{"id":62660,"date":"2021-12-27T21:52:33","date_gmt":"2021-12-27T21:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62660"},"modified":"2021-12-27T21:57:35","modified_gmt":"2021-12-27T21:57:35","slug":"i-thought-i-was-white-until-i-learned-my-mothers-secret-the-census-helped-me-tell-my-family-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62660","title":{"rendered":"I thought I was White until I learned my mother\u2019s secret. The census helped me tell my family story."},"content":{"rendered":"

I thought I was White until I learned my mother\u2019s secret. The census helped me tell my family story.<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/a>
\n2021-10-13<\/p>\n

Gail Lukasik<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Gail Lukasik\u2019s<\/a> mother, Alvera Frederic Kalina, in New Orleans<\/a> circa 1942. Kalina was born into a Black family in New Orleans but spent her life passing as White<\/a>. (Family photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first time I was grilled about my racial identity, I\u2019d just given a talk to an all-White audience at a suburban Chicago<\/a> library.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you, anyway?\u201d a woman asked. Her blunt tone put me on edge.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d just related my mother\u2019s story of racial passing<\/a>. How she and her New Orleans<\/a> family were designated as \u201cNegro\u201d during the Jim Crow<\/a> era, how she moved north to Ohio<\/a>, married my White, bigoted father, and hid her mixed race from him and eventually us. Looking back, there were small clues, like she always wore face makeup, even to bed.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d told the audience about my journey of finding my mother\u2019s birth certificate and discovering her racial secret when I was 49, confronting her \u2014 and her swearing me to secrecy until her death. Then 18 years later, I found my mother\u2019s lost family, thanks to my appearance on PBS\u2019s<\/a> \u201cGenealogy Roadshow<\/a>.\u201d…<\/p>\n

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

I thought I was White until I learned my mother\u2019s secret. The census helped me tell my family story. The Washington Post 2021-10-13 Gail Lukasik Gail Lukasik\u2019s mother, Alvera Frederic Kalina, in New Orleans circa 1942. Kalina was born into a Black family in New Orleans but spent her life passing as White. (Family photo) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,33,369,8,6462,20,25],"tags":[27597,25614,32669,1438,260,2875,2581],"class_list":["post-62660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-census","category-louisiana","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","category-women","tag-alvera-frederic-kalina","tag-gail-lukasik","tag-genealogy-roadshow","tag-new-orleans","tag-ohio","tag-the-washington-post","tag-washington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62660","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=62660"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62663,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62660\/revisions\/62663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}