My family’s history is infamously underdocumented. All I know about my family is I have a Great Grandma Josephine and a Great Grandpa named Abdean Sr. Abdean was a sharecropper, and Josephine bore one son before meeting him. They were born in Blakely and Albany. They moved to Orlando and had 5 additional children. That’s it.

Around 6 years ago, I took a genetic test, and as the years have gone on and technology has refined, it has changed drastically. Now, if you don’t know, the Black/African American ethnic group has many subethnicities that are from different geographical regions of the USA. Some are Affriliatians, Gullah Geechee, Afro Nova Scotians, Afro Semanas, Freeberians, Afro-Seminoles, Louisiana Creoles, Mississippi Deltans or Chicagoans, Chesapeakeans, Afro Tidewaters, etc. Those are just some to name, but for the longest time, I believed I was a Gullah Black American. Ya know, because my peoples were from Georgia.

But then my genetic testing updated and has remained that way for years…

My ancestry is a mix of Southern Native Tribes, Enslaved Africans, and Mediterraneans, specifically Sicilian and Southern France. Given this, my ancestry also notes that my family most likely came through the port of Mobile, Louisiana, or present-day Alabama. It also suggests that this ancestry ranges from 2-8 generations with a generation being a whopping 25 years. This means that my ancestry came into the USA 200 years ago through Mobile’s port.

This puts my lineage at starting in the early 1700s, in the Louisiana Territory’s capital, Mobile. The main port city of said territory before that of New Orleans (which my DNA traces back to as well). Mobile was founded in 1702.

So, what does this mean?

I AM A BLACK AMERICAN-LOUISIANA CREOLE WOMAN.

And…

My lineage was one of the first Creole (whether free or enslaved) groups in the Louisiana Territory.

And…

There is a significant chance that Creole culture today may have been greatly influenced by my lineage in its own way. We were one of the first there for the formation of the French Gulf.

What A Win! It makes sense how much I gravitate to Creole culture and love everything about the Deep South. My family never fled from the South and stayed with the spirit of God and tenacity. I admire it!

But what’s the issue, Ahbri?

I know nothing about this culture, as my family has been through a process called Anglicization. This is a process in which families who fled from old Louisiana into English spaces change everything about themselves to blend in safely.

There was a prosecution of the Catholic, French, Black, and anything else that wasn’t remotely WASP (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant). That means my ancestors had to leave their Creole identity behind to safely (unsafely) live in this newfound WASP territory (after the Louisiana Purchase). No more speaking Kouri Vini, no more Creole Cuisine, no longer French-sounding names, and no more Catholicism. That’s like a woman passing as white to have a better life.

This is where my family traded all that in for English, Baptist, names like my mother’s (Dorothy) instead of my grandmother’s name (Josephine), and Southern Soul Food instead.

This leaves me somber but knowing. Thank God I love history, so I know why they did it. But I feel left with a profound sense of loss of a culture and a way of life. I’m proud to be Black American either way and am thankful that my grandfather side is tied to the Birth of the Civil Rights movement.

What now, Ahbri?

I’m gonna learn. I’m gonna read. I’m gonna be. For my family that had to hide who they were for survival, on both sides. I’m gonna plead with Ms. La Luzianne to let me back into where I rightfully belong.

Imagine that. To be AfroCreole with origins connected to some of the founding families of the Louisiana Territory and to be Soulaan with ties to the birth of the Civil Rights Movement.

Sicilian, Southern French, West African, Native American, and finally Black American.

Thank You, Lord, for making me Black American. I wouldn’t wanna be anything or anyone else. ❤