1. In the 18th, 19th and early 20th-centuries, some Americans of mixed-race European and African ancestry sometimes claimed Arab or Native American heritage to explain skin color and features different from Europeans. They were trying to find a way through the binary racial divisions of society, especially in the South. Before laws on segregation and "one drop rules", most free people went by appearance. If they looked white, they were absorbed into white society. Only in a place where the idea that any African ancestry marked a person, would this be called "passing" for white. In Louisiana, people of color who passed as white were referred to as passe blanc .