Passing in America

A Chosen Exile, a novel by Allyson Hobbs, details the phenomenon of light-skinned African Americans choosing to be identified as white rather than black. I found this article from NPR discussing the book. Hobbs explains that the book was conceptualized when she discovered that she had never heard of one of her aunt’s cousins. The cousin had pale skin and looked white, even though she was African American. After her high school graduation, her mother sent her from Chicago to California to “assume the life of a white woman." The woman assumed her life as a white woman and formed a family. Even when she was confronted by deaths in her biological family, she refused to return to them.  This occurrence, called passing, was not unusual for African Americans. 

This story affected Allyson Hobbs. Amazed that someone from her own family was able to completely separate themselves from her family with the possibility of never  going back again, she decided to write a book about individuals choosing to live as whites and chronicling what they experienced when they chose to pass. Many people volunteered to share their experiences. One common occurrence that many individuals that chose to pas experienced was the extreme lonesomeness and isolation of their new life. They had to completely start their lives over with no contact from anyone they had so far spent their lives forming relationships with. However, they knew that if they kept contact with their birth family or shared their secret with anyone, their safety would be put into extreme jeopardy. It would be almost impossible for them to find someone who understood their struggle or had gone through the same experience. 

This concept is very shocking to me. Wanting to have a better life--especially in segregated America--is understandable, and I respect the people that decided to make that change and successfully created that new life for themselves. Completely abandoning their old lives to go form a new, safe, but fictitious life must have been unnerving to say the least. I am amazed at how many people were not only willing to do this, but were able to successfully manage and maintain it. I read accounts of people discovering the secret of African Americans who decided to pass, and it was truly heartbreaking. While they spent a majority of their lives creating a false life in order to have the same opportunities that were presented to other (white) people, it could be taken away in an instant if their true identity was revealed. 

As I write this, I realize how it sounds like these individuals that chose to pass sound like criminals. If a person heard phrases like "discovering the secret," "their true identity was revealed," or "abandoning their old lives" without this context, he or she would probably assume these statements were about someone that committed a horrible crime. But this is far from the truth. These individuals took a chance to better themselves, but they were unsure of how long this betterment would last.