Finding Samuel Lowe: China, Jamaica, Harlem
by Paula Williams Madison
Amistad
You may need Google Maps to follow former NBC exec Madison's roots story. Her grandfather, Samuel Lowe, emigrated from China to Jamaica in 1905, where he had a daughter — the author's mother — with a black Jamaican woman. Eventually a family–chosen bride was sent to him from China and they and their children returned to China during the Depression. The author's mother, an outcast in Jamaica due to her mixed heritage, moved to New York, where she had a troubled marriage to a Jamaican man. The author's research takes her to China, where she meets many Chinese Lowe relatives — and discovers a family lineage that goes back 3,000 years.