passablanc
adj.—Gloss: in New Orleans, being of mixed race but presenting oneself as a white person. «Ms. Broyard learned the Creole word for the way her father had lived: passablanc. To this day virtually all Creoles are related to or at least know people who have tried to better their prospects by abandoning family and denying any black heritage to pass as white.…“One day in my 20s I woke up and thought, ’I’m going to be passablanc today.’ I took the bus to the white beauty parlor on Canal Street and got my hair done. It was nothing!”» —“A Daughter Discovers Branches of the Family Tree Pruned by Her Father” by Mimi Read in New Orleans New York Times Nov. 7, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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