America Ferrera recently shared her surprising reaction to a love letter by her grandmother and a photo of her father.

The Barbie star got the opportunity to read a love letter her late paternal grandmother had written in the early 1950s to an eventual second husband, Nicolas Orturo Nuila Castillo on Finding Your Roots’ Season 12 premiere on January 6.

After reading the note, America said, “I had no idea. Zero. Nothing. I’ve known none of this.”

The Ugly Betty actress then learned from host Henry Louis Gates that Georgina Paz Mendieta and Nicolas moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked as an architect, while she was a school teacher, and they had another child together before returning to Honduras, where they reconnected with America’s father, Carlos.

“Obviously, I can relate to losing a parent. He was seven, and I was about eight when he left me,” remarked the Superstore actress.

America told the host, “I’m curious about what that was then like for her to come back into his life in obviously a complicated way, and then to lose her again that way, I think probably really damaging and really devastating.”

Interestingly, Henry later showed the actress a photo of her father with his half-brother, which was taken some time after he’d left her family.

Looking at the picture America got emotional and explained, “It feels like salvaging a lost memory. I have no context for his life after he left. Nothing. Just, he left, and that was it.”

Therefore, the actress added, “When he died, I really felt like that was it. With him went any hope of ever knowing, and it feels like magic to get to witness even just this still image of his life.”