The Texas slave who passed as Mexican

On the morning of March 14, 1909 …a tall man with penetrating brown eyes and carefully groomed mustache, attired in the latest fashion…caught the eye of authorities in Eagle Pass. Like the others on the Aztec Limited, the passenger had begun his journey from Mexico City in a first-class Pullman. Once he crossed the border into the United States, however, a new question arose. What race was he? For despite his elegant appearance, his skin had a somewhat swarthy tone—and, unlike Mexico, the Texas of 1909 possessed segregation laws, designed to limit contact between black and whites in everything from schools, restaurants, libraries, graveyards, and hotels to railroad cars. 

When asked, the newcomer insisted that he was a Mexican entrepreneur, on his way back to his office on Wall Street after negotiating the purchase of several rubber plantations in his homeland. His name, he offered, was Guillermo Enrique Eliseo—which,… could be translated into English as William Henry Ellis. Moreover, as an ethnic Mexican, he was legally white and not subject to Texas’s segregation statutes.

 Karl Jacoby , The Strange Career of William Ellis : The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire ( New York : W.W. Norton , 2016 )

Passing for Cuban

Morton was making history, shattering the color barrier in recording for the first time, More than a decade before Benny Goodman received credit for doing so with Lionel Hampton and Teddy Wilson. Still, the idea of white musicians collaborating with a black man —even one as light-skinned as the Creole Morton—posed problems for all involved, particularly when it came to hotel accommodations in provincial Richmond. So Morton was asked to pass, the boys in the band saying he was Cuban.

Gaines, William, and Reich, Howard. Jelly's blues : the life, music, and redemption of Jelly Roll Morton. Cambridge, Hachette Books, 2003.

"They was all white."

Creoles understood the benefits of exploiting whiteness for material gain. Sometimes, even having a person of color who looked white with his hand on one's shoulder was enough to reap benefits. Earl A. Barthé recalled that, when traveling through the South as a young man while looking for work,

there were these little highway diners. But if you were black, you might be able to stop and get gas but you couldn't go in to eat. You couldn't use the rest room. Not unless you were white. So, me and Harold [Earl A. Barthé's brother], we were travelling with a dark-skinned fella, we would sit in the back seat of the car and pretend he was the driver when we pulled in. We would get out and say "boy, fill up the tank while we get some sandwiches," and we would walk right in and order the food "to go."... They thought we was white. They didn't know... A white man might look at you twice but he wouldn't ask you if you was white if you carried yourself like you were white...we could be Mexican or we could be Indians or Italians and they was all white...we just wanted to get our food and get on to the next job, man! We were looking for work! We weren't on vacation!

Barthé, Darryl. Becoming American in Creole New Orleans, 1896–1949. United States, LSU Press, 2021.

Passing for "Latin white"

 

Early in Lena Horne’s career there were complaints that she did not fit the desired image of a black entertainer for white audiences, either physically or in her style…Noting her brunette-white beauty, one white agent tried to get her to take a Spanish name, learn some Spanish songs, and pass as a Latin white, but she had learned to have a horror of passing and never considered it…

Davis, F. James. Who Is Black? One Nation's Definition. N.p., Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010.

While touring with Barnet, Horne was noticed by an MGM talent scout during a stop in Los Angeles. She landed a contract with the studio but initially was cast only as "window dressing," appearing in the background. With her light skin tone, the studio had pressed her into trying to "pass as a Latin," which she refused.

Byrge, Duane. “Lena Horne Dies at 92.” The Hollywood Reporter, 9 May 2010, 

The light-complexioned Horne refused to go along with studio plans to promote her as a Latin American. She later said she did not want to be "an imitation of a white woman."'

Duke, Alan. “Legendary Singer, Actress Lena Horne Dead at 92.” CNN Entertainment, 11 May 2010.

Passing for Mexican

Some black Americans used ethnic Mexicans' legal claims to whiteness to their benefit. Langston Hughes, who emerged as a top figure in the Harlem Renaissance literati in the 1920s, knew that Mexican's white legal status and his own light skin, could allow him to shirk segregation in Texas in the early twentieth century. 

Hughes was raised in Kansas, but his father left the family and moved to Mexico to escape racism. As a child, young Langston took the train from the Midwest to Mexico City to visit his father, and the route took him through Texas. During one of his first trips with his mother and grandmother, in around 1906, the black family could not purchase hot food from the dining car when they were hungry because of racial restrictions. 

When returning home from a summer in Mexico City as a teenager, however, Hughes found a way to access white accommodations. Hughes recalled "The only way I could purchase sleeping car space after I crossed the border into Texas was by pretending to be Mexican." The young man ignored the Jim Crow signs and asked for a berth by speaking Spanish. He also ate in the diner all the way across Texas by pretending not to speak English."

Tyina L. Steptoe Houston Bound “We Were Too White to be Black and Too Black to Be White.”