White Like Her. Gail Lukasik. 2017. Skyhorse Publishing. 316 pages. [Source: personal copy.]
We all think we know who we are. We all believe what our parents tell us about our families. Sometimes what they don’t tell us is the real story.
On its surface, White Like Her is one woman’s dogged journey* to learn about her family’s history. What sets it apart is that Gail Lukasik’s journey is predicated on sifting through the secrecy that shrouded much of her mother’s life, ultimately disrupting the narrative of Lukasik and her family’s whiteness. You see, Alvera Frederic passed as white for most of her adult life, but spent her formative years in a black family. Born in New Orleans, she straddled the line of “blackness,” until she reinvented herself in Ohio, marrying a white man and starting a family, while leaving her own behind.
Much of this book follows, step by step, Lukasik’s uncovering of her mother’s true racial identity, pieced together as a result of a census record and an appearance on PBS’ Genealogy Roadshow. What I like most about this book is that it serves as a primer, of sorts, for those unfamiliar with key tools of the genealogy trade. From census records to military enlistments to church baptismal lists, Lukasik leaves no resource unexamined. It’s a great roadmap for those venturing into their own family tree for the first time, an experience that can be surprisingly daunting.
There is, of course, Lukasik’s processing of new facets of her identity. She makes mention, a few times, of her DNA’s breakdown that she is 7-9% African. However, she honestly acknowledges that she was raised to be a white woman, with all the trappings of it, including racism. I think this begs a great question of how much black does it take for one to put on the veil of blackness and with what implications. She also grapples a great deal with why her mother could seemingly turn her back on her family to ensconce herself in whiteness. Neither is an easy question to answer, but it is certainly interesting to see a white woman process that in a way that feels authentic and seeks to understand.
White Like Her was an interesting read, perhaps more so because I took for granted my own understanding of race as a social construct and how it has played out over centuries in America. I was 8 or 9 when Alex Haley’s Queen was released, and I vividly remember the scene in which Halle Berry’s Queen was outed as being black. While I didn’t pick up on the concept of passing, I was well aware of the colorism and its ability to create opportunities for those able to take advantage of their fairer-toned skin. White LIke Her starts a few steps back, and provides context for some key ideas that led to Alvera’s decision to pass for white. Lukasik, in painstaking detail, explores the common practices of slave owners’ rape of enslaved women, plaçage relationships between “colored’ or mulatto women and white men who were legally forbidden from marrying them, and how these led to a caste system in New Orleans (and elsewhere).
Part of what made White Like Me hit so close to home was its dogged pursuit of the truth in a dubiously presented history. As someone who has experienced the ups, downs, and around in tracing my ancestry, I felt Lukasik was a kindred spirit, of sorts. The high of verifying a long-lost ancestor, coupled with the disappointment of not being able to confirm another, is both part exhilarating and part infuriating, especially when tied to the sorts of unspoken half-truths that are wont to be passed among family members. Lukasik had a great deal of assistance at her disposal, but that didn’t entirely sidestep common roadblocks in seeking information about people who’ve been dead anywhere between 20 to 200 years. In this way, I found myself incredibly invested in her success and triangulating data about her family members in order to find her truth.
Lukasik, an author herself, weaves a compelling exploration of race in America, and the implications for those whose lived experience is adjacent to, but wholly apart from blackness. Admittedly, her whiteness was a key part of why I was interested in reading this book, and it felt like a genuinely reflective response to a situation that would leave most people jarred. I think this is valuable to any genealogist (novice to pro) and those interested in intersections of race, gender, and economics from slavery to now.
*Anyone who tells you genealogy isn’t a journey replete with long, sleepless nights and tears of both elation and frustration is a bold-faced liar and you don’t need that kind of negativity in your life.
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