Angela Watrous & Dr. Norissa on Confronting America's Colonial Legacy & Ancestral Healing

In this episode, I sat down with Angela Watrous to delve into her journey of making her first documentary, In the Wake of Our Ancestors. Angela shares how her ancestral lineage healing, especially on her father’s side, led her to embark on a powerful journey retracing her family's migration through the United States, from 1636 to today. We discuss the discovery of her ancestor's involvement in Native American genocide and the complex emotions that emerged when confronting this harsh reality.

Through the lens of a white woman grappling with her family’s history of colonization, Angela explores the themes of inherited privilege, grief, and the need for collective reckoning with ancestral harm. This conversation also taps into such questions as, What does it mean to reckon with your ancestral history? And How can we navigate the c ...