How one woman discovered her true cultural heritage - BBC World Service

At first she denied it, and finally she looked at me and said, 'You can't tell anyone about this until after I die.' Gail Lukasik's mother, Alvera, was born in 1921 in New Orleans. But she had a secret, a secret she could never tell anyone. When she was a child, Gail noticed that her mother had some unusual quirks. She used to wear a light foundation before going to bed. She put on makeup. Then one time I asked her why she did it and she said, 'Gail, you never know when you're going to get sick in the middle of the night and have to call an ambulance, and when they'll take you away.' When you go to hospital you want to look your best because you get better treatment.' Gail grew up, had her own children, and became an author.

She wrote mystery novels but she had her own puzzle to solve. Who was Azemar Frederic, her mother's biological father? We didn't have photographs, she didn't know when she was born, she didn't know when she died, she wasn't raised by him. Gail located him in archives at a local history center...and to her surprise

discovered

that he was listed as African American. She was in total shock. I left that center pretty quickly, sat in my car and looked in the rearview mirror and said, 'Who are you?' She then located her mother's birth certificate...and

discovered

her secret.

She was mestizo. At first she denied it. She said, 'I don't know what birth certificate you have, but mine says I'm white.' So I said, 'I'm more than happy to go get all these documents and show them to you.' At that point she got very quiet, it looked like she was shrinking into the big chair she was sitting in, and finally she looked at me and said, 'You can't tell anyone about this.' Her mother's light skin tone allowed her to "pass" as white...and escape the racial segregation that existed at the time. But “passing away” often meant leaving family members behind forever.

You know, in the South, some people "passing by" were killed. So, we're talking about serious things here. People were lynched, shot. You know, they were different times. So I think that's where her fear came from. Gail's mother never told her father and Gail remained silent for 17 years. In 2014 her mother died and Gail broke her silence. Later, a television interview led to the discovery that her grandfather...had children and grandchildren, relatives she had never met. We decided to hold the meeting in New Orleans, of course. When I walked into that room I was impressed by the warmth of my new family.

All my uncles and aunts that I knew on my father's side were dead. My parents were dead and suddenly I had a new family. And I kept looking at them and I could see my mother, because they looked a lot like her. It was like she was there with us. Gail says learning about her

heritage

has changed the way she sees herself. I no longer consider myself a white

woman

. I consider myself a mixed-race

woman

. And I sure don't look like it, but my DNA says otherwise.