{"id":55235,"date":"2017-11-21T03:34:20","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T03:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=55235"},"modified":"2017-11-21T03:34:20","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T03:34:20","slug":"my-mother-spent-her-life-passing-as-white-discovering-her-secret-changed-my-view-of-race-and-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=55235","title":{"rendered":"My mother spent her life passing as white. Discovering her secret changed my view of race \u2014 and myself."},"content":{"rendered":"

My mother spent her life passing as white. Discovering her secret changed my view of race \u2014 and myself.<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/a>
\n2017-11-20<\/p>\n

Gail Lukasik<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nThe author\u2019s mother, Alvera Fredric, was born into a black family in New Orleans<\/a> but spent her life passing as white<\/a>. (Family photo)<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

I\u2019d never seen my mother so afraid.<\/p>\n

\u201cPromise me,\u201d she pleaded, \u201cyou won\u2019t tell anyone until after I die. How will I hold my head up with my friends?\u201d<\/p>\n

For two years, I\u2019d waited for the right moment to confront my mother with the shocking discovery I made in 1995 while scrolling through the 1900 Louisiana<\/a> census records. In the records, my mother\u2019s father, Azemar Frederic of New Orleans<\/a>, and his entire family were designated black.<\/p>\n

The discovery had left me reeling, confused and in need of answers. My sense of white identity had been shattered.<\/p>\n

My mother\u2019s visit to my home in Illinois<\/a> seemed like the right moment. This was not a conversation I wanted to have on the phone.<\/p>\n

But my mother\u2019s fearful plea for secrecy only added to my confusion about my racial identity. As did her birth certificate that I obtained from the state of Louisiana, which listed her race as \u201ccol\u201d (colored), and a 1940 Louisiana census record, which listed my mother, Alvera Frederic, as Neg\/Negro, working in a tea shop in New Orleans. Four years later, she moved north and married my white father…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For two years, I\u2019d waited for the right moment to confront my mother with the shocking discovery I made in 1995 while scrolling through the 1900 Louisiana census records. In the records, my mother\u2019s father, Azemar Frederic of New Orleans, and his entire family were designated black.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,369,8,6462,20],"tags":[27678,25614,1438,2875,2581],"class_list":["post-55235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-louisiana","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-alvera-fredric","tag-gail-lukasik","tag-new-orleans","tag-the-washington-post","tag-washington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55235"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55237,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55235\/revisions\/55237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}