It matters little that McQueen was not born and raised in America and is now telling a story about the horrific institution of American slavery. His ancestors, much like those of many black Americans, were stolen from Africa and summarily dropped off in the New World. McQueen’s ancestors landed in the Caribbean — the British West Indies, to be exact — instead of going all the way on to United States soil. (McQueen’s family eventually moved to England, where he was born).
But he explains with eloquence and dead-on precision how he and the two non-American black actors in the film — Chiwetel Ejiofor who plays Solomon Northup and brilliant newcomer Lupita Nyong’o — are directly connected to the history of slavery in the Americas.
“The story’s not just an African American story. It’s a universal story,” he said. “It’s a world story. My parents are from the West Indies. My father’s from Grenada, which is where Malcolm X’s mother was born. My mother was born in Trinidad, which is where Stokely Carmichael, the man who coined the phrase ’Black Power!’ was born. Sidney Poitier was born in the Bahamas. I’m part of that diaspora of people displaced by the slave trades. I’m part of that family. It’s our story. It’s a global story.”
