Brooke Shields Who Do You Think You Are? USA

Brooke Shields is one of Hollywood's leading actresses.

She found fame at a young age, starring in The Blue Lagoon, when she was only 14.

Since then, she's had a successful film, television and modelling career, spanning four decades.

I'm at the time in my life right now where I'm ready

to really delve into my past.

I know very little about my family.

My mother never really talked about her side of the family that much.

And I know very little about my father's side of the family.

I've heard they are royalty.

I don't know how far back that exotic side goes, or even if it's true.

And I'm just ready to really find out the...nitty-gritty of where I came from.

Brooke Shields was born in New York in 1965.

Whenever anybody says, "Where are you from?"

I immediately say, "New York."

I'm a New Yorker.

She still lives in New York City with her husband Chris

and their daughters Rowan and Grier.

We've, um, been lucky enough to build a great family life here in the city.

But growing up for me, things were very different.

Although I was close to both of my parents,

they were divorced by the time I was five months old.

My dad Frank remarried and eventually moved to Florida.

He died in 2003.

I basically grew up with my mom Teri

who had dabbled in modelling herself.

And she got me into the business by the time I was just 11 months old.

The modelling led to movies and television and theatre.

My parents could not be more different.

They were the antithesis of one another.

On one side, my dad, there was aristocracy

and sort of old money and Park Avenue.

And then my mom's side, which was working class

and saving every dime and not spending anything.

There was a difference between the two and I never knew where I belonged.

Until recently, I hadn't thought of exploring my family history.

But then, suddenly, everything was put into perspective.

I've been alone all my life, in a way.

I've sort of been this singular person,

you know, with my mom, but my parents were divorced.

When 9/11 happened, I was on Broadway,

performing in Cabaret.

So there was that career part of me

and the, sort of, the ambition, and I didn't want to admit

that anything existed before me.

The whole world started when I came here.

And all of a sudden, everything came to a halt.

So many families lost everything.

I just thought, "My God."

I was brought out of myself

and that made me really think about blood being thicker than water,

something I never wanted to believe.

All of a sudden,

I was keenly aware of what I wanted to learn

about who I was.

I'm now about to go on this journey

to find out where I came from.

And it's a little scary.

My dad passed away. My mom's not well enough now

for me to discuss any of this with her.

So, the person I always go to is my best friend Lisa.

We basically grew up together.

She's really truly like my family -

my "go to person", when I'm doing something important in my life.

So, there's my dad and my mum

with me individually.

-Are your parents still together in that picture?

-No.

They're divorced. Divorced.

-That could have been your weekend with either one and...

-Yeah.

-It could have been the same weekend.

-The drop-off in the parking lot!

-That was!

LAUGHTER

Which side of the family do you identify with?

It is so, as this picture, spilt down the middle.

And I'll go into one and I'll think, "I don't fit in here.

"I have to go back to the other one."

I'll go in here, "I don't fit in here, they don't understand me."

All my life I have flip-flopped, so I can't answer as to which one.

It used to frustrate the hell out of me.

(Wow!)

There it is. My mother and her mother.

-You know how I feel about my grandmother.

-Yes.

I can't say that I'm a fan.

My grandmother was so mad, I think, that her husband died.

-And never got over it.

-Never got over it.

I had such resentment for her.

I just... I hated her.

And why? Because I saw the way she would treat my mom.

Just snide remarks all the time.

And she never would want to give my mom credit.

You couldn't so much as say, "Boo" to my mother and I'd want to kill you.

-You know that.

-Yeah.

-You've seen it.

So, there was this, sort of, fierce protection of my mother.

I think my grandmother was horrible to my mother

and I started disliking her at a very young age.

And the stronger the bond with my mother became,

the more I resented her mother.

My mom wanted a different life.

The minute she could, she left Newark.

That was something my grandmother never could do.

My sympathy for my grandmother, my empathy, has always been sort of tainted

by, "But how could you treat Mom like this?"

I don't like having that feeling in my heart,

of just...of just bitterness.

And I wonder if knowing anything about where she came from would help me understand

how that affected my mother.

I'm leaving New York,

which I never really do in my heart.

I want to find out more about my grandmother's...

life and her family.

So I'm on my way to New Jersey.

I haven't been back for a long time.

My early connection with New Jersey, I've blanked out. If you ask me about New Jersey, I'll just say,

"I went to college in New Jersey."

I was a French Literature major.

I have replaced all memories of New Jersey with my education.

I don't know anything about my grandmother's life, her family, her parents.

I just, I want to like my grandmother.

What made her the type of person

who gets bitter, and sad, and afraid, and not...

you know, what was in her character that came from her...upbringing?

All I know about my grandmother is that

she had a sister, Lillian.

Brooke's grandmother Theresa Dollinger

was born in 1908,

and Theresa's sister Lillian in 1915.

Brooke's come to the New Jersey State Archive

to meet genealogy expert, Michelle Chubenko.

They're looking for the birth certificates of Theresa and Lillian.

All right.

I'm hoping they might give me some clues

about my grandmother's early life.

-Oh.

-Oh. Doll...

Ooh, ooh, ooh, wait, wait.

Theresa.

My grandmother's birth certificate doesn't tell me much.

All it really tells me is that her mom's name is Ida

and she was born in Newark like my mom.

But what about her sister Lillian's birth certificate?

Um, so Lillian Elizabeth Dollinger.

Born the 26th of September, 1915.

Wait.

Number of children in all by this marriage, four?

So...my grandmother had three siblings.

Which just...

I've only known her to have one sibling.

I'm just in shock that there were two more siblings.

I've never heard of these other brothers or sisters before.

But Michelle has found their birth certificates.

So John...

There was a John William Dollinger.

OK, so that's John.

So there was a girl, a boy, a girl.

OK, but you're gonna need to make room between these two because

there's an Edward William.

-Edward.

-Mm-hmm.

Number of children living... two.

Mm-hmm.

So we know she's alive, so he had to have died.

Brooke now knows her grandmother, Theresa had two brothers.

John died in infancy when Theresa was only two,

so she probably didn't remember him.

But what happened to Edward?

And now there's this boy, this second boy,

Edward William Dollinger, younger than my grandmother.

But doesn't seem to die because

by the time we get to Lillian, the numbers still make sense.

Mm-hmm.

OK. I want to know Edward now.

I want to know this guy.

I want to find out more. SHE LAUGHS

I want to get in there now, I want to...

This is... It's just,

you feel like you're a detective of some kind.

Brooke's on her way to Newark, New Jersey,

where her grandmother was born and raised.

Theresa's family, the Dollingers, were German immigrants,

who came to America in the mid-19th century.

Brooke hopes that Newark historian Tom McCabe can explain more about this immigrant neighbourhood.

There's been a lot of jokes about Newark over the years

and one of them is, what's the best view of Newark?

The one you get in your rear-view mirror when you drive away.

SHE LAUGHS Oh, no!

I think one of the great views of Newark is just down here,

this is Ferry Street - the spine, the nerve centre of this immigrant neighbourhood.

I found this picture from 1910, which, as you can see...

This is the same view! I love that!

At this time, very much a German influence - Slazenger Shoes.

You have some Italian influence in this picture as well.

So all sorts of new immigrants came into this neighbourhood to try to establish themselves first.

Em, you had the Irish coming here, initially, followed by the Germans.

Of course, the Dollingers would have been part of that immigration.

This was taken in 1910.

My grandmother... Where was my grandmother?

At this time, just over your right shoulder -

she would have been living right over here,

at the corner store.

-At Easy Pickins?

-At Easy Pickins.

-She was living at Easy Pickins?

-Yes.

So this is, er, you know, a streetscape

that she would have been very familiar with.

Oh, that's amazing.

Two of her siblings were born across the street

here at 148 and a half.

Uh, it is now the Banco Popular.

Lillian and Edward were born right across the street. They moved around quite a bit...

Why would they have moved?

They'll be moving, looking for the best rent out of necessity.

Those at the lower part of the economic ladder will be the most vulnerable,

most insecure and they'll have to move the most.

So they would have packed up all their earthly belongings

and walked them down the stairs and down the block and moved to the next place,

one step ahead of the rent or the landlord.

Right, right.

Tom has a map showing Newark at the time when Brooke's grandmother Theresa Dollinger was growing up.

I wanted to show you my favourite map of this city.

-Wow!

-It's from 1911.

This highlighted portion is where we walked.

We walked this portion, so here is giving you

these small, self-contained towns almost.

So you have the Germans here and the Italians down there.

You have these ethnic concentrations, so it's very much

a working-class city and you came here and settled with your own.

And two out of every three Newarkers were either foreign-born

or the sons and daughters of immigrants,

so it was very much an immigrants' city when the Dollingers were here.

Two out of three?

It's an amazing...

I found something I wanted to share with you.

I think it sums up your...

family's story quite well

and it's Philip Roth, Newark's great novelist,

and he's talking about

immigrant America.

It starts there.

"As a family, they still flew the flight of the immigrant rocket,

"the upward, unbroken immigrant trajectory

"from slave-driven great-grandfather to self-driven grandfather

"to self-confident, accomplished, independent father

"to the highest high flier of them all,

"the fourth-generation child for whom America was to be heaven itself."

Wow!

So that would be your heavenly existence,

but built on the shoulders and the backs

of the Dollingers.

I do get the feeling that the rules don't seem to apply in the same way to my generation.

We CAN pursue, basically, whatever we want. We're not confined to

just what's in our immediate vicinity.

I agree with that.

"The flight of the immigrant rocket." I love that!

I feel that immigrant rocket took off and...I'm the one that benefited.

I think that I never

really...looked at my history

as something that truly, deeply affected me.

Life here was ordinary.

Well, it... It's about as ordinary as it gets

and yet it feels extraordinary to me

because it was MY family.

I grew up in a very different world

than my grandmother.

I really am beginning to understand

how hard it must have been for her.

Brooke's meeting Michelle Chubenko again,

who's found more information about Theresa and her brother Edward.

I did additional research,

and I want to share those documents with you today.

-OK.

-This one may begin to answer some more of your questions about your grandmother.

OK.

This is Ida's death certificate.

So this was Theresa's mom.

Date of death, January 12, 1919?

-Yes.

-She died at 38.

She died of cancer. Uterine cancer.

Uterine cancer.

At 38. God.

So my grandmother lost her mother when she was...

-Ten.

-Ten

-That'll do it.

-That'll do it.

My grandmother then really did have to be a parent to...

To her younger sibling.

From the time that she was...

that my grandmother was a little kid,

she had to be an adult.

Yeah.

Really be an adult.

So I do have one more document for you.

We have a certificate of death for Edward.

Oh, my God.

This is him.

Accidental drowning while she was taking care of him,

presumably, where she was... There was no mom.

-There was no...yeah.

-There was no mom.

13 years old, one month, 15 days.

Yes.

Trade Profession - Schoolboy.

Mm-hmm.

That's...wow. My, my, my. OK.

SHE CLEARS HER THROAT

Her younger brother that she was a mother to

for eight years, basically.

So it's like she lost a son as well as a brother.

Yeah.

Man, she didn't have it easy.

This is deep loss.

Your heart, then,

just goes out...to her, you know?

Michelle gave me an article on Edward's drowning,

so I've come to the very spot where the incident occurred.

"The drowning of Edward Dollinger

"of 215 North 4th Street

"was attributed to the heat.

"He and other boys, pupils of Lincoln school,

"had gone in bathing in the Passaic River.

"Dollinger could not swim.

"As he was sinking, Joseph Weznick

"grabbed him, but lost his hold.

"The body was recovered by the police

"near the scene of the drowning."

Loss after loss after loss,

it takes a toll on, you know, your soul.

I don't think she could have healed from all these wounds, one after the other.

It's sad. It's really, really sad.

I understand my grandmother now.

I understand how she could resent my mother.

She was the oldest and she then

had to take care of the family.

My mom was the oldest and she ran away.

I have empathy for her and I...

and I don't mind having it.

Now that Brooke has found some answers about her mother's family,

she's returned to New York to research her father Frank's

very different family history.

My dad died in 2003,

and we never really spoke much about his family history.

So I don't really know much about his side of the family.

I do know that they were aristocrats.

I do know that his mother was named Marina Torlonia,

and that supposedly is a big name in Rome.

Some Italian...um, I don't know if it's nobility,

I have no real idea.

I've seen snippets of pictures,

but I really want to know how far they go back,

and really where my father came from.

Brooke has come to the New York Historical Society

to meet genealogist Gary Boyd Roberts.

-Hi.

-Hello, nice to meet you.

He's prepared a family tree that traces the Torlonia line,

back from her father's mother, Marina,

to the most prominent Torlonia of all, Giovanni,

an 18th century banker.

This one is a banker to the Vatican.

-Wow.

-Like, say, the Rothschilds, or other European families,

they begin supplying kings with whatever's necessary

for wars or what have you.

How fascinating. Really?

Yes, they made so much money, they could marry into the high nobility.

That already is exciting to me.

But we haven't gone any further up here.

-That's right.

-His father...

so he was basically... well, he's a clock merchant.

-And then...

-And that is...

-So it stops there?

-Yes.

His origin is really unknown.

It's thought that he may have changed the name.

Torlonia is not an ancient Italian name.

Ooh.

Where did they come from to get to there?

You know, I mean, you found the bank,

but where was his father?

And where did his mother come from?

I want to know what came before Marino Torlonia.

I want to know more.

Brooke is travelling to Rome

where her ancestor Giovanni Torlonia was the banker to the Vatican.

In the 18th century,

Rome was one of the most important cities in Europe,

a focal point of European culture, religion and commerce.

So, I've come to Rome to find out more about

my father's side of the family, the Torlonias.

I want to know how they got so powerful.

I would love it if I could have told him

something that he didn't know.

You know, cos I really don't know how much he knew.

I think, more than anything,

I think he would have been proud that I cared to do this,

to make this effort.

Brooke knows that her ancestors Giovanni and Marino Torlonia

bought their way into the nobility,

but that they started as cloth merchants.

She's come to the Via Condotti, to meet Daniela Felisini,

who's written a book about the origins of the Torlonias.

So what do we have here? What is this?

Here, at the first floor,

there was, in the beginning, a small textile shop and later

textile and, let's say, small bank.

And at the end, only the bank.

That little bank grew into a big bank.

-Yes, yes.

-OK.

Giovanni was a very good entrepreneur.

He has some sort of intelligence for business, for information,

-for...he knows the keys of a business.

-Right.

At the end of the 18th century,

when Giovanni was establishing the bank,

Napoleon and the French Army conquered northern Italy,

creating an opportunity that Giovanni took advantage of.

When the French Army arrived in Rome, at the end of the 18th century,

he is supplier of the Army, of the French Army,

and at the same time, the official Pope banker,

but, above all, he built up the first private bank in Italy.

Not only Rome, but in Italy.

He has branches in almost all the towns in Italy

and also in Switzerland and France and Austria.

God, he's a smart guy.

But later, he has to build an identity as a member of Rome aristocracy.

So, he bought important properties,

-one of them is not far from here in Rome.

-Oh, really?

Oh, my God, it's beautiful.

Can you imagine living here?

Oh, my gosh!

It's like a...

Well, it is...a palace.

We arrive now at Villa Torlonia,

the summer house of the family. Giovanni bought the property

from a very ancient Roman family.

-This is the ballroom for the party.

-This is the ballroom?

Just extraordinary. Look at the carving.

All the angels and all of the...

Oh! Look!

And here, there is a sort of gallery of portraits of writers

and kings and queens.

Oh, my gosh.

It's just stunning.

And also, Mussolini lived in the villa.

-For real?!

-Yeah.

Because Torlonia family rented to him

-for a symbolic, erm...

-Really?

-Yes.

-So, Mussolini paid rent?!

-Yes!

-To my family?!

-Yes!

-SHE LAUGHS

Why not?! OK!

I'm intrigued about Giovanni's origins.

What did he come from that he was able to be

that focused, that ambitious, and that smart?

And you have to have a certain kind of character,

and I wonder where he came from to get that character?

Daniela has discovered a document

on Giovanni's father - Marino -

that might finally tell me where the Torlonias came from.

We have a wedding certificate of Marino Torlonia.

He came from Giralo,

with maybe the Italian transcription,

of a name of a town in France.

Because we see Giralo is Italian for Augerolles.

-He's French origin.

-So, he's French origin.

-Yes.

-It's French origin.

That is fascinating to me.

I'm shocked at that.

There's this other side of my brain

which is just so French, so comfortable in France.

I even majored in French Literature.

So maybe that was it.

Somewhere deep inside, I knew that there was a...

something in my,

in my make-up that came from France.

Now I want to go farther back and find out

where he came from.

To find out more about her ancestor Marino Torlonia's French ancestry,

she's headed to the town of Augerolles in central France.

To go from a cloth merchant to a successful banker...

I want to know what made him so driven.

Where does that come from? Where does it start?

Where's the germ of that?

What was his childhood like? Where were his parents?

And why leave France?

I'm hoping that historian Carene Rabilloud

will be able to tell me if Marino Torlonia

was actually born here.

And so my question is, did he come from France?

Was he born here? Did he just come here? How...?

I have the pleasure to show you

the birth of your ancestor, Marin Torlonia, in France.

And I have the pleasure to show the document of his birth.

It's very, very old, very fragile.

And you can read. It was baptism, Marin Torlonias,

son of Antoine Torlonias.

You're telling me they're French?

Yes.

Like French French.

French French, yes. Really French.

-Really French, OK.

-Yes.

Not just in name, but in blood.

-Yes.

-OK, wow.

Well, so he was born here in France.

That's amazing.

So Marino Torlonia

was actually born Marin Torlonias

in rural France in 1725.

So how did Marin get to Rome?

Because the priest of this church was the grand uncle of Marin,

the priest was appointed by the very famous abbot,

so Marin became the servant of the abbot.

Carene told me a fascinating story

about how the abbot had been sentenced

to be under house arrest for evidently being a spy.

Marin helped mastermind the escape.

They went all through Europe hiding in various churches

and ending up in Rome.

That's when Marin changed his name to Marino

and basically my Italian heritage

now begins in Rome.

So let's go back a little bit.

-His parents stayed here.

-Yes.

We have found the house of the family Torlonias

just five kilometres from Augerolles.

-Here?

-In Marat.

-Hah!

-Yes.

You did? You found THE house?

-Yes. THE house.

-OK!

-THE house.

-Wow.

Of the family Torlonias.

So I think Dad would have been

very excited about this.

IMITATING FATHER: You went all the way out there? What did you do that for?

SHE LAUGHS

And then...but he'd love it.

He'd love it. Maybe I'll get to tell him one day.

We can hear the snow crunching under our feet.

We're going to where Marin's parents lived.

This is the house that he most likely lived

with his parents and his siblings.

This is it.

This is the house that he lived in

almost 300 years ago before he left for Italy.

It's very simple, humble beginnings.

But how enterprising... To start here and end up

arguably one of the most powerful families

in Rome.

I like that this is where he started,

and then when you look at the palace and the museum

and how opulent Giovanni made that

and how he went...I mean, basically, he came from this.

They sort of invaded aristocracy, and they invaded nobility,

and they claimed it.

And you think that this is where it all began.

This is where he left this, to find a new world.

And he found it.

This is one of my favourite parts of the journey.

Just because it feels like this was where it all started.

I'm shocked of the French origin of all of this.

Maybe it's a long shot,

but why would I have decided to study French

of all things, you know, at college?

And so it's kind of exciting to see that

there is a connection somewhere

between me and that language and my ancestry.

I mean, I feel linked to this family.

And it's...it's a great feeling

because I never knew any of it existed.

The scroll I was given has been invaluable.

I found out all I can about the Torlonias.

Now, I'm using it to explore another branch

of my father's family that stretches back

more than 400 years.

All the way at the top of the other side of the scroll

is an intriguing figure, Christine Marie.

She has the title underneath her of Madame Royale.

Um, sort of want to know

how is she connected to all this.

She's the only one that has the word "Royale"

after her name, so...

and not being satisfied without the least bit

of royal blood in my veins, I must find out about her.

OK, Christine Marie... Marie de France.

OK, she was born in...at the Palais du Louvre.

Palais du... The Louvre?

She was born in the Louvre? Is that possible?!

Can you be born in the Louvre?

The Palais du Louvre in Paris,

on the right bank of the Seine

is a former royal palace.

So she was born in the Louvre.

That's wild! SHE LAUGHS

So there is royal blood in there.

We need to go to chez Marie.

AKA the Louvre. SHE LAUGHS

Brooke has come to the Louvre,

today, one of the most famous museums in the world.

-Hello, there.

-Hi.

-Let me find you a seat.

Pleasure, thank you.

She's meeting genealogist Charles Mosley,

an expert in royal families.

That's Christine, or Christine Marie up there.

Madame Royale.

Christine Marie, she was born in the Louvre.

She was born in the Louvre.

And there's a document here

detailing her baptism.

Her father was Henry IV, your ancestor.

Do you know who Henry IV was?

Apart from the fact that he was the King of France.

Not much more than that he was the king of France.

Well, he is the founder of the Bourbon dynasty,

which everybody thinks of as the classic French dynasty

because it remained the French dynasty

until the revolution.

And he was a great lover.

He had many mistresses, many illegitimate children.

But he also continued the line of the kings of France,

which was very important in those days. And Henry IV and his successors

were the greatest experts in building up the prestige

of the monarchy, the French monarchy.

Which is why France still retains

its terrific prestige that it does today.

Where we're sitting now is a huge building

overlooking a vast courtyard much bigger than

anything we have in Britain.

And it is the great palace in which Henry IV,

your ancestor, lived.

Wow.

This is Saint-Denis.

It's where the remains of the kings of France

are kept in sort of honourable retirement.

-Look at that. Isn't that stupendous?

-Beautiful!

-Here we are.

-OK.

This chamber here contains the hearts

of some of the kings of France.

-Now let's try and open that gate.

-Oh.

-Do you want to push it,

-or shall I?

-Oh, OK. My knees are weak.

-OK.

-There you've got the hearts of various kings of France.

Your ancestor, Henry IV, he is in the middle row,

on the far left.

-Yes, indeed.

-(Can I touch it?)

Ooh, God.

Get in trouble. But I have to do it.

Yeah, I think you're right. No, no, no.

-If anybody's entitled to...

-Wooh!

-I...well, I don't know.

It's your property

-more than anybody else's around here.

-I've just touched Henry IV's heart.

Do you feel better? More solemn? More wise? More...

It's just extraordinary that this even exists,

and the fact that there's a connection that I honestly have to it.

It's...I do feel awestruck about it.

It just keeps getting better. Like, I keep thinking,

"Oh, this is the culmination of it," you know.

It can't be better than this.

What more could possibly be revealed to me? I...

at this point, I've stopped even trying

to figure it out, I can't imagine.

Here's Henry IV, your ancestor,

who I hope you're not yet bored with.

Oh, no. SHE LAUGHS

Um, but yet another depiction of him,

perhaps the best of the lot

in as much as it's three-dimensional.

And now let us turn to his much more famous grandson,

Louis XIV.

He built this vast palace in which we are now, Versailles.

This man, the most powerful king of his time,

perhaps of all time, certainly the greatest,

most glorious king in European history,

is your first cousin, many generations removed.

I...I... that's all too much.

No matter where you turn, I'm connected somehow.

-Exactly, you are connected.

-I am connected.

I DO feel connected. You made me feel...

You're even more connected, as you'll find out in a minute.

That is the Battle Of Taillebourg,

won by Saint Louis, your direct ancestor.

So you're looking at about 25 generations back from you.

He is the French king from whom Henry IV descends.

He is the father of all those kings of France.

And on top of that, he's a saint.

Not that usual for a king to be a saint.

-It's extraordinary.

-Yeah.

Yesterday, you were looking at

the small remains of your ancestor.

Today you're seeing a pictorial representation.

A representation that brings out the drama,

the glory, and I suppose one has to say

the glamour.

-And the passion.

-Oh, yes, absolutely.

Wow.

It's...that's fascinating to me, it's fascinating.

Here, we have Hugh.

-And he is your direct ancestor also.

-How?

-Although he lived over 1,000 years ago.

Because he's an ancestor of Saint Louis, who we've discussed already.

Well, how do you feel, then?

Um, now...now I'm awestruck.

It's pretty impressive.

I mean, I've come across quite a few extraordinary genealogical links.

Never anything like this. A saint, a pope.

You come from some good popes too. Paul III. He wasn't a bad pope.

He wasn't good enough, of course, to, erm...how can I say? Keep his trousers on!

But you have a saint in the family, and you have a great king,

and you have a still greater king,

and you've got Philip II, who's not a bad king,

Charles V, a great emperor, Ferdinand, another emperor.

You've got it all!

-I've got it all.

-Everything.

-SHE LAUGHS

I'm not sure what to do with it, but...

-Well, guard it carefully.

-Enjoy it, I will, I guard it.

I will guard it with my heart. Thank you.

This has been an amazing exploration

of both sides of my family.

Being able to sort of find your place

in the grand scheme of things,

there's something empowering about it.

What's so funny about these two pictures,

I always asked myself the question,

who was I more like? Which side did I belong on?

And I felt the need to define it.

I used to feel that I was always sort of

one foot in each door, sort of straddling this fence.

And after this whole journey, I feel much more deeply connected

with the European side as well as with the American side.

It's been very freeing to me

to realise that I don't have to solely come from one side.

I'm just looking forward to imparting what I've learned

and telling my children where we all came from.

And even if they don't fully understand it now,

this'll be a huge piece of their puzzle.

I do feel part of something bigger,

and now the desire that I have

to share it with my daughters is even stronger.

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