June 07, 2012

Discussing Adrian Grenier's roots

A discussion of Adrian Grenier's Native roots on Facebook:

Actor Adrian Grenier calls himself "Native American white boy," leans he's 8% Native by DNA, on Finding Your Roots.Grenier immediately announced his candidacy for the US Senate.Nah, he's gonna play Tonto Jr. in The Lone Ranger 2.Strangely enough, his ancestor was born at my Pueblo in 1610 so the intermixing happened pretty soon after the arrival of the Spanish. From what I saw of his family chart, it didn't look like there was further mixing hence his "low" 8% "Native" DNA.Did they say what Pueblo it was? I didn't pick up on that.

If he had only one Native ancestor 11 or 12 generations ago, he'd be less than 1% Native. There must be more to the story than the show revealed. Many of his Latino ancestors may have been a European/Native mix at some point.The show didn't say, it's on his chart--the ancestor was born at present-day Ohkay Owingeh. I'm sure some of his other ancestors had some Indian blood as well but the one born in 1610 was the "first" instance of an Indian his family tree.Good catch.

Another curiosity is that the show displayed only his Native percentage: 8.44. The rest of the DNA "pie" was blank. Did the show blank it out because it wanted to focus on the Native aspect? Or did Grenier ask for it to be blanked so the rest of his heritage would remain a mystery?

Oh, well. For more on identity issues, see Warren Should Apologize to Minorities and Comanche Filmmaker Criticizes Depp.

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