As I was growing up, the unspoken assumption I got from my family’s lack of stories about where we came from is that we came from nowhere special, and we had nothing to be proud of. As time went on, and I learned about Native American genocide and slavery in the early United States, the beguiling void of where I came from turned into an ecru rainbow of white guilt. Then, around five years ago, my curiosity got the better of me and I did what every modern woman does when she feels the urge to discover herself: I mailed my spit to strangers.
