Descendant of U.S. Founding Father is a Filipino American

Andrea Livingston sits at the table where her ancestor sat before signing the Declaration of Independence in a recreation of the famous John Turnbull painting.

A DESCENDANT of one of the Founding Fathers of the United States is a Filipino American, one more testament to the growing diversity of the nation and what an American looks like.

In the Ancestry.com commercial aired on July 4th, a recreation of the famous painting of the historic document's signing. Andrea Diola Livingston, a Filipina American, can be seen sitting in front of the other descendants of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence.

The office manager is the eighth great granddaughter of Philip Livingston, who represented  New York City and one of the signatories to that famous document.

“It’s interesting, it took me a while to really let it sink in that this is my ancestor, but as I’ve grown use to it, it’s become a thing that I’m proud of,” she says.

RELATED: Ancestry.com's statement on diversity

In the commercial, it is clear that the Founding Fathers and their descendants were open to interracial coupling. Among the multi-racial descendants we can see African, Latino and - in Livingston's case - Asian.

Besides promoting their service, Ancestry's commercial's underlying message is that change, openness and tolerance have always been part of what makes America unique.

Born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, Andrea’s military father met her Cebuana mother while they were both in Japan.

A car accident claimed the life of both her parents when she was 18 years old.

To make their commercial, Ancestry.com tracked down the descendants of the Founding Fathers, and had them recreate the famous painting by John Trumbull.

“There’s a connection I can make to things that I didn’t know about, especially my mom’s side, because we never got the chance to really discuss in depth the family history. There were things we would talk about, but little things here and there, but there’s a lot of oral history that we didn’t talk about, so this will be a good opportunity to fill in the gaps.”

How has the discovery of one of her famous ancestors impacted her? “Since I’m child of an immigrant and being mixed, it definitely shows what we look like now,” she told Balitang. “It makes me want to dig into my personal history, these are things I didn’t know about myself.”

Through the efforts of Ancestry.com, she was able to make connections with long-lost relatives in the Livingston side of the family. It has inspired her to try and trace her mother's ancestral family tree.

Although she commercial has the right message, said Livingston, "I think we have a long way to go. The ideas that they were creating, the ideas that they were putting into words, we still need to strive to make those ideas real.

"We are so many different people. We look so different, we are so different, but we are all the same at the same time," she says.

John Turnbull's painting, top, is recreated, bottom, using descendants of the original signers. 
Andrea Livingston is seated, front right where her ancestor sat.

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The day after July 4th: Extreme right freaks out on Independence Day

SOME WEIRD SHIT is happening in our nation these days. Two events celebrating the U.S.A.'s Independence Day demonstrates how far over the edge the ultra right has gone.

Unbelievably, this is America, 2017. Much of the blame to the United State's deterioration in civility and reasonableness can be attributed to the policies, rhetoric and tweets of Donald Trump, who did not win the popular vote and definitely did not hreceive a mandate from his electoral college victory of last year.

No. 1: 

To celebrate July 4th, National Public Radio (NPR) tweeted the Declaration of Independence - 140 characters at a time. 

NPR does this every year for the Fourth of July. The organization has read the historic document on the air for nearly 30 years to celebrate the holiday.

This was the first time the tradition was released on Twitter. It took 121 posts to tweet the entire 241-year-old document.

Trump supporters read the tweets and didn't recognize the source. They accused NPR of fomenting revolution, violence. 

Uh, yeah! It was the Declaration of Independence! Even though the Trumpsters thought it was attacking Donald Trump, it was really about King George.

After a few hours of people trolling their Twitter accounts, most of the protesting tweeters either apologized or shut down their accounts. 

Heaven help us! Please don't defund the Department of Education. Despite Education Elizabeth DeVos' proposals, our pubic schools need all the help they can get.

No. 2:

THE LATEST chilling commercial from the NRA should remove any doubt that the organization is aligned with the radical right.

The latest National Rifle Association commercial (below) downright frightening in its message, its tone and how some unbalanced individuals might interpret it.

The NRA has reached a new low in their message that divides the country into the "us" and "them" and call for (violent) action.

The "they" the female narrator angrily spits out, is anyone who doesn't agree with the ultra-conservatives views or with Trump and his administration policies. That would include the millions who took to the largely peaceful street marches for women, science, the truth, taxes,climate, immigrants and equality those who protested against the Muslim bans, Trumpcare, injustice and racism.



The NRA commercial really gets scary, however, when the narrator connects protesters and acts of violence to the growing anti-Trump mass movement. Law enforcement, she continues, have “no choice but to do their jobs and stop the madness,” while onscreen we see images of street violence.

In conclusion, the narrator calls for NRA members “to fight this violence of lies with a clenched fist of truth.”
It's time the millions of legitimate gun owners and NRA members who believe guns should be kept from the mentally ill or those on the no-fly list to stand up and denounce the divisive message and the unspoken message that some fear some nut cases will interpret as a call to arms. 

The narrator gets angrier as the commercial goes on and stops just short of saying, the protesters and those who doubt or question Trump and his mental and emotional status, should be shot, but, I'm afraid, that is the message some extremists will hear.

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