My great-grandmother hid her race. Two decades later I understand why. [View all]
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.
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