My family hails from East Texas and Louisiana - towards Bogalusa and Opelousas way.

It's not something I've ever been proud of.

As a kid, being darker-skinned was not as preferable as being 'high-yellow'. Being of creole descent from South Louisiana meant to most people that you should be mixed in some fashion. A premium of attention was paid to French names, but it only really meant anything if you looked the part.

My grandfather certainly did and his 4 brothers. They hailed from nowhere, with little educations. My grandfather, as the oldest, never made it past the fourth grade. Oh, but he was so smart. He taught me math. He taught me to be nice to people and what it felt like to have someone love and be kind to you. He and his brothers came to Houston in the late 30s, and even served stints in the military. His father was rumored to be 'almost white' (I'll not move to define that), and photos of his mother certainly suggested she could 'pass', if she desired.

My grandfather meant the universe to me.

They were considered of the crowd with the right last name, 'good' hair, grey eyes, and 'high-yellow'. The story was that it was this diaspora of creole Louisianans that created the area of Houston called 'Frenchtown' and eventually Settegast. His brothers live there still, in that part of Houston, and their oldest brother has long died.

When I went to grade school, the great pasttime (or shame) was the ability to relate yourself to other families. My best friend's mother was a Goudeau, her father an Angel. My family, the 'C's, were related to them by marriage. We were related to a few Thibedeaus, who were related to the Bourdeaux....well, you get the point. As cousins and cousins upon cousins all came and went from a primarily black Catholic school in 5th Ward (St. Francis of Assisi in Kashmere Gardens), we spent many an hour to prove our lineages and relationships, as if to focus on which families were really the core creoles in Houston. Our rival grade school were the black families of Our Mother of Mercy (aka Our Mother Mercy). Eventually, I'd see my grandfather's brothers' descendents in grade school and high school, and I learned them quickly, as I was far more familiar with my mother's peer cousins.

But despite all that, I still felt second-class about my family's 'Frenchness'.

My mother's brothers all married women (at various times) whose families were from South Louisiana. They always said they had a weakness for them. Personally, I wonder if it was a continuing issue on 'class' within black communities, but I'll never know. My set of twin uncles are dead now, at ages no older than my grandfather's. All before the age of 55. Cancer for my grandfather and one uncle, believed suicide for the other twin.

I spent the occasional summer week in Lafayette, eating sugar all day from a cane field. We followed one of my uncles' wives there somehow. It happened, despite the fact that I liked my mother and her house much better.

"We're hungry."
"Go outside. There's plenty to eat."

And so we did. Far too much sugar.

Grade school meant eating at everyone else's house, eating fried chicken, boudin, dirty rice, pots of pinto beans with sausage, spicy green beans, fried fish, potato salad, smoked barbeque, and heavenly gumbo. On top of it all? Rice, rice, and more rice. You couldn't eat anything without some damned rice.

It was the best fucking eating ever. No matter whose house.

By the time I graduated high school, the tension of being creole without looking the part was long past. I no longer cared, and in fact, would wave my hand at people's expecations of what being from creole stock meant. I learned that most Americans had no idea about Louisiana. They knew nothing of American history (let alone Afro-Caribbean, Hispanic migrating Anglo or religious history) to even have a discussion of Louisiana.

And so. I was at a big university, nowhere near Houston, and frankly, none of that mattered.

Though, I do have 'good hair.'

More in the next post.