White Like Her: My Family's Story of Race and Racial Passing

Description

White Like Her: My Family's Story of Race and Racial Passing is the story of Gail Lukasik's mother's "passing," Gail's struggle with the shame of her mother's choice, and her subsequent journey of self-discovery and redemption. In the historical context of the Jim Crow South, Gail explores her mother's decision to pass, how she hid her secret even from her own husband, and the price she paid for choosing whiteness. Haunted by her mother's fear and shame, Gail embarks on a quest to uncover her mother's racial lineage, tracing her family back to eighteenth-century colonial Louisiana. In coming to terms with her decision to publicly out her mother, Gail changed how she looks at race and heritage. With a foreword written by Kenyatta Berry, host of PBS's Genealogy Roadshow, this unique and fascinating story of coming to terms with oneself breaks down barriers.

Gail Lukasik was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was a ballerina with the Cleveland Civic Ballet Company. She has worked as a choreographer, freelance writer, editor, and college lecturer. Recently, Gail appeared on PBS Genealogy Roadshow (St. Louis Central Public Library). She said, "I'm a mystery author who's never been able to solve my own family mystery." The show solved the mystery and revealed her mother's life-changing secret. PBS was so intrigued by her story that they invited her back to update her story. She is also the author of several mystery novels featuring the character Leigh Girard. Kenyatta D. Berry is a genealogist, businesswoman, and lawyer with more than fifteen years experience in genealogical research and writing. She is a host of the PBS broadcast Genealogy Roadshow and is the Past President of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) and on the Council of the Corporation for the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) in Boston. A frequent lecturer and writer, her area of focus is African American and Slave Ancestral research.

"Lukasik takes us inside her family story, revealing that her own mother chose to live as a white woman. Lukasik, bravely and eloquently, writes with a researcher's eye and a daughter's heart. In righting her own history, Lukasik graciously affords us the opportunity to right our own." -Goldie Taylor, editor-at-large of the Daily Beast "Meticulously researched . . . Offers new insights into issues surrounding the complex history of racial passing in the United States . . . a narrative made compelling by her deeply felt emotional responses as she excavates her own heritage. This is a book which will elicit much discussion among diverse audiences, adding, as it does, to the too often elusive American tapestry." -Ronne Hartfield, author of Another Way Home: The Tangled Roots of Race in One Chicago Family "Important in helping us understand America's complex racial history . . . Adds to the ongoing conversation about race and racial identity in America because it looks at the ramifications of institutionalized racialism and racial passing through one family's story." -Kenyatta D. Berry, Host of PBS's Genealogy Roadshow "In White Like Her, Lukasik, with the persistence and canniness of the sleuths as the detective novelist she sometimes impersonates, explores how complicated race is in America." -Randy Fertel, author of The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak: A New Orleans Family Memoir "Lukasik takes us inside her family story, revealing that her own mother chose to live as a white woman. Lukasik, bravely and eloquently, writes with a researcher's eye and a daughter's heart. In righting her own history, Lukasik graciously affords us the opportunity to right our own." -Goldie Taylor, editor-at-large of the Daily Beast "Meticulously researched . . . Offers new insights into issues surrounding the complex history of racial passing in the United States . . . a narrative made compelling by her deeply felt emotional responses as she excavates her own heritage. This is a book which will elicit much discussion among diverse audiences, adding, as it does, to the too often elusive American tapestry." -Ronne Hartfield, author of Another Way Home: The Tangled Roots of Race in One Chicago Family "Important in helping us understand America's complex racial history . . . Adds to the ongoing conversation about race and racial identity in America because it looks at the ramifications of institutionalized racialism and racial passing through one family's story." -Kenyatta D. Berry, Host of PBS's Genealogy Roadshow "In White Like Her, Lukasik, with the persistence and canniness of the sleuths as the detective novelist she sometimes impersonates, explores how complicated race is in America." -Randy Fertel, author of The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak: A New Orleans Family Memoir