Faces of America to air on PBS

The United States of Amer­ica is sup­pos­edly the melt­ing pot of the world, right? Right. Unfor­tu­nately, some tend to for­get this. Pro­fes­sor Henry Louis Gates Jr. (yes, the man who took part in the beer sum­mit with Pres­i­dent Obama), hosts Faces of Amer­ica, a four-part series that asks, What made Amer­ica? What makes us? With the lat­est tools of geneal­ogy and genet­ics, Pro­fes­sor Gates, who was also behind the inspir­ing doc­u­men­tary African Amer­i­can Lives, explores the fam­ily his­to­ries of 11 guests, learn­ing of the “wider immi­grant expe­ri­ence” as he talks to them about their per­sonal sto­ries of dis­place­ment and home­com­ing, assim­i­la­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tion, and their ori­gins around the globe. Guests include come­dian Stephen Col­bert, renowned cel­list Yo-Yo Ma, and actors Eva Lon­go­ria Parker and Meryl Streep, to name a few. The episodes are titled “The Promise of Amer­ica,” “Becom­ing Amer­i­can,” “Mak­ing Amer­ica,” and “The Record Within.” The show will air on PBS (Chan­nel Wednes­days, Feb. 10 through March 3, 8 to 9 p.m. ET.