They’ll Love You No Matter What

In this short film, I learn about my maternal great-grandparents. I grapple with the contradicting assurance my mom provides that they would love me “no matter what”—and my knowledge that they would have shed their Jewish and Eastern European ethnic identifiers in order to adopt the protection and comfort offered by whiteness. My mom takes me through the only photo album of theirs that we have, telling me all that she knows about the individuals featured. The more I hear, the more conflicted I become. The film ends with a personal reflection that displays just one of the multitude of conclusions that I have drawn while working on this project.