Sunny Hostin

Sunny Hostin – Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame 27th Anniversary Gala – Arrivals – Grand Hyatt New York, 109 E 42nd Street – New York City, NY, USA, 2017 – Photo Credit: Lisa Holte / PRPhotos.com

Birth Name: Asunción Cummings

Place of Birth: New York City, New York, U.S.

Date of Birth: October 20, 1968

Ethnicity:
*father – African-American
*mother – Puerto Rican [Spanish, including Galician and Canarian, Taíno, African, some Sephardi Jewish]

Sunny Hostin is an American lawyer, journalist, and television host.

Sunny is the daughter of Rosa Adelaida Beza and Willie Moses Cummings. Her father is African-American. Her mother is Puerto Rican. Sunny was raised in the South Bronx. She is married to orthopedic surgeon Emmanuel Hostin, with whom she has two children. Emmanuel is of Spanish and Haitian origin.

Sunny’s paternal grandfather was named Walton Pollard, Jr.

Sunny’s paternal grandmother was Mary Bell Cummings (the daughter of Robert Willie Cummings and Lillie Mae Green/Greene). Mary was born in Columbia County, Georgia. Robert was the son of Mandy/Amanda Cummings, whose own father, Dean Harris, later Cummings, was likely born into slavery. Lillie was the daughter of Wesley Green/Greene and Lizzie.

Sunny’s maternal grandather was Augusto Beza Pérez (the son of José Enrique Beza de la Cruz and Francisca Pérez Villanueva). Augusto had roots in Aguadilla. José was the son of Victor Beza and Felicita de la Cruz Rodríguez. The Beza line originates in Galicia, Spain, and includes slaveowners.

Sunny’s maternal grandmother was Virginia Romero Díaz (the daughter of Agustín Romero Campos and Anastasia Díaz Viera). Virginia was Puerto Rican, from La Perla, Old San Juan. Her parents from Rio Piedras. Anastasia was the daughter of Carmen Viera Ramos.

A DNA test whose results Sunny displayed on her Twitter page stated that her genetic ancestry is:

*52.2% Sub-Saharan African
——–*46.9% West African
——–*2.6% Central & South African
——–*2.5% Broadly Sub-Saharan African
——–*0.2% East African
*36.8% European
——–*11.5% Broadly Southern European
——–*9.2% Iberian
——–*6.5% Broadly European
——–*5.5% Broadly Northwestern European
——–*1.6% British & Irish
——–*1.3% Italian
——–*1.1% Ashkenazi Jewish
*8.3% East Asian & Native American
——–*6.5% Native American
——–*1.3% Southeast Asian
——–*0.5% Broadly East Asian & Native American
*1.6% Unassigned
*1.1% Middle Eastern & North African
——–*1.1% North African
——–*<0.1% Broadly Middle Eastern & North African

Meanwhile, a DNA test displayed on the show Finding Your Roots, with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (2024) stated that her genetic ancestry consists of:

*52% African
——–*22% Cameroon, Congo & Western Bantu Peoples
——–*12% Nigeria
——–*7% Ivory Coast & Ghana
——–*6% Mali
——–*2% Senegal
——–*2% Benin & Togo
——–*1% Southern Bantu Peoples
——–*1% Ethiopia & Eritrea
*38% European
——–*12% Spain
——–*11% Portugal
——–*3% Scotland
——–*2% Jewish
——–*2% Sweden & Denmark
——–*2% Germanic Europe
——–*2% Wales
——–*1% Basque
——–*1% Ireland
*9% Indigenous/Native
——–*7% Indigenous Puerto Rico
——–*1% Indigenous Americas – Yucatan Peninsula
——–*1% Indigenous Eastern South American
*1% Asian
——–*1% Southern Philippines

Sunny has stated that her maternal grandfather had Sephardi Jewish ancestry. Her DNA results included Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, as well as other population matches that may be Sephardi (Broadly Southern European, North African, etc.).

Sunny has also said that her maternal grandmother had Taíno (Indigenous Puerto Rican) ancestry. She added:

Growing up, I was just a person who was Black. That is what I identified with in many ways because that is how I was seen. Now I’m able to identify all parts of me, but growing up in the ’70s, that just wasn’t something that I think people understood or acknowledged. It was almost that one-drop rule: You are Black. Now I think we have language for being multiethnic, biracial, Latin, Afro-Latina. There is so much language around it as we have evolved as a country and as a society, but certainly my 5-year-old self in kindergarten did not have the language. It just did not really exist then.

Source: http://www.youtube.com