{"id":37363,"date":"2014-09-16T21:29:46","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T21:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=37363"},"modified":"2014-11-11T13:12:51","modified_gmt":"2014-11-11T13:12:51","slug":"from-harlem-to-shenzhen-one-jamaican-chinese-womans-quest-to-find-her-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=37363","title":{"rendered":"From Harlem to Shenzhen: One Jamaican-Chinese Woman\u2019s Quest to Find Her Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Harlem to Shenzhen: One Jamaican-Chinese Woman\u2019s Quest to Find Her Family<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/a>
\n2014-09-02<\/p>\n

Debra Bruno<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Growing up in New York\u2019s Harlem<\/a>, Paula Williams Madison knew she had a Chinese grandfather, even though she had never met him.<\/p>\n

When people found out, she says, most of them would make comments such as \u201cReally? You don\u2019t look Chinese.\u201d Others would laugh. Even so, she always intended to track down her mother\u2019s father and learn the full story of her multi-ethnic Jamaican-Chinese family.<\/p>\n

By the time she found them, her tiny American family had expanded to about 400 living members and a family tree that goes back 3,000 years. A new documentary tells the story of that journey and the discovery of a family that today extends from Shenzhen, China<\/a>, to Kingston, Jamaica<\/a>, and Los Angeles, California<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ms. Madison, 62, spent much of her career at NBC, and retired a few years ago as an executive at NBC Universal, one of the first black women to achieve that rank. She says she waited until retiring to pursue her dream of reconnecting with her Chinese family.<\/p>\n

Before, \u201cI did know a handful of my cousins,\u201d she says. \u201cNow there are about 40.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFinding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China<\/a>,\u201d directed by Jeanette Kong of Toronto<\/a>, a fellow Chinese-Jamaican, tells the story of Ms. Madison\u2019s quest. After slavery ended in Jamaica<\/a> in 1838, the country sought immigrants to do the work slaves had performed on sugar plantations. By 1920, 4,000 of those immigrants were Chinese. Ms. Madison\u2019s grandfather\u2014a Hakka Chinese<\/a> man from Guangdong<\/a> province originally named Lowe Ding Chiu\u2014was one of them, moving there in 1905 at age 15…<\/p>\n