So I told my children what I’d discovered on the 1900 census records, about my mother’s birth certificate, and my almost certainty that my mother and her family were mixed race,” she said. “I believe in being direct and not pulling punches. After her mother’s death in 2014, Lukasik wrote a book about her experience and journey, “White Like Her.” She avoided the sun, she didn’t share her own family photos, and she didn’t visit her family in New Orleans. Lukasik's own mother had spent her entire adult life hiding her race. Lukasik embraced the truth, instead of running from it, and told her children about their grandmother. So in 1995, curious about her mother’s father, Lukasik went through the 1900 Louisiana census and made a shocking and very unexpected discovery: Azemar and his entire family were designated black.Īt that point, Lukasik’s own son Christopher was 27 and her daughter Lauren was 20. That meant that Lukasik grew up having never seen a photo of her grandfather Azemar Frederic, and knowing nothing about him. A Statement from Business Leaders for Renewed Global Cooperation. She fiercely hid the truth of her origins, especially from her own husband and children. She also found a 1940 census record that listed her as "Neg/Negro." Four years later, in 1944, Lukasik’s mom, Alvera Frederic, left New Orleans, headed north and married Lukasik’s father. So imagine Lukasik’s shock when she learned, in 1995, that according to her mother's 1921 birth certificate, she was listed as “col” (meaning colored). It was simply a fact of life for Lukasik. Promise me, she pleaded, you won’t tell anyone until after I die.
(Family photo) I’d never seen my mother so afraid. Her dad, on the other hand, was casually racist. Gail Lukasik The author’s mother, Alvera Fredric, was born into a black family in New Orleans but spent her life passing as white. Growing up in suburban Ohio, in a white neighborhood, Gail Lukasik was raised by her mother to respect all people, no matter their ethnicity.