My great-grandmother hid her race. Two decades later I understand why.

[Jilly_in_VA]

I'm one of those New Yorkers living in Nashville, but perhaps you will forgive me because my family has deep roots in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana.

Incredibly, my connection to New York began in Louisiana.

In the 1930s, my great-grandmother Lola Perot married Irish New Yorker John Donnelly in her Louisiana hometown. They moved to New York after getting married. The adjustment from South to North must have been massive for Lola – not only did she leave behind her family and her culture, but I later learned she also left her name and her race.

My mom and her mother, Marion (Lola’s daughter), were raised as French and Irish by Lola (in New York she went by “Louise”). My grammy was very proud of her French heritage.

One day, after going through some boxes of old family photos, I saw a picture of my mom’s grandmother on her wedding day, standing next to my Irish great-grandfather. It was completely obvious that Lola was not white.

Two decades later, I am still grappling with the meaning of that photo, and everything it represented about who my family was, and still is. Throughout the course of my great-grandmother’s life, she and her family were censused as Black, Mulatto, Mexican (Latino) and eventually white. It shook me to the bottom of my perhaps not-so-French core.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2023/01/14/family-photo-great-grandmother-taught-me-race-heritage/11019422002/

Read farther and understand. Especially when you get to the part of the despicable Naomi Drake, UGH.

[Karadeniz]

1. Very informative!

[iluvtennis]

8. +1. n/t

[kimbutgar]

2. I have the same thing in my family

My grandmother had a white Irish father and a black mother in New Orleans. All six of their kids were light skinned and three of them blue eyed.One of the sisters married a Jewish man in Chicago and passed for white and never told her children of her ancestry. My grandmother married a light skinned mulattao but they divorced when my Mother was 3 years old. My mother was light skinned and had green eyes. The other four children married light skinned mullatos also. My generation all married white but I am proud of my heritage none the less.

There are so many people like me in the US that if they took a dna test would be shocked.

[Farmer-Rick]

4. Race can Not be found in our DNA

It is mostly a social construct.

When you take an ancestry test, they are looking at where the majority of your genes come from. So, if you have DNA G and the majority of people with DNA G come from north Africa, then they claim you have African genes. I don't even think they say black or use race catagories. Then we attach race to what coming from Africa means to us.

"As for whether race can be found in our genes, the answer is no. Biological ancestry, however (which is distinct from race), is real. Where our forebears came from can be seen in our DNA (to a certain degree), but ancestry does not map onto race, not even close." https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/health-general-science/are-you-there-race-its-me-dna#:~:text=As%20for%20whether%20race%20can,onto%20race%2C%20not%20even%20close.

But watching crime and other science shows on TV you would think DNA can easily identify race.

[kimbutgar]

5. Thanks for that

I remembered a story about a white right winger in one of the mountain states who took a DNA and found out his DNA had a sub African continent variant in his genes. It was showed on TV during a live show and he fled the stage after hearing the results and no longer was able to spout his racist bs.

[2naSalit]

10. +1

There is one race, the human race. Any other distinction is socially constructed.

[housecat]

3. I have a cousin who married a black woman around half a century ago. I later realized that

the family members who looked down on them were republican. More recently, when I cut all ties with current republicans, I noticed that the older republican family members had been part of the group that shunned the couple, and since the couple was not included in many family gatherings, I had little occasion to meet this intelligent, friendly, and interesting lady. I thought I knew the people in my family, but clearly I didn't. I'm guessing that all families have one or more members who act on beliefs of others without ever questioning them. Maybe I should have been more attentive.

[wnylib]

6. From the photo of Lola and her brother, Albert,

it looks like there was also some Native American ancestry in the family.

[Hekate]

11. One of our DUers wrote a book about a community with tri-racial heritage, "Pell-Mellers"....

I added it to my Amazon cart all those years ago intending to buy it one day, and in time all copies were sold out (congrats to the author) and I missed my chance. I keep it in the cart as a reminder, just in case it should show up again. Here’s the info.


Pell Mellers: Race and Memory in a Carolina Pocosin Paperback – April 10, 2013
by K. Paul Johnson (Author)

A Genealogical Quest in the Triracial South
What began as genealogical research into the author's ancestry soon grew into a fascinating tale with lessons for us all. Among his ancestors, Johnson uncovered: unpunished murderers, infidelities that produced stronger families than formal marriages, entire units of North Carolinians who fought and died to preserve the Union in the Civil War. The tale holds enough plot twists for a half-dozen novels. But most of all, it reveals in a personal way what molecular anthropologists have been trying to explain all along. The fact is that we are all of multiple ancestries. Inhabitants of the New World are a genetic mix of three great populations, Native Americans, European colonists, and African slaves. Nowhere is this more vivid than in Pell Mellers, the story of one man's search for his tangled roots. "Johnson's quest to understand his father becomes a discerning and sensitive historical inquiry that roots the near-present organically in the remote past. Johnson's deeply personal search for his own roots illuminates surprising, forgotten ways of life in a fascinating part of the South." -- Melvin Patrick Ely, author of Israel on the Appomattox "This fascinating memoir about the Pell Meller community of northeastern North Carolina reads like a murder mystery. What has been murdered is the truth about their ancestry, and Paul Johnson sets out bravely to discover the corpse, the murderer, and the motives. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the many isolated southeastern groups with odd names, like the Redbones and the Melungeons, who descend from our nation's earliest settlers, in all their ethnic diversity." -- Lisa Alther, author of Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree "In Paul Johnson's engaging journey into his roots in Bertie County, North Carolina, he discovers an intriguing family of pocosin dwellers who personify the South's multiracial heritage and its political minorities, including Unionists and the original Buffalo Soldiers. Pell Mellers is a solid contribution to the history of the "other South" that complements the well-traveled mainstream, illustrating our rich and textured past." -- Lindley S. Butler, author of Pirates, Privateers, and Rebel Raiders of the Carolina Coast This is the second edition of K. Paul Johnson'sgroundbreaking work.


https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0939479427/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?smid=&psc=1


https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41pA7YsefmL._SX322_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

[wnylib]

13. I am familiar with Johnson's research and family history.

Last edited Mon Jan 16, 2023, 10:09 AM - Edit history (1)

I had a discussion with him about it in the early stages of his research. It was on a genealogical website which, as far as I know, no longer exists. He was using the term "Melungeon" at the time.

[Hekate]

15. Apparently there are interchangeable terms. I just googled & found a whole bunch of references...

…to him and his book, one a book-signing as recent as just before COVID shutdown (?), but so far only one copy of the book — an ebook at Barnes&Noble. Now I’m on the hunt.

[Jilly_in_VA]

16. Melungeons

live in the area of northeast Tennessee (especially northeast Claiborne and northern Hancock Counties). I am pretty familiar with them as I did home health in rural east Tennessee. A lot of them could pass for Hispanic. I remember when I was working in neonatal at the local hospital and we had a Melungeon baby born there--she was the prettiest baby I'd ever seen. The dad brought the older kids in to see her and all three of them could have walked down any street in Spanish Harlem and not stood out. Later on my daughter dated a boy who was very light skinned Black with light eyes. When I met his mother I thought she looked Puerto Rican...she had the kind of brass-blonde hair and green eyes you sometimes see on Puerto Rican people. She said she was Black, and the boy's father was, but when she told me where she grew up I knew, because it was a Melungeon settlement. It's just that when she grew up, it was less "shameful" to be Black than to be Melungeon. It's different now and Melungeons have reclaimed that title. BTW, the word "Melungeon" is thought to come from the French "melange" meaning "mixture", but nobody knows when they started being called that.

[wnylib]

21. My guess on how this population originated is that

White indentured servants who lived and worked along side of African slaves formed pair bonds and had families. They probably were not married because interracial marriage was illegal. Also, indentured servants were not supposed to marry or have any opposite sex relationships (as if that could be enforced for 7 years). Native Americans captured in wars were also enslaved. They, too, had children with Black slaves and White indentured servants.

Native American slaves were often able to escape. They knew the land and had allies from their tribes to help them. Black slaves who escaped found refuge among some Native Americans. Both Black and Native escapees helped to free their partners and children who were still enslaved. That much is part of historical record.

So, escaped Black and Native slaves and their White indentured servant partners/relatives and families would have stayed hidden from bounty hunters in their own backhills communities or among Native tribes.

[Jilly_in_VA]

23. It's all conjecture

Some say they are (at least partially) descended from Ponce de Leon's soldiers and other Spanish soldiers who ventured north. This could also be true, especially the non-officer class. Many of them look very Hispanic.

[wnylib]

24. I came across some reports of Spanish Jews and Muslims who

Last edited Mon Jan 16, 2023, 10:19 AM - Edit history (1)

had been in enforced labor on Spanish ships and jumped ship in America. Other claims are like you said, Spanish soldiers of lower rank who deserted.

People of mixed ancestry can sometimes resemble other ethnic groups that are not in their ancestry. My mother's family were light completed people from northern Germany. My father's parents both had mixed Native (Seneca, Mohawk, Algonquin) and European (German and English) ancestry. Most of my father's siblings looked very Native American but, although my siblings and I inherited some Native traits from my father's family, the European traits are dominant. The only people who recognize my mix of Native American and European are Senecas on the Seneca territory near me. To everyone else, I am White of European ancestry but I have been mistaken for several different ethnicities that are unrelated to me - Italian American, French Canadian, and Jewish. I majored in Spanish so when I am with Hispanic friends speaking Spanish, I am sometimes mistaken for being Latina.

[eppur_se_muova]

25. Perhaps try contacting the publisher, or even the author ...

https://www.backintyme.biz/pellmillers/ (scroll down to leave a comment)

[Hekate]

26. Thank you! I dropped them a line and will see if anything turns up.

[vlyons]

7. Race is a cultural concept, not biological

We are all human beings, homo sapiens. Whether you are a blond, blue-eyed Swede, or a Native indigenous person, we are all human beings. People have been traveling around this old globe for 100K+ years. interbreeding with people our ancestors met along the way. Some of us even have Neanderthal or Denisovan genes. Our DNA is about 97% the same as chimps, although not close enough to produce viable progeny. Thinking that blacks, Asians, etc are less than; not as smart, as good, as capable, etc is a cultural view. Not demonstrated by science.

When I was a little girl, my grandmother had photos of these old black people on her dresser. She told me, "that's your cousin xxxx." My parents (white racists) told me "No those are freed slaves, adopted after the civil war."

So more power to your ancestor, who figured out quickly how to make life a lot easier in NY.

[wnylib]

19. Yes, race is cultural rather than biological.

If race was biologically "fixed," either it would not be possible for different "races" to mate, or else the children of parents from different "races" would inherit only one "race" or the other. But "race" is not a fixed biological feature, so intermixing produces people with a mix of features from both parents.

I had a chance to observe this in my own family. My mother's parents were mmigrants from northern Germany. Her relatives had blond, red, and light brown hair. Most had blue eyes, but there were a few with brown eyes, like my mother who was a brown-eyed blond.

My father's mother was Seneca, Mohawk, and English. She had straight black hair, brownish black eyes, and creamy olive skin. My father's father was Algonquian and German Swiss. He had black hair, blue eyes, and bronze skin. They had 9 children. 3 of them (including my father) had blue eyes. Two of the blue-eyed ones (including my father) had black hair. The other one had pale brown hair,and very European facial features. She was the "white sheep" in the family.

My father's other 6 siblings had straight black hair, brownish black eyes, and skin tones from dark beige to light brown. They had the cheekbones and nose features associated with Native Americans. One of them looked like she had no European amcestry at all.

When both sides of my family got together for weddings, graduations, or funerals, the color variety was impressive.

So, in my generation, my sister was a brown-eyed blond like my mother, but she had golden beige skin, not my mother's pale pink beige. Her face shape and features were definitely from my father's Native side. One of my brothers had very dark brown hair and "pure" brown eyes (not hazel). He looked a lot like a distant Seneca cousin from the rez, but with lighter skin. The other brother had dark blond hair and blue eyes. Before it turned gray, my hair was between medium and dark brown. I am often mistaken for Italian American or French Canadian. To most people, I look like a White person of European descent but occasionally people recognize a mix of Native and European American.

Those variations of physical features within my family would not be possible if "race" was a fixed biological feature.

[OldBaldy1701E]

9. "You choose your friends and you choose your enemies..."

"But family? That's in the stars!" - Starfleet Tech Specialist Chief Miles O'Brien. Your roots are the foundation of who you are, both the good and the 'bad'.

You have nothing to apologize for.

[Delmette2.0]

17. Wise words.

Kudos to the unknown script writer.

[Higherarky]

12. There is only one race -- The Human Race.

Full disclosure: I probably have more than a few drops of intergalactic alien in my heritage ...

Not that there's anything wrong with that ...

👽🛸😎

[Warpy]

14. Never mind if they were pale, with curly carrot top hair like little Archie Windsor

vicious assholes like that Drake woman made sure they were kept firmly in the underclass, exempt from sharing in the bounty of this country, just because an ancestor had "one swipe of the tar brush," the way it was put back then.

I had a friend in grammar school whose mom was what they used to call "high yellow" in Jim Crow days, meaning she could pass if nobody knew who she was. My friend's rich white daddy was the one to deal with any problems at school and so forth. Her mom was great, but always a little sad. For my part, I kept my trap shut. I knew what Jim Crow was all about.

My friend had great light brown curly hair. I envied her that hair.

I have to hope her family moved away from Dixie at some point, staying away until stupid laws got changed and some of the urban culture started to change with them.

[Hekate]

20. Race is so very much a cultural construct, fascinating, sometimes devastating, as US history shows

My family moved to the Territory of Hawai’i in 1957, thanks to my dad’s job with Lockheed Aircraft. Outsiders often described it as a racial paradise, and since that was a kind of flattery, locals went with that. It always was more complicated than that, and has grown more so, but that’s a story for another day.

Just as children on the Mainland at that time could recount an abbreviated genealogy based on Western Europe, my classmates could tell the tale of Asia and Polynesia and Europe all within their own family tree. I grew up not being aware that I actually had an ethnic group myself — sure I looked like my immediate family, but doesn’t everybody? I was in my mid-30s back living in SoCal, when I visited Boston and saw “family members” on every street corner. Who knew “Irish” was ethnic and not generic?

I grew up knowing that “race” is fluid, though in the context of the turbulent era on the Mainland, it was all framed in Black and White outside the Islands. It took me many years to sort it out more expansively, based on my own lived experience of observing social fluidity — “one drop” of Hawai’ian ancestry as a positive claim and sign of belonging, are you “local,” can you speak “da kine,” and so much else. Do you belong.

I will never forget how Barack Obama’s first run for President was received here at DU. Our old archives tell the tale of confusion — and anger. He couldn’t be easily slotted into a known category. Was he too black? Was he black enough? Did his mother raise him to be white? What about those grandparents?

But once I read “Dreams from My Father,” I knew the racial and social fluidity of his upbringing. I knew how his birth in Hawai’i had shaped him, and how easily he could have decided to remain, marry there; his children and grandchildren would be “local kids.” It was his White mother who encouraged him to see farther beginning in their years in Indonesia, including playing him recordings of African American music and MLK’s speeches.

When he left Hawai’i for college as a young man, it was a journey of self-discovery as an African American, and he married Michelle — and we kind of know the rest. But I think his lived experiences of race as social construct and how fluid it could be meant he could not be easily slotted into categories Americans are used to — he didn’t even have to say it, though as a politician he ultimately told a story in terms of a kind of American mythology (Kansas/Kenya). Michelle gets it though.

[Boxerfan]

22. My Cajun Mother had a word that fit the bill here...

Mudblood.

She called herself that as the Cajun bloodlines were so intermingled-Creole, French, Native American is a start.

She just simplified it-Mudblood.