Stream now with KPBS Passport / Watch Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025 at 8 p.m. + Saturday, Aug. 30 at 8 p.m. on KPBS TV
The acclaimed series returns with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. exploring the mysteries, surprises and revelations hidden in the family trees of popular figures.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. visits tiny towns in Calabria, Italy to trace the roots of talk show host Joy Behar and actor Michael Imperioli, revealing the challenges that their ancestors faced — and overcame — on both sides of the Atlantic.
This episode is available to stream with KPBS Passport, a benefit for members supporting KPBS at $60 or more yearly, using your computer, smartphone, tablet, Roku, AppleTV, Amazon Fire or Chromecast. Learn how to activate your benefit now.
Season 11: The guest roster includes actors Kristen Bell, Laurence Fishburne, Debra Messing, Michael Imperioli, Melanie Lynskey, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Lea Salonga, Amanda Seyfried, Dax Shepard, and Sharon Stone; celebrity chefs José Andrés and Sean Sherman; novelist Amy Tan; poet Rita Dove; historian Lonnie Bunch; talk show host Joy Behar; musician Rubén Blades; journalist Natalie Morales; and model Chrissy Teigen.
For more than a decade, renowned Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has helped to expand America’s sense of itself, stimulating a national conversation about identity with humor, wisdom, and compassion. Professor Gates has explored the ancestry of dozens of influential people from diverse backgrounds, taking millions of viewers deep into the past to reveal the connections that bind us all.
