Artist Zsudayka Nzinga Terrell clearly remembers the day in high school when the teacher asked her to write about her family history. She saw that it was impossible to answer the questions 'Who am I?' and 'Where did I come from?' Nzinga Terrell told VOA about her childhood memories. “So the white kids were able to get up and talk about hundreds of years of their background. And there was me and one other black kid in the class who could go back to a plantation in Virginia and that’s it.” She talked about her family’s history. “My people were brought here on the bottom of a ship. And they were sold and they were re-named. My dad’s side of the family took the last name of the job that they had, which is butlers. My mom’s side of the family took the last name of the plantation that owned them.” Today, she and her husband, artist James Terrell, explore that identity in their work. Their new exhibit of paintings is called “Born at the Bottom of the Ship.” The show recently opened at the Center for the Arts in Manassas, Virginia.