Anna Roberts

ALEX KELLY: So, my name is Alex Kelly, and I am interviewing Anna Roberts. And we are sitting here at 40 West 20th Street, New York City. And it is June 11th, 2013. So, Anna, I just want to start out by asking you if you can tell me a little bit about where you come from.

ANNA ROBERTS: OK. Well, I usually, I give a long spiel when people say, "Where are you from?" Because I have lived in lots of places in the United States. I sort of moved around once every four years, from the time I was born. So I was born, upstate New York, and then moved to Hudson, Massachusetts, and like Central Mass, for a couple of years, when I was little. And then to Philadelphia, and then to Larchmont, New York; and then to Gaithersburg, Maryland, where I went to high school. And that is currently where my parents 1:00still are. So, as far as, like, from home town, that's that. And as far as from other places, I think my -- I think about where I'm from, as far as, like, my heritage, as much more -- it's very American, actually. And my father is -- his grandparents are from the Virgin Islands. And my mother's grandparents are from Switzerland, but I don't think that they -- I don't think my mom knows much about her grandparents. But my dad has been searching about his parents, because he's come -- his family has come here by way of the slave trade. And so, yeah. So that's where I am. That's me. (laughter) That's where I come from. I know it's a long list. Yeah.

ALEX KELLY: So, what has your father told you about his part of the family?

ANNA ROBERTS: Well, he -- he's actually, in much more recent years, more than 2:00before, has been trying to sort of like track down his dad's side of the family. So I give you a -- can I give you a little bit of background about my dad's family, because it's a funny, it's an interesting bunch.

So, my dad was born in Queens. And his father and mother were together for a while, and then when he was nine, they split up. And his father married a white Jewish woman, from the Bronx. And it was sort of like -- I don't know, we like to joke in our family that it was sort of like a sort of like biracial Brady bunch type of situation. In the early, or I guess, like, mid- to late '60s, and they all lived on the lower East Side. And it was my dad and my uncle, his brother, from my grandfather's side of the family. And then his stepmother, but I call her Granny, and her two daughters, and so it was sort of like this 3:00melding and meshing of families. And that's his, like, family. That's his family memory.

His mother, he's kept in touch with, but, basically, as far as who I think of as my grandparents, it's like my grandmother, my dad's stepmom, Sunny, and then his father, Al. Or Papa. And so, only much more recently has he begun to sort of like dig into his biological mother's roots, and his father's roots, and what he's come up with is that, they -- yes, they were, I think, mostly on his dad's side of the family, I believe they're from the Virgin Islands, as far as he can gather. And I think that one of -- this is -- it gets complicated, I'm going to have to think about it for a second. But one of his -- so I guess, his -- like, 4:00his father -- so my dad's grandfather inherited land that was passed down, and I think -- I don't know exactly how it changed hands, I think that's also part of what he's trying to figure out. But I believe -- I mean, it used to be a plantation, and somehow changed hands and got -- and my great-- or my grandfather, yeah, my great-grandfather ended up owning that land, somehow. But we're not exactly sure. And yeah, and basically, and somehow, they also came over -- it's very unclear, but basically, Virgin Islands, and some sort of exchange of land, in some capacity. And that's -- that's basically the extent, that's the extent of that.

There's some, like, hearsay, about -- so every man in my family, on my father's side, has a middle name Alexander, or Alexandra, or something like that. And it's because, what he's gathered is that, Alexander Hamilton, [5:00] at a 5:00certain point, owned land that my father's family and ancestors have, like, were