‘Passing’ across color lines
Houstonians can relate to new movie
Lacey Tezino didn’t know she was “passing” until her Black college roommates told her she was Black.
She had lived in a white world in Vidor, adopted by a white father who died when she was 7. She was raised by his parents and family. Tezino, 35, was told her late mother was Hawaiian. In reality, her mother was
Black, Samoan and alive; her dad was white, possibly biracial.
Tezino’s roommates pointed to her curly hair, full lips and caramel skin tone. They even referenced her childhood school photos, in which she stood out among her all-white classmates.
“Girl, how do you not know you’re Black?” they would say. Today, they are among Tezino’s best friends.
Though Tezino’s story is unique in that she didn’t know about her Black heritage, “passing” typically means when a person of one race, identity, ethnicity, sexual orientation, economic status, gender or religion has the ability to pass for another group. They often abandon relationships with family and friends to assume a new life.
It’s a concept spotlighted in the new movie “Passing,” which stars Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga. It’s based on Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel of the same name, in which two lightskinned Black women, who are childhood friends, reconnect in adulthood. One chooses to “pass” as white; the other chooses not to.
The movie opened this week at limited theaters nationwide and streams on Netflix beginning Nov. 10. It’s directed by Rebecca Hall, whose Black grandfather passed for white, and her mother never acknowledged her Black heritage.
“The movie is about passing, along with other binary issues — male-female, gay-straight identity. It’s a cross-section between the story we tell about ourselves and the one that society tells and puts on us,” Hall said on “CBS Sunday Morning.”
Tezino had an exclusive pass into the white world, in which she witnessed the disparaging remarks about Black people and the use of the N-word. That changed when she learned about her own heritage and met her late biological mother for the first time; she was in college.
“I knew I was different. I actually thought I was white,” Tezino said. “I guess I was passing. Then I got all confused. Once I discovered my Blackness, I was disgusted because I was viewed as white because of my lighter skin. It makes me sad that this still exists. That there’s a ranking of your value based on the color of your skin.”
The concept of “passing,” though foreign to some, is not new. Passing was a means of escape and survival from slavery and then became common with laws that made it legal to discriminate against anyone with “one drop” of Black blood. In the 1950s, a light-skinned Black man from Missouri who couldn’t find work as a pianist transformed himself into an Indian pop star. He changed his name from John Roland Redd to Korla Pandit, wore a turban and never uttered a word onstage. His identity was not revealed until after his death in 1998.
More recently, bestselling novels such as “The Vanishing Half ” by Brit Bennett and “The Personal Librarian” by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray delve into the issue of Black characters passing for white.
Perceptions about race can be damaging.
In Laureen Lucas’ case, she was identified as white on her birth certificate, even though her mother is a Filipina who immigrated to the U.S. in her 20s; her father is white. Lucas was often perceived as Latina and regularly asked about her quinceañera growing up in Port Lavaca.
In elementary school, when Lucas, 39, checked the “Asian Pacific Islander” box on a standardized test, her teachers insisted her parents to come to school to prove that she was indeed Asian. It’s a memory that still haunts her.
“It was a feeling of not belonging or that there was something wrong with me,” Lucas said. “There was always confusion about who I was because I didn’t really look Asian. As a kid, you don’t understand that. Then as an adult, I’ve had friends identify me as white because I don’t act how they perceived Asian people to act.”
Perceptions about race also have impacted Yvette Chargois, 79, was born as “Yvette Guerra” to a Creole-Mexican father and Creole mother. She was raised as Black in Fifth Ward, just one block south of Frenchtown, where Black Creoles from Louisiana settled and married others like them.
Chargois always has proudly identified as Black, though many mistake her for being Latina.
“I still go to restaurants, and people speak Spanish to me. It has happened so much I’ve felt like I’ve had to explain my Blackness. All I have to do is open my mouth and talk, and you know who I am,” said Chargois, who has a rich LouisianaTexas accent.
“Growing up, I was too light to be Black and too dark to be white. But I was never confused about who I was.”
Chargois said that several of her relatives did pass for white many years ago. But the younger generation seems less influenced by race. “I really do think with each generation, race issues become less and less,” she said.
Still, in some industries, such as fashion, race and stereotypes seem ever present.
Rachel Darby, 25, a model with Houston roots, said she’s often perceived as biracial, when in fact both of her parents are Black. Because of this, her look can be a harder sell for some markets, where beauty is viewed in terms of stereotypes.
“People assume because I have light skin, I’m mixed or biracial. Because I don’t look like the Black stereotype they have in mind, I might not get cast. I’m in this weird category of racially ambiguous,” said Darby, who has modeled in New York, Paris and Milan.
She said she sometimes received special treatment growing up because of her light skin, with comments such as, “You’re Black, but you’re so pretty” or, “You don’t look Black.”
“The fashion industry has a stereotype of how they see Black, Asian and Latinos, and they want models who can sell that,” she said. “The world is also changing, so if they could see Black comes in many different shades, just as other races and ethnicities, that everyone is equally beautiful, it would be a leveled playing field. I’ve experienced both sides of privilege, and I want to use whatever privilege I have so that I can be seen for who I am and not be valued by the color of my skin.”
At 95, Gertrude Gagne, who by all accounts looks like a white woman, knows she easily could have passed for white growing up in Houston’s Frenchtown.
She recalled the time she was able to try on hats at a local department store that discriminated against Black people. Another time she sat in the back of a segregated bus with other Black riders and had to tell them that she, too, was Black.
“I was proud to be Black,” Gagne said. “But white people seemed mad when they found out I was Black. Then there was this tension between Black people and Creole. My dad was very prejudiced against darkerskinned Black people. They were trying to keep the Creole and Catholic thing going. It was part of the times.”
Tezino believes some white people, still today, feel more comfortable around Black people with lighter skin. But she hopes to teach her children to embrace their skin tone. It’s why she is sending them to a predominately Black private school.
“It’s so important for my children to feel comfortable in their Black skin. I want them to have humility and fall in love with their skin color and the skin tone of other Black kids. I want them to know they belong,” she said.