“In the 1970s, when the bus started at the schools, the teachers had to categorize the students in their classrooms,” said Wendy Gaudin, 54, referring to the effort in some cities to desegate public schools. Her Creole grandparents left New Orleans for California. As an adult, Mrs. Gaudin returned and now teaches New Orleans at Xavier University, the only Catholic school among the historic black colleges and universities of the country. “I was categorized as an Indian and my sister Roslyn was categorized as Caucasian, and my sister Leslie was categorized as a Pacific Islander.”
Professor Gaudin, who has Written a book About identity in the Creole diaspora, described how this racial ambiguity Creols could help if they confronted obstacles in a place that was not entirely the promised land they had hoped. When her grandparents found real estate in Los Angeles to build a house, they discovered that the neighborhood had a racial alliance with the exception of black people. Her grandmother, who “had very, very honest skin,” she said, went to the couch, paid the deposit and signed the papers. Then her grandfather, who had dark skin, built a house and moved.
“And nothing could be said because the country was already theirs,” she said.
There were some who chose to live in their new hometown as white people, or who just lived like that because no one ever asked. This did not always explicitly include creating a new identity; Often it just went away to leave and stay still.
One of those whose Louisiana Creole roots were unknown, at least for most around them, was George Herrimanwho created the famous comic “Krazy Kat” and which was assumed Greek as Greek by some of his employees. The Louisiana Creole heritage of Anatole Broyard, the influential writer of New York and literary critic who have written book reviews for the timeWas only publicly known years after his death.
In 1946 Mr. Roudané’s grandmother submitted to officially change the surname of the family – probably the ‘Z’ dropped because it could match the authorities to his Creole heritage – and shortly thereafter her son was admitted to Tulane University, which was completely white at the time. A few years after his graduation, he moved to the midwest and lived as a white man for the rest of his life.
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