Actor and TV and radio host Mario Lopez appears in “Mexican Roots,” an episode of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr., airing Tuesday, February 1, 2022, 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS.
Lopez’s ancestors, who came to the U.S. in recent generations, were from Sinaloa, Mexico. Host Henry Louis Gates Jr. traces the actor’s roots from an eleventh great-grandfather, Baltasar Temiño de Bañuelos, a Spaniard in Zacatecas’s silver mining industry who was an enslaver to both indigenous Americans and Africans. When Spain granted Zacatecas a coat of arms, the design featured Baltasar Temiño de Bañuelos’s likeness as one of the state’s founders.
Also featured in this episode is comedian Melissa Villaseñor of Saturday Night Live. She, too, has deep roots in Mexico but knew little of her ancestors’ journey into the U.S. Dr. Gates traces Villaseñor’s lineage from a twelfth great-grandfather, of Spanish low-level nobility, who lived in Zamora, Mexico, by 1620.