Episode list

The first episode explores 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. For film director Mike Nichols, whose entire family escaped Nazi Germany, it was a place of refuge and salvation. At its worst, it was a country that would imprison two generations of Japanese Americans, like the ancestors of Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi. And a single encounter changed musician Yo-Yo Ma's life forever, paving the road to success.

This episode 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, 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.

This is 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. Among the discoveries are 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.

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."