americans.
VILLASEÑOR:
Oh, now I feel bad.
GATES: Guilt is not heritable.
What your ancestors
did is not on you,
but it's important to find
out what they did, right?
VILLASEÑOR: Yes. Yes. Yes.
GATES: Would you
please turn the page?
VILLASEÑOR: Yes.
GATES: Would you please
read the translated section?
VILLASEÑOR: Yes.
"Captain Diego
Ochoa Garibay..."
GATES: Mm-hmm.
VILLASEÑOR: "Who did render
great and considerable
services to his Majesty,
subduing the Chichimeca..."
GATES: Yeah.
VILLASEÑOR: "Indians, bringing
them to the light of our
Holy Faith, having a great
many of them baptized and
administering to them
the Holy Sacraments,
whose zeal was notorious,
and among the many
services Diego rendered
at his own expense and
at risk of his life was an
occasion when the
Chichimeca Indians,
having robbed the Cathedral
of Guadalajara and not left
behind a single ornament
or item of silver,
he chased after them and
recovered everything stolen
from the said church with
which action His Majesty was
well pleased."
GATES: So, Spain was sending
the Roman Catholic Church
and conquistadors
with guns and superior arms
to claim this land
for Spain because they had
a lot of gold and silver.
VILLASEÑOR: Right.
GATES: They used as an
excuse the fact that the
Native Americans didn't
believe in Christianity.
And they said,
"Well, these are heathens,
they're savages,
so we're going to conquer
them and Christianize them,
we're going to civilize them."
VILLASEÑOR: Ah.
GATES: But in civilizing
them, quote-unquote...
VILLASEÑOR: Meant kill.
GATES: It meant
killing them, subduing them,
converting them,
taking them away from
their traditional culture.
VILLASEÑOR: Mmm.
GATES: And their ownership
of their own gold
and silver mines.
VILLASEÑOR: That's a lot.
GATES: We believe
that Melissa's 12th
great-grandfather
participated in what is known
as the Chichimeca War,
an intensely violent conflict
that lasted for roughly 40 years
and ended
with Spain in control of much
of north and
west-central Mexico.
After the war,
Diego settled in Zamora,
where we uncovered
another discomfiting
detail about his life:
A baptismal record for the
son of a woman named Maria,
who was one of
Diego's African slaves...
VILLASEÑOR: Ohhh...
GATES: So, Diego is
not only a conquistador,
he was also a slave owner.
(groans and sighs).
VILLASEÑOR: Wow.
GATES: Most Americans,
I would say,
don't know that lots of
Africans were brought to
Mexico by the Spanish
in the slave trade.
VILLASEÑOR: Yeah.
GATES: And your twelfth
great-grandfather owned a
black woman named Maria.
GATES: Did you ever imagine?
VILLASEÑOR: Woof. No.
GATES: Diego's life is
sobering to contemplate,
but he is by no means the
only member of Melissa's
family who lived
through these awful years.
She has dozens of
ancestors who witnessed
the Spanish conquest,
and not all of them
were from Spain...
The evidence for this lies
in Melissa's own chromosomes:
We gave her an admixture test,
which reveals a
person's ancestry over
approximately the
last 500 years,
broken down into percentages
based on the broad regions
where their ancestors lived...
GATES: Can you read
out your percentages?
VILLASEÑOR: Oh.
Okay, 64% European.
GATES: Yeah.
VILLASEÑOR: 34%
Indigenous Mexican.
GATES: How 'bout that?
You have a lot of Native
American ancestry, Melissa.
VILLASEÑOR: Hell, yeah.
GATES: A lot.
VILLASEÑOR: Cool.
GATES: You know, you
are a third indigenous,
a third Native American.
VILLASEÑOR: Whoa.
GATES: Yeah.
VILLASEÑOR: Beautiful.
GATES: You ever think of
yourself as an indigenous woman?
VILLASEÑOR: Hmm. No.
GATES: No.
VILLASEÑOR:
But, but I, I love that.
GATES: Melissa's DNA also
revealed that she is 2%
sub-Saharan African,
reflecting yet another
dimension of Mexico's
complex past...
And turning from
her DNA to Mario's,
we wondered if we would see
the same level of diversity...
We were not disappointed.
Mario is 56% European,
41% indigenous American,
and 3% sub-Saharan African.
LOPEZ: Look at that!
GATES: So, your paper trail
told us you descend from
Spaniards who conquered, uh,
Native Americans in Mexico.
LOPEZ: Uh-huh.
GATES: And your DNA is
telling us that you also
descend from the
people whom they conquered.
So, there was intermixing.
LOPEZ: So, they hooked up?
GATES: Yeah.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
So, they hooked up.
GATES: Look, most of the
conquistadors were men.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: So, in any society,
when there are a lot of men,
they will take as wives...
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: First of all,
there's, there's rape.
I don't want to
romanticize this.
LOPEZ: Sure.
GATES: From war and conquest.
LOPEZ: Right.
GATES: But there would be
stable relationships, as well,
between people
of European descent and
Native American women.
LOPEZ: Got it. Yes.
All this, it's, it's sort
of mind-blowing actually.
GATES: We were now nearing
the end of our journey
with Mario and Melissa.
It was time to give them
their full family trees...
LOPEZ: This is the
coolest thing ever.
This is the best gift ever.
Thank you so much.
GATES: Revealing
how their roots,
both in Mexico and in Spain,
stretch back centuries...
(sighs).
GATES: Melissa,
this is your family tree.
VILLASEÑOR: Oh my gosh.
Oh, that's so cool.
I don't know why I'm
in tears, but this is just,
it's just crazy to
see them all here.
This is, this has
been a beautiful day.
GATES: That's the end of our
search for the ancestors of
Mario Lopez and
Melissa Villaseñor.
Join me next time as we unlock
the secrets of the past for
new guests on another episode of
"Finding Your Roots".
I'm Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Welcome to "Finding Your Roots."
In this episode, we'll meet
talk show host Mario Lopez
and comedian Melissa Villaseñor.
Two people who are about
to uncover the long-lost stories
of their Mexican ancestors...
LOPEZ: That's crazy when
you just think about it
in and of itself.
You're going to these lands;
you have no idea what's there.
Isn't that crazy
just to think about.
GATES: They didn't even
know if they were going to fall
off the earth.
LOPEZ: Right!
GATES: You ever think of
yourself as an indigenous woman?
VILLASEÑOR: No.
GATES: No.
VILLASEÑOR: But,
but I, I love that.
GATES: To uncover their roots,
we've used every
tool available...
genealogists combed through
the paper trail their
ancestors left behind,
while DNA experts utilized the
latest advances in genetic
analysis to reveal secrets
hundreds of years old.
LOPEZ: Really?
GATES: And we've compiled
everything into a
book of life...
VILLASEÑOR: I'm nervous.
GATES: A record of all
of our discoveries...
LOPEZ: Oh wow!
GATES: And a window
into the hidden past...
GATES: So, did you ever think
of your ancestors as refugees
fleeing a war?
LOPEZ: No.
GATES: But they did.
LOPEZ: That's kind of cool.
GATES: It's very cool.
It's not what we think
of Mexican immigration, right?
LOPEZ: No, I'm blown away.
VILLASEÑOR: It's,
it's wild to see this.
GATES: Yeah.
VILLASEÑOR: This is
making me emotional.
GATES: My two guests have
roots that crisscross Mexico,
Spain and California...
In this episode, they'll
see what makes their family
experiences unique...
Exploring the sacrifices
their ancestors made in
coming to this country and
the hardships they faced,
and overcame, once they arrived.
(theme music plays).
♪ ♪
GATES: Mario Lopez
is a multi-talented,
multi-media phenomenon.
Over the last three decades,
the actor, producer,
Emmy-award-winning host,
and best-selling
author has become a fixture
of American popular culture...
And his story is a
quintessential example of
the American dream.
When Mario was just
ten years old,
he was cast in "A.K.A. Pablo"
an ABC sitcom from
the legendary producer,
Norman Lear, about a
Mexican American family in
southern California.
Mario got the role, in part,
because his character's
background was so
similar to his own...
Both of his parents
were born in Mexico,
and Mario grew up in
Chula Vista, California...
just a few miles
north of the border.
The experience would
shape him in ways both
obvious and surprising.
LOPEZ: It wasn't
necessarily the most, uh,
upscale neighborhood and,
and the potential for a lot
of trouble to get into.
So, you know, my mom, kept
me busy and with a lot of
different activities.
So, I was the only dancing,
theater, wrestling,
karate kid I knew,
because I usually had an
activity after, after school.
So, I was busy, and I...
And it worked.
I was so busy, I never
had time to really get in any
kind of trouble.
GATES: But how does a
ten-year-old land a
Norman Lear sitcom?
LOPEZ: When my mom
got me into dancing,
there was a local talent
agent in San Diego that, uh,
saw me dance and
approached her and said,
"Hey, have you ever thought
about getting your kids into
commercials and print work?"
And my mom was like,
"Well, he reads well,
and he doesn't shut up,
and he's not shy, so I,
I don't know, let me ask him."
GATES: "A.K.A. Pablo"
was not a hit,
but Mario was
just getting started.
Soon he landed a lead role
in "Saved by the Bell" a show
that made him a household name
and launched his career...
And even though he
spent much of his childhood
in front of the camera,
Mario kept his head by
staying close to his parents,
who were not the types
to be dazzled by fame.
LOPEZ: Oftentimes, a lot of
these parents want to live
vicariously through their kids,
and that wasn't the
case with my parents.
They obviously didn't know
anything about it, had no, uh,
history or background in
the entertainment field.
But, um, they were
just supportive.
And if it worked out, great.
If it didn't, that's fine,
but you know, to this day,
I'm, I'm always so
appreciative of my mom, uh,
and my dad for driving me up
a few hours every day for an
audition that maybe
was five minutes and then
come right back.
And uh like, every reaction,
whenever I did land something,
it'd always be like,
"Oh, that's nice, mijo."
No one ever got too excited.
(laughter).
LOPEZ: Like my dad
always says, uh,
"You still have never
had a real job."
GATES: This sense
of perspective, and humor,
would serve Mario well as
he grew into adulthood,
helping him plot a
successful career path...
an accomplishment that
eludes many child stars.
A key moment came when
Mario met Dick Clark,
the iconic television host,
who saw something of himself
in the younger man.
LOPEZ: We really hit it off,
and he became a
friend and mentor.
And he said, "Mario, you've
got a personality for hosting."
Because I do like to host,
whether it's hosting
game night at my house or
having people over.
I love to entertain.
GATES: Yeah.
LOPEZ: I love to make sure
people have a good time.
GATES: Yeah.
LOPEZ: I love to make sure
everyone's having fun and,
and, uh, and, and
just kind of, uh,
be the host of the party.
And that's essentially
what you're doing on TV.
So, Dick Clark sort of
opened my eyes to this world,
and he goes,
"You want to be on TV
for the next 50 years,
I'm telling you,
you have the personality,
you should look into doing
some hosting, be a host."
And it kind of like
light bulb went off,
and I'm like I want to be
the Latino, Dick Clark.
GATES: That's great.
LOPEZ: And that, that was my,
and that was my new plan.
GATES: My second guest is
comedian Melissa Villaseñor,
one of the leading lights
of "Saturday Night Live"
since 2016, and a mainstay
of the comedy circuit
for more than a decade.
VILLASEÑOR: It stinks,
cause once guys find out,
"Oh, Melissa does voices."
"Well, do the hot voice."
But I can't help it if, like,
a little bit of me pops out.
You know?
"What do you want
to do tonight, babe?"
(sultry) Um, how about a
bath or something?
"Ooh yeah. What else?"
(normal) How about,
let's make some popcorn?
"What did I say
about the voice?!"
GATES: Like Mario,
Melissa grew up in a
Mexican American community
in southern California.
But while Mario got his
start on the set of a
Norman Lear sitcom,
Melissa found her calling
in a less auspicious venue...
As a sophomore in high school,
she got on stage
for a talent show,
tried out some
celebrity impressions,
and discovered that
she had a special gift.
VILLASEÑOR:
I did Britney Spears...
"Oh, yeah."
A little Christina Aguilera...
"Oh, oh, oh, oh!"
GATES: What was the reaction?
VILLASEÑOR:
Oh, it was amazing,
a lot of people
stood up, clapped, and, and,
and everyone was laughing and
I felt like there was this
fire in my chest that just
lit up and I woke up
in a way of, like,
"This is what I'm
doing for my life."
GATES: What did your parents
think when they heard that
you had, you know,
blown the roof off?
VILLASEÑOR:
I think they thought,
"Oh, that's cute.
That's nice. But go to college."
(laughter)
GATES: Melissa would
follow her parent's advice and
enroll in a local
community college.
But, at the same time,
she was also following
her passion for comedy,
and the classroom
simply couldn't compare,
causing Melissa a
great deal of sorrow.
VILLASEÑOR: I went,
but I didn't show up.
I, I didn't like it.
And I always felt like the
sadness was a clear sign that
I needed to be on stage.
Every time I avoided, like,
oh maybe I
shouldn't be a comedian,
it's not working out.
Like, I, you know I auditioned
for "SNL" when I was 21,
I didn't get it.
I was like,
"Maybe it's not working out.
Maybe..."
You know, I mean, obviously,
I was so young then,
I shouldn't have got it.
But, but I,
uh, I think when I...
When I tried to avoid it,
there was always a
feeling like, something is off,
something is not right,
and it's because I'm
supposed to be performing.
GATES: When Melissa finally
accepted her calling,
she faced another challenge:
Stand-up comedy
is grueling work.
VILLASEÑOR (impersonating):
Hi, I'm Sara Silverman and um
Oh, my God.
GATES: She spent almost a
decade trying to break in,
taking her act to
talent shows and small venues
across the country,
all the while living
at home with her parents.
In the end, her
determination paid off.
After submitting
audition tapes every
year for seven years,
she finally won over
"Saturday Night Live's"
executive producer
Lorne Michaels,
landing her dream job.
How did your parents
react when you told them, uh,
that Lorne had called?
(sighs).
VILLASEÑOR: Well, this
is how this is how lovely
my parents are.
So, they were actually
in New York still when I
got the call.
So, what happened was,
that week I flew out
for meetings with,
to meet Lorne and
the writers on the show.
They wanted to meet
me and just chat.
Uh, and my parents surprised me.
They flew out.
GATES: Oh.
VILLASEÑOR: Just to be
there in support of me.
GATES: Oh, well that's great.
VILLASEÑOR: Yeah,
I called them, I said,
"Put, put this on speaker.
You all need to hear."
And they're like, "What?"
I was like, "I'm on Saturday,
I got Saturday Night Live.
I'm going to be on the cast."
And they're screaming,
they're crying,
they're hugging each other.
It was unreal.
It felt magical because they
are all a part of the journey.
My parents, since day one they
would drive me to comedy clubs
and improv classes,
or, you know...
GATES: You're lucky.
VILLASEÑOR: Lucky. Yes.
GATES: Yeah.
VILLASEÑOR: Very, very lucky.
GATES: Meeting my guests,
it was clear that both are
the products of
tight-knit families,
but as the descendants
of recent immigrants,
they also had fundamental
questions about how those
families had been shaped.
It was time to provide
them with some answers.
I started with Mario,
and his paternal grandfather,
Luciano Lopez-Burgos.
Luciano was born
in Mexico in 1926,
and ended up in
San Diego, California,
supporting eight
children as a laborer.
Along the way, he earned a
reputation for hard work that
awed his entire family...
GATES: Your father said that
for your grandfather, quote,
"Every day was
work, work, work."
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: Uh, is that
how you remember?
LOPEZ: Yeah, he
was always working,
even until his late years.
GATES: Gee.
LOPEZ: I remember that,
but that kind of, you know,
it kept him going
and stuff, and so, yeah.
GATES: As you got older, did
your grandfather's work ethic
make sense to you?
LOPEZ: Yeah.
I appreciated it, and then,
even when all my...
His kids were old enough
and had their own families
and were doing their own thing,
he continued that
strong work ethic, and I,
it was just sort
of instilled in me.
I never had friends spend
the night more than one night
because my dad would
put them to work.
He would hate to just
see us laying on the couch,
watching TV.
He'd get up and make
me do something.
GATES: While Mario proudly
celebrates all that Luciano
did to plant roots
in the United States,
he had no idea about the
efforts that his grandfather
had made simply to get
into this country...
The story begins with a
document that Luciano filed in
March of 1957...
GATES: Would you please
read the title at the top
of the page?
LOPEZ: "Application for
permission to reapply,
Tijuana, Mexico, 1957."
GATES: The keyword in
that sentence is "reapply."
LOPEZ: Reapply. Right.
GATES: Have you ever
heard anything about this?
LOPEZ: No.
GATES: Look at the transcribed
section at the bottom.
LOPEZ: "Removed from the
United States on or about 1952
to Mexico from the port
of San Ysidro, California,
I resided in the
United States for a period
of approximately one month.
At the time of removal,
I was living in
Hanford, California."
GATES: Do you know
what's happening here?
Did you ever hear this story?
LOPEZ: No. No.
GATES: Luciano's "story" is
a classic example of the
struggles faced by
migrant workers of his day,
in 1952, when he was
about 26 years old,
he sought work in farm
country north of Los Angeles.
Lacking a visa, he
was here illegally,
and soon that caught
up with him...
After roughly one month,
Luciano was detained by
immigration officials and
returned to Mexico via what
was known as a
"voluntary departure",
meaning no arrest warrant was
issued and no legal record of
the incident was preserved.
In theory, this should have
made it easier for him to
re-enter the United States,
as he attempted to do in 1957,
but, in the intervening years,
the United States had become
considerably more hostile
toward Mexican migration.
LOPEZ: Oh wow.
GATES: Please read
the transcribed section?
LOPEZ: Wow.
"Wetbacks herded
at Nogales Camp;
these unwitting victims
of the US Operation Wetback
milled around today for six hot,
miserable hours in the
process of being loaded
aboard a 15-car special
train for the final leg of
their unwilling journey
back into their native Mexico.
This is the end product
of the sweeping campaign
launched by the US Immigration
to clear the nation of
its illegal aliens."
So, wetback was a,
an actual, literal term?
It wasn't just a derogatory,
I thought it was just a
derogatory, uh, term used.
I didn't know that
they actually printed it.
GATES: They are
using it because the
United States government,
in 1954,
the US Immigration
and Naturalization Service
launched a program officially
known, governmentally, as...
BOTH: "Operation Wetback".
LOPEZ: Oh my god.
GATES: Can you believe that?
LOPEZ: Wow.
GATES: Can you
believe the name?
They didn't even
think anything about it.
LOPEZ: Wow. That's unbelievable.
GATES: "Operation wetback"
was the cynical meeting ground
of xenophobia,
racism, and economics...
During World War II,
the United States
created a guest visa program
that allowed Mexican workers
to find temporary employment
with American farmers.
The program helped alleviate
the enormous labor shortages
caused by the war.
But by 1954, the
war was long over,
and some Americans were
becoming increasingly
concerned that Mexican workers
were undercutting their wages.
In response, the
United States government
launched the largest
deportation effort it
had ever undertaken,
using military tactics to
detain suspected migrants in
holding camps before shipping
them across the border.
LOPEZ: Wow.
GATES: They went around
just rounding up people and
throwing them out
of the country.
LOPEZ: Wow.
GATES: You wanna
hear the numbers?
In 1954, there were
1.1 million removals.
LOPEZ: That's unbelievable.
GATES: That's unbelievable.
LOPEZ: That, wow.
GATES: Can you imagine just
how perilous your life was?
I mean, you're living in terror,
and you can just be swept up...
LOPEZ:
It's eye-opening, I mean...
My grandfather was
a tough guy, but I,
I regret not being
aware of this and,
and talking to him about
it when he was alive.
GATES: Why do you think
he never talked about it?
LOPEZ: Maybe he just
didn't want to go there and
put it behind him and,
and might make us angry.
GATES: Uh-huh.
Or hurt, and...
LOPEZ: Or hurt, yeah.
GATES: I mean, what kind of
person wants to inflict pain
on their grandchild, you know?
LOPEZ: Sure. Right.
GATES: Mario's grandfather
may have been angry about the
obstacles placed
in front of him.
But he was also doggedly
determined and soon he
set out for the
United States yet again,
embarking on a
remarkable journey...
We found the details
of that journey in
the national archives,
set down in a record
dated July 3rd, 1969...
LOPEZ: "My full, true,
and correct name is
Lucian Lopez Burgos.
My present place of
residence is 301918th St.,
National City,
San Diego, California.
I was born January 7, 1925 in
Ranchitos, Culiacán,
Sinaloa, Mexico.
Lawful admission for
permanent residence in the
United States was at
San Ysidro, California
under the name of
Lucian Lopez-Burgos on
September 10, 1957."
Wow.
GATES: You're looking at the
moment that your grandfather
declared his intention
to become a citizen of the
United States of America.
LOPEZ: That's awesome.
GATES: Yeah.
LOPEZ: That's very cool.
I love it.
GATES: And if you look
at it closely again,
you'll see that Luciano
legally entered the
United States on
September 10, 1957, on foot.
Can you imagine?
LOPEZ: Wow.
He walked, that's crazy.
GATES: He was living
in Tijuana at the time,
so he likely crossed into
the United States through,
the California
border town, San Ysidro,
and by the time he swore
his oath of allegiance
he'd been living in the
city for 12 years.
LOPEZ: Oh wow.
GATES: And you can see the
photo he submitted with his
application there on your left.
Does he look like
the guy you remember?
LOPEZ: Yeah.
I can't wait to show my dad.
GATES: Do you feel grateful
to your grandfather?
If he hadn't tried so hard
to immigrate, you, of course,
might not be here.
LOPEZ: Of course.
No, I, I appreciate, and I
just feel like going,
uh, uh, down rabbit holes,
just to kind of,
uh, even learn more,
and-and anxious to show
the family, you know?
But it does, you know,
makes you kind of proud.
GATES: We now wanted
to see what we could learn
about the history that
Mario's family left behind
when they immigrated.
Turning from
Luciano to his wife,
Mario's grandmother
Alejandra Perez,
we got more than
we bargained for.
We were able to trace
Alejandra's roots back four
generations in one area:
The Mexican state of Zacatecas,
uncovering a baptismal
record from the year 1817...
LOPEZ: Wow.
GATES: Would you be kind enough
to read the translated section?
LOPEZ: How'd you get that?
That's amazing.
"Solemnly baptized a Spaniard
of 7 days, Jose Prudenciano,
born in Los Castañedas,
legitimate son
of Jose Maria Perez
and Maria Gertrudis Bañuelos,
GATES: Any idea what
you're looking at?
LOPEZ: That my
great-great-great-great-
grandfather's birth certificate?
GATES: That is his
baptismal record.
LOPEZ: Oh, and his baptism.
So, wait, why are they
referring to him as a Spaniard?
GATES: Would you
please turn the page?
LOPEZ: Not a Mexican,
but a Spaniard.
They didn't list you as Mexican.
They either were
Spaniard or Native?
GATES: Well, more
complicated than that.
LOPEZ: Okay.
GATES: You ever
seen one of these?
LOPEZ: No.
GATES: This is what was
called a Casta painting.
LOPEZ: Okay.
GATES: Mario, it's a depiction
of the racial designation
system instituted by the
Spanish in Colonial Mexico
beginning in the 16th century.
LOPEZ: So, they
would look at you and
see where you fell into...?
GATES: Yeah.
LOPEZ: Wow. Unbelievable.
GATES: Casta paintings may
seem shocking to modern eyes,
but they provide a revealing
window onto the past,
they were used to illustrate
the many ostensible "racial"
differences among
colonial Mexicans,
differences that were the
essential components of an
emerging social order in a
land where Spanish, native,
and African populations
were mingling...
GATES: This particular
illustration shows and ranks
subcategories within the caste
system that were created as a
result of intermarriage...
Intermarriage also meaning
just inter sexual relations,
ranging from rape to actual,
you know, love and marriage.
LOPEZ: Yeah, whoa.
GATES: And it produced
a mixed-race population.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: That was a lot more
complicated than just someone
who looked like they had been
born in Madrid and someone who
looked like they'd
been born in Zacatecas.
LOPEZ: Right.
GATES: So, the
Casta System had 16 categories
of racial mixture.
16!
That means 16 shades of
Blackness or brownness.
LOPEZ: Wow.
GATES: Isn't that crazy?
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: The three main
categories were, one, Spaniards,
like your third
great-grandfather, Indios,
who were the Indigenous
people of the Americas...
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: And Negros, who were
the Black people from Africa.
And you could see the
various color mixtures.
LOPEZ: Yes.
GATES: it was such
a crazy system,
and they illustrated it
so that you could, like,
I could look at you, and I go,
"Mario, you're
in the, this caste."
LOPEZ: Yeah. I'd fall
in about number five, right?
GATES: Yeah. Yeah.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: Isn't that?
LOPEZ: That's a trip.
GATES: It is horrible, man.
LOPEZ: And that
was important why?
GATES: Because of racial purity.
LOPEZ: They just wanted to?
GATES: Caste was class.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: A color was caste.
Who was on top,
who was on bottom,
just the nature of exploitation.
LOPEZ: Unbelievable, yeah. Wow!
GATES: Mario wondered how his
ancestors had ended up within
this system in the first place.
The answer would
transport us back into
some terrible history...
In 1546, Spanish explorers
discovered silver ore in the
mountains surrounding Zacatecas.
Soon, merchants and miners
were flocking to the region,
and they would need
military force to subdue the
native Americans who had
lived there for centuries.
Mario's eleventh
great-grandfather,
a Spaniard named
Baltasar Temiño de Bañuelos,
was a part of that force...
Baltasar likely arrived
in Mexico as a teenager,
and ended up serving,
as a soldier of fortune in
a brutal new economy.
So, you raise the forces,
you go get the silver,
subdue the Native Americans,
you keep the money.
You know, it was
kind of like that.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
How did they raise the money?
GATES: This is the bad part.
LOPEZ: Okay.
GATES: Many used their
personal funds, of course,
supplemented by capturing and
selling Indigenous people.
LOPEZ: Really?
GATES: Yeah.
LOPEZ: So, the
Indigenous people are,
just get taken and they're?
GATES: They get taken and, yeah.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: At the same time,
Europe is quote-unquote
"discovering" Africa and
enslaving Africans and
then bringing them over.
LOPEZ: Got it.
GATES: One of the reasons...
LOPEZ: So, it was like
almost simultaneous?
GATES: Yes.
LOPEZ: Got it.
GATES: And it was
all driven by...
LOPEZ: Sure...
GATES: I mean, it was
a really ugly business.
LOPEZ: Yeah, I'd say.
GATES: Baltasar was involved
in many "ugly" businesses,
in addition to the military,
he also ran silver mines,
and owned at least two mills,
as well as a
silver ore refining plant.
And that wasn't all he owned...
GATES: Your ancestor,
I'm sorry to say,
was one of the largest
slaveholder's in Zacatecas,
he owned between 20 to 40
Indigenous Native American
enslaved people...
LOPEZ: Damn.
GATES: And ten to 15
African enslaved people.
How does learning
that make you feel?
LOPEZ: I'm kind of speechless.
I, I didn't, uh, obviously,
I had no idea, but oh my god.
GATES: It was horrible, man.
LOPEZ: Can you imagine
being born during that time?
GATES: Oh yeah.
LOPEZ: Oh my god.
Oh my god.
We're so, that's unbelievable.
GATES: No, imagine minding
your business in Zacatecas,
and you look up, and
there are these white guys.
You go, "Hey, should we
invite them to dinner?"
LOPEZ: Right.
GATES: You're like no.
LOPEZ: No. Right. Exactly. Damn.
GATES: Baltasar died sometime
around the year 1600,
but his memory lived on.
When the Spanish crown
recognized what would become
the state of Zacatecas by
granting it a coat of arms,
the design featured a
crowned female figure,
flanked by the four men
who were thought to be the
founders of the original
Spanish settlement.
One of the four, the
man on the far left,
is Mario's eleventh
great-grandfather...
GATES: What do you
make of your ancestor?
I mean, he was not
Abraham Lincoln.
LOPEZ: Right. Right.
I mean, you know, it's...
That's oof.
It, I, it just...
It's, it's hard to kind
of process all of it,
and you know, there's no
justifying it other than that,
I mean, that just,
it is what it was, right,
during that time,
and so, you know?
GATES: Sure.
LOPEZ: It's, it's
just awful to hear.
GATES: Oh, yeah.
LOPEZ: It's just so...
When you take it back,
you're like,
"Oh my god, what an,
what an awful era in history."
GATES: An awful era.
LOPEZ: You know?
It's just like what
an incredible, like,
how did people,
how did, how did,
how did society just
go about living?
It was just so ruthless.
Man, I'm just blessed
to be born when I was.
GATES: Yeah.
GATES: Like Mario,
Melissa Villaseñor came to me
knowing that she had deep
roots in Mexico but wondering
how her ancestors had
made the journey north.
On her father's side,
our research soon focused on her
great-grandmother, a
woman named Mercedes Muro.
Mercedes was familiar to
Melissa because she's the
mother of her grandmother
Carmen, who's been a constant,
joyous presence in
Melissa's life...
Yet Carmen never
spoke about her mother...
In effect: Mercedes'
story had been lost.
We set out to recover it...
Starting with a birth
record from the year 1908...
VILLASEÑOR:
"In Aguascalientes,
the fifth of October.
Mr. Leobardo Muro, married,
28 years old, farmer,
presented a child born the
29th of the previous month
given the name
Maria Merced Muro,
legitimate child of the
appearing party and of
Maria de la Torre,
20 years old."
GATES: This is the
birth record of your
great-grandmother Mercedes.
VILLASEÑOR: Oh, whoa.
GATES: That is
Mercedes' birth record.
VILLASEÑOR: Whoa.
GATES: Isn't that cool?
VILLASEÑOR: Yes.
GATES: From 1908.
What's it like to see that?
(sighs).
VILLASEÑOR: That's crazy.
(sighs)
It's wild.
That's making me emotional.
GATES: This record indicates
that Mercedes' father,
Leobardo Muro, was a farmer
and we believe that her mother,
Maria de la Torre,
came from a farming
family as well.
We know little about their
life together in Mexico,
but it cannot have been easy...
Most farmers in their
region ran small operations,
leaving them at the mercy
of fluctuating prices not to
mention the vagaries
of the weather,
making each year a
struggle simply to survive.
Sometime after 1910,
the Muros decided to
abandon this struggle and
moved to El Paso, Texas,
where wages were higher.
Tragically, they were soon
confronted by a challenge even
greater than
the lack of money...
VILLASEÑOR: "Full name,
Maria de La Torre de Muro.
Date of death,
June 17, 1914. Age 27."
GATES: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
VILLASEÑOR: Ohhhh.
GATES: Yeah.
VILLASEÑOR: Oh, gosh.
GATES: That's a death record
for Mercedes' mother, your
great-great-grandmother Maria.
She died of cancer in
El Paso when she was just
27 years old.
VILLASEÑOR: Ohhhh.
GATES: Your great-grandmother
Mercedes was five years old
when she lost her mother.
Did you have any idea?
VILLASEÑOR: Unh-uh.
GATES: Can you imagine?
VILLASEÑOR: Poor girl.
That's so sad.
GATES: Mercedes' troubles
would soon be compounded.
In 1917, her father
remarried and left her to be
raised by her grandmother.
She wasn't even ten
years old and effectively
she'd lost both of her parents.
Many people would have been
broken by the experience,
but not Mercedes...
We found her in the
1930 census for Arizona,
starting a family with
Melissa's great-grandfather,
Jesus de la Torre,
a railroad engineer...
Unfortunately, their
happiness didn't last.
Arizona was hit hard
by the great depression,
and Mexican workers were
often the first fired as
employers battled
to keep their businesses afloat.
By the early 1930s,
Mercedes and Jesus
had returned to Mexico,
along with their three children.
Then tragedy struck yet again.
In November of 1934,
Jesus was shot dead,
after standing up for
a friend at a party...
VILLASEÑOR: "We were
all in a good mood
when Heriberto arrived.
He was wearing his
gun in plain sight,
stuck into his belt.
He started in on
one of my friends trying
to humiliate him.
That's when Jesus Maria
stepped in.
Jesus Maria took three
steps toward him,
ready for a fistfight.
Heriberto surprised everyone
by pulling out the gun and
making the first shot at
Jesus Maria's feet as a warning,
but he didn't back off and
when he took the next step,
Jesus got a bullet
to the thorax.
And when he buckled over,
took two more in the back.
There was nothing
that could be done."
Oh, man.
GATES: How do you think your
great-great-grandmother coped
with so much loss in her life
at that age with three kids?
VILLASEÑOR: I don't know,
but I'd be, I'd be a mess.
GATES: Mercedes was 26
at the time of the murder.
Her youngest daughter Carmen,
Melissa's grandmother,
was just an infant.
It's difficult even to imagine
how the family carried on,
but it seems that carrying
on was Mercedes specialty.
Mercedes would never remarry.
Instead, she'd focus her efforts
on supporting her children,
which, to her, meant leaving
her homeland once more...
VILLASEÑOR:
"Mercedes Muro de la Torre.
Passage paid by self.
Purpose, reside
permanently." Wow.
GATES: In 1947 when
she was 38 years old,
Mercedes decided
to move permanently to
the United States.
VILLASEÑOR: Ah.
GATES: She settled in LA where
her daughter Teresa lived and
where we believe
your grandmother Carmen
was also living.
VILLASEÑOR: Yeah.
GATES: We think Mercedes brought
Carmen into the United States
sometime around 1944.
VILLASEÑOR: That's awesome.
Ah. I like seeing that.
GATES: Yeah, me too.
I've got something
else cool to show you.
Please turn the page.
VILLASEÑOR: Okay. Wow.
"Mercedes de La Torre was
admitted as a citizen of the
United States of America
this seventh day of December
in the year of our lord 1962."
Whoa. Aww.
Like, that, that was
everything for them.
Like, for her to
get this probably was
like the biggest...
GATES: Totally.
VILLASEÑOR: Wow.
GATES: She became a citizen of
the United States of America
on December 7, 1962,
47 years after she first
came to this country,
VILLASEÑOR: Mmm.
GATES: And look
at that photograph.
That's her.
VILLASEÑOR: I know.
I feel like she's, like,
giving a Mona Lisa-type smile
where she wants to
smile but she's trying to
keep her excitement in.
GATES: In California,
Mercedes found work as a
nurse's assistant at
a catholic hospital,
and lived the rest of her
life, surrounded by family,
in Los Angeles...
Learning her story
drew Melissa closer to
her grandmother Carmen,
allowing her to appreciate
that Carmen, too,
had endured a great deal and
had found a way to do more
than simply survive.
VILLASEÑOR: I feel like
with my grandma it's,
she does anything for
us, for us grand kids.
Like, she lets us
have all the fun.
I don't know.
I feel like maybe giving
extra love because of what
she went through,
saw her mom go through.
GATES: I'll bet.
VILLASEÑOR: Yeah.
GATES: What do you think
all these people would
have made of you?
VILLASEÑOR: First,
I think they'd be like,
"Oh, look at this loony."
But then, uh, but I
hope they're all watching
and being and proud
and, um, know that I'm very
grateful for them for carving
such a great path for me.
GATES: Mm-hmm.
VILLASEÑOR: Yeah.
GATES: We'd already traced
Mario Lopez's paternal roots
back five centuries,
from southern California
to Mexico to Spain,
a progression that
is not uncommon in
Mexican American families.
Now, turning to Mario's
mother's ancestry,
we would find ourselves tracing
a far more unusual journey.
It began in Mario's
childhood home,
with his great-grandmother,
Soledad Alatorre,
a beloved figure in his life...
LOPEZ: She was awesome.
She used to, okay,
so she had a little
bedroom, uh, that she,
I don't know where she
kept her clothes, actually,
because she took the
closet and converted it into
like a little store because
she used to run a little store,
I guess, back in Mexico.
And she used to sell
candies and sodas and stuff
outside of her window.
GATES: Oh yeah?
LOPEZ: Out of her chair,
yeah, to all the
kids in the neighborhood.
So, she was like a little
businesswoman, and so...
GATES: Oh, that's great.
LOPEZ: Yeah. Yeah.
GATES: Hey, come on, come on.
LOPEZ: Yeah. No.
All the kids would just
line up, and after school,
they'd know, and so, she'd
have, she'd have uh, you know,
sodas or candy and all that.
I remember that specifically.
GATES: Oh,
I think that's cool.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: That's great.
LOPEZ: Yeah. That was great.
She was a little hustler.
GATES: Mario knew that
Soledad had immigrated to the
United States in the
1950s along with her son,
Mario's grandfather Rafael,
and he knew that the two
came from Baja California Sur,
the northernmost
state in Mexico.
But beyond that, this part
of Mario's family tree was a
blank slate.
We began to fill it in,
starting with a man named
Salomé Trasviña, Rafael's
father, and, for a time,
Soledad's partner...
LOPEZ: "In the City of
La Paz, Salomé Trasviña,
of 27 years of age,
single, carpenter,
native to this district,
presented a child born the
day 24th of last October,
who he named Rafael Trasviña,
first natural son he
has had with his partner,
Soledad Alatorre."
GATES: That's your
grandfather's birth record.
GATES: And as you can see,
Rafael was a natural child.
You know what a
natural child is?
LOPEZ: No? What is it?
GATES: Out of wedlock.
LOPEZ: Oh, so natural
child means out of wedlock?
GATES: Salomé and Soledad were
not married when he was born.
LOPEZ: Got it.
First, oh, that's a, that's a,
that's a kind way to put it.
GATES: Yeah, a natural child.
LOPEZ: Oh, so they
say natural child.
Has, is that a term used
just in Mexico or all over?
GATES: Yeah. No, all over.
There are, there are
different euphemisms in
different countries,
at different times.
LOPEZ: Because they did say
bastard at some point, right,
which is much more harsh.
GATES: Yeah, but they
wouldn't have probably put that
on a legal document, right?
LOPEZ: Got it.
Well, never, never did
I think they'd put wetback,
either, but so...
GATES: No, no,
that's true, that's true.
But Salomé and uh Soledad
weren't married when, uh,
Rafael was born,
and in fact, they eventually,
they split up.
LOPEZ: Really?
GATES: Yes.
LOPEZ: Oh wow.
I had no idea.
GATES: As it turns out,
when Salomé left Soledad,
he erased an entire branch
of Mario's family tree and,
along with it, a
fascinating story...
That story begins in 1917,
five years before
Rafael's birth,
with the arrival of a ship in
the port of San Francisco...
on board was Salomé, and
he wasn't traveling alone...
LOPEZ: "Salomé Trasviña,
22, carpenter,
last permanent residence,
La Paz, Mexico,
Rodolfo Trasviña, 16, student,
Leonor Trasviña, 21, student."
Who are those guys?
GATES: There's your
great-grandfather, Salomé,
landing in the United States
with his younger siblings.
LOPEZ: Oh, those
are his siblings?
Oh wow.
GATES: Yes,
Rodolfo and Leonor.
Did you have any idea that
your great-grandfather had
been to the United States?
LOPEZ: No. That's so random.
How and why?
GATES: Your great...
LOPEZ: And why didn't he stay?
GATES: Yeah!
When Salomé and his siblings
arrived in San Francisco,
the city was in need
of skilled laborers,
but there was likely
another factor that had
drawn them north:
War.
In 1910, a revolution
erupted in Mexico challenging
the regime of
dictator Porfirio Díaz.
The fighting intensified
over the following years,
as various factions
battled for control.
At its height, the war
stretched from coast to coast,
and likely killed more
than half a million people...
Many of them civilians.
The unrest triggered
a mass migration,
as about a quarter of a
million Mexicans sought refuge
in the United States...
Mario's ancestors
were among them.
Salomé traveled for
nine days from La Paz to get
to San Francisco,
more than 1,000 miles.
LOPEZ: Oof.
GATES: According to a
scholar we consulted,
they likely traveled
by ship to avoid danger
throughout Mexico.
LOPEZ: Oh wow. Smart.
GATES: And they arrived
in San Francisco well before
most of the fighting
ended in 1920.
LOPEZ: Got it. Okay.
GATES: So, did you ever think
of your ancestors as refugees,
fleeing a war?
LOPEZ: No.
GATES: But they did.
LOPEZ: That's kind of cool.
GATES: It is very cool.
It's not what we think of
Mexican immigration, right?
LOPEZ: No.
In fact, I'm blown away.
GATES: We believe Salomé
and his siblings were not
just looking for
work in San Francisco,
but rather a safe
place to settle,
partly because soon
after they arrived,
they did something unusual:
They sent for their parents.
Indeed, within a month, Mario's
great-great-grandparents
Epigmenio and Jesus Trasviña
followed their children
to the city and,
to all appearances,
started to put down roots...
GATES: Ever see
that picture before?
LOPEZ: Never in my life.
What am I looking at?
GATES: That is the
Trasviña family.
LOPEZ: That's the Trasviñas?
GATES: 1910.
That's your great-grandfather
Salomé and his parents.
LOPEZ: Oh wow. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. I can tell, wow,
this is, this is a trip.
This is so cool.
There's a dog there, even.
GATES: The Trasviña family
may well have flourished in
San Francisco,
but their story was about to
take another twist...
Within a decade, they
would all be back in Mexico...
Driven, yet again, by forces
beyond their control...
In 1918, a recession
hit the United States.
The unemployment rate soared,
and newcomers were
hit especially hard...
GATES: About 20% of the
immigrants enumerated in the
1920 census subsequently
lost their jobs.
LOPEZ: Got it. Okay. Go it.
GATES: So, meanwhile,
Mexico, ironically,
was in the midst
of economic growth.
LOPEZ: Wow. So, they went back.
You don't hear that often.
GATES: No. You don't. No.
LOPEZ: You know? Uh...
GATES: No.
It's a one-way ticket.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
And then and then, obviously,
my grandfather came back.
GATES: Yeah.
LOPEZ: So, yeah,
that's a trip.
GATES: Constructing
your family tree,
you have Spanish heritage that
comes to Mexico 500 years ago,
and then, they live in
Mexico for 500 years, right?
LOPEZ: Unbelievable.
GATES: Then they come
to the United States.
So, what does being
a Mexican American
mean to you now?
LOPEZ: That's a good question.
I mean, I've always been proud
of my roots and my ethnicity,
and, and, uh, I don't
think that that changes.
But I love the knowledge
that I now have.
GATES: Oh, that's good.
LOPEZ: It's so incredibly
cool to get all this history.
It makes me what to rush
home and tell my family,
which I'm going to do.
You know, I can't
appreciate it enough.
And it makes me swell
with even more pride.
GATES: We'd already traced
Melissa Villaseñor's paternal
roots back to her
great-grandmother Mercedes,
who spent decades
crisscrossing the border
between the United States
and Mexico,
enduring tumult and tragedy.
Now, following another
line of her father's family,
we came to an ancestor
who made a very different
kind of journey...
The story concerns
Diego Ochoa Garibay,
a man who died around
the year 1620 in Zamora,
a city in western Mexico...
GATES: You have never
heard of this guy.
VILLASEÑOR: No.
GATES: You just met your
12th great-grandfather.
VILLASEÑOR: Geez...
GATES: Your
great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-grandfather.
Did you ever in your
wildest dreams think we could
go back this far?
VILLASEÑOR: Twelve? No!
GATES: And look at
that map on your left.
That is Zamora.
VILLASEÑOR: Mmmm.
GATES: Melissa, your
roots there go back at least
392 years.
VILLASEÑOR:
This is, this is amazing.
GATES: According to records
held by the Catholic church
in Zamora,
Melissa's 12th
great-grandfather Diego came
from a family of
low-level nobility,
a family that originally
hailed from what was known as
"the lordship of Biscay",
which is now part of the
Basque region of Spain...
VILLASEÑOR: Basque Country.
GATES: Yeah.
That is where your
Spanish ancestors, I mean,
have you ever wondered where
in Spain you came from?
VILLASEÑOR: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
GATES: That's where
you come from.
VILLASEÑOR: Biscay.
GATES: Yeah.
VILLASEÑOR: I'm Basque, baby.
I, I want to shout it
from the mountaintops.
GATES: Well, there are a lot
of mountains up there too,
to shout from.
VILLASEÑOR: That's so cool.
GATES: We know nothing about the
circumstances of Diego's birth,
but we have a very good idea
of how he ended up in Zamora.
Just as we'd seen on
Mario's family's tree,
Melissa's ancestor
came to conquer...
Records place him in western
Mexico around the year 1570.
At the time, of course,
the land belonged
to its indigenous owners,
but their numbers were
dropping precipitously as the
Spanish engaged in what
they called "pacification"
a polite term for genocidal war.
It is estimated that over
6 million native people were
living in Mexico in 1545...
But by 1570, more than
half of them would be dead.
VILLASEÑOR: Mm.
GATES: So...
VILLASEÑOR:
That's a lot of battles.
GATES: That's what
"pacification" meant.
(Villaseñor sighs).
You know, brutal warfare
against the Native Americans.
VILLASEÑOR:
Oh, now I feel bad.
GATES: Guilt is not heritable.
What your ancestors
did is not on you,
but it's important to find
out what they did, right?
VILLASEÑOR: Yes. Yes. Yes.
GATES: Would you
please turn the page?
VILLASEÑOR: Yes.
GATES: Would you please
read the translated section?
VILLASEÑOR: Yes.
"Captain Diego
Ochoa Garibay..."
GATES: Mm-hmm.
VILLASEÑOR: "Who did render
great and considerable
services to his Majesty,
subduing the Chichimeca..."
GATES: Yeah.
VILLASEÑOR: "Indians, bringing
them to the light of our
Holy Faith, having a great
many of them baptized and
administering to them
the Holy Sacraments,
whose zeal was notorious,
and among the many
services Diego rendered
at his own expense and
at risk of his life was an
occasion when the
Chichimeca Indians,
having robbed the Cathedral
of Guadalajara and not left
behind a single ornament
or item of silver,
he chased after them and
recovered everything stolen
from the said church with
which action His Majesty was
well pleased."
GATES: So, Spain was sending
the Roman Catholic Church
and conquistadors
with guns and superior arms
to claim this land
for Spain because they had
a lot of gold and silver.
VILLASEÑOR: Right.
GATES: They used as an
excuse the fact that the
Native Americans didn't
believe in Christianity.
And they said,
"Well, these are heathens,
they're savages,
so we're going to conquer
them and Christianize them,
we're going to civilize them."
VILLASEÑOR: Ah.
GATES: But in civilizing
them, quote-unquote...
VILLASEÑOR: Meant kill.
GATES: It meant
killing them, subduing them,
converting them,
taking them away from
their traditional culture.
VILLASEÑOR: Mmm.
GATES: And their ownership
of their own gold
and silver mines.
VILLASEÑOR: That's a lot.
GATES: We believe
that Melissa's 12th
great-grandfather
participated in what is known
as the Chichimeca War,
an intensely violent conflict
that lasted for roughly 40 years
and ended
with Spain in control of much
of north and
west-central Mexico.
After the war,
Diego settled in Zamora,
where we uncovered
another discomfiting
detail about his life:
A baptismal record for the
son of a woman named Maria,
who was one of
Diego's African slaves...
VILLASEÑOR: Ohhh...
GATES: So, Diego is
not only a conquistador,
he was also a slave owner.
(groans and sighs).
VILLASEÑOR: Wow.
GATES: Most Americans,
I would say,
don't know that lots of
Africans were brought to
Mexico by the Spanish
in the slave trade.
VILLASEÑOR: Yeah.
GATES: And your twelfth
great-grandfather owned a
black woman named Maria.
GATES: Did you ever imagine?
VILLASEÑOR: Woof. No.
GATES: Diego's life is
sobering to contemplate,
but he is by no means the
only member of Melissa's
family who lived
through these awful years.
She has dozens of
ancestors who witnessed
the Spanish conquest,
and not all of them
were from Spain...
The evidence for this lies
in Melissa's own chromosomes:
We gave her an admixture test,
which reveals a
person's ancestry over
approximately the
last 500 years,
broken down into percentages
based on the broad regions
where their ancestors lived...
GATES: Can you read
out your percentages?
VILLASEÑOR: Oh.
Okay, 64% European.
GATES: Yeah.
VILLASEÑOR: 34%
Indigenous Mexican.
GATES: How 'bout that?
You have a lot of Native
American ancestry, Melissa.
VILLASEÑOR: Hell, yeah.
GATES: A lot.
VILLASEÑOR: Cool.
GATES: You know, you
are a third indigenous,
a third Native American.
VILLASEÑOR: Whoa.
GATES: Yeah.
VILLASEÑOR: Beautiful.
GATES: You ever think of
yourself as an indigenous woman?
VILLASEÑOR: Hmm. No.
GATES: No.
VILLASEÑOR:
But, but I, I love that.
GATES: Melissa's DNA also
revealed that she is 2%
sub-Saharan African,
reflecting yet another
dimension of Mexico's
complex past...
And turning from
her DNA to Mario's,
we wondered if we would see
the same level of diversity...
We were not disappointed.
Mario is 56% European,
41% indigenous American,
and 3% sub-Saharan African.
LOPEZ: Look at that!
GATES: So, your paper trail
told us you descend from
Spaniards who conquered, uh,
Native Americans in Mexico.
LOPEZ: Uh-huh.
GATES: And your DNA is
telling us that you also
descend from the
people whom they conquered.
So, there was intermixing.
LOPEZ: So, they hooked up?
GATES: Yeah.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
So, they hooked up.
GATES: Look, most of the
conquistadors were men.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: So, in any society,
when there are a lot of men,
they will take as wives...
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GATES: First of all,
there's, there's rape.
I don't want to
romanticize this.
LOPEZ: Sure.
GATES: From war and conquest.
LOPEZ: Right.
GATES: But there would be
stable relationships, as well,
between people
of European descent and
Native American women.
LOPEZ: Got it. Yes.
All this, it's, it's sort
of mind-blowing actually.
GATES: We were now nearing
the end of our journey
with Mario and Melissa.
It was time to give them
their full family trees...
LOPEZ: This is the
coolest thing ever.
This is the best gift ever.
Thank you so much.
GATES: Revealing
how their roots,
both in Mexico and in Spain,
stretch back centuries...
(sighs).
GATES: Melissa,
this is your family tree.
VILLASEÑOR: Oh my gosh.
Oh, that's so cool.
I don't know why I'm
in tears, but this is just,
it's just crazy to
see them all here.
This is, this has
been a beautiful day.
GATES: That's the end of our
search for the ancestors of
Mario Lopez and
Melissa Villaseñor.
Join me next time as we unlock
the secrets of the past for
new guests on another episode of
"Finding Your Roots".