History Main / HidingYourHeritage

* This happened with frequency in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, on account that their history from the 15th century featured relatively dark people (Iberians) chasing off other dark people (Moors and Jews) and conquering ''other'' dark people (Amerindians and Africans) while at the same shamelessly intermarrying with everybody listed, causing a genetic mishmash where race was sometimes solely determined by documentary evidence.

** After all was said and done in the conquest, the crown decided to exclude native Americans from the Inquisition's jurisdiction, on the basis that Christianity had been just recently introduced in America and it didn't make sense for natives to be expected to be perfect Christians yet. On the other hand, natives sometimes paid more taxes than settled Spaniards due to the different economic policies in Castile and the indigenous states. As a result, mestizos and tanned Spaniards often pretended to be full-blooded natives to get the Inquisition off their backs if they were after them, while full-blooded natives pretended to be mestizos in order to basically evade taxes.

* ''Film/{{Days of Glory|2006}}'': Said is an Algerian Muslim serving in World War II in the French army, under a French sergeant named Martinez. Said notices the photo of Martinez as a baby with his mother, who was an Algerian Arab, revealing that Martinez is actually a 50/50 mix. When Said mentions this, Martinez gets violently angry, hits Said, and screams at him to never tell anyone else.

* During the UsefulNotes/SpanishConquestOfTheAztecEmpire, two soldiers serving under UsefulNotes/HernanCortez successfully passed as indigenous to spy on the camp of a rival conquistador that had been sent to arrest Cortés for political enmities. As Spaniards are sometimes already brownish, all it took was handpicking two tanned guys, dressing them in native garments, and sending them to blend in with the complicity of the real indigenous, who were loyal to Cortés.

* During UsefulNotes/TheSpanishInquisition, Jews and Muslims in Spain and Portugal were forced to convert to Catholicism, leave Iberia or be executed. Some converted sincerely, but others secretly continued to practice their religions behind closed doors while publicly posing as Christians. Of course, everyone knew who the "conversos" were, but it was possible to move to another town or the New World and forge documents to pass yourself off as a "real" Christian. The Jewish community of a small town in Portugal kept this up for centuries after the end of the Inquisition, gathering in private homes and intermarrying down the generations. In 1917 a foreign Jewish engineer stumbled across them while working in a local mine. They were officially recognised as Jews by Israel in 1994.

* ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003'': Due to the persecution that the Ishvalans face, Scar, on a journey of vengeance to kill as many state alchemists in the country of Amestris following their committing of the Ishval Massacre, hides his heritage by way of wearing sunglasses to avoid revealing the distinctive red irises that Ishvalans have.

* Solon in ''[[Fanfic/MyDeepestDarkestSecret My Deepest, Darkest Secret]]'' has to keep his werewolf half a secret from his pure vampire brothers and from the rest of the world, for [[BeyondTheImpossible there's no such thing as a hybrid between a vampire and a werewolf]]. [[spoiler: Fittingly enough, his brothers [[DisappointingHeritageReveal weren't too happy]] to discover his werewolf heritage and he gets targeted and kidnapped by hunters later in the story]].

* Solon in ''[[Fanfic/MyDeepestDarkestSecret My Deepest, Darkest Secret]]'' hides his werewolf half from his pure vampire brothers and from the rest of the world, for [[BeyondTheImpossible there's no such thing as a hybrid between a vampire and a werewolf]]. [[spoiler: Fittingly enough, his brothers [[DisappointingHeritageReveal weren't too happy]] to discover his werewolf heritage and he gets targeted and kidnapped by hunters later in the story]].

* Solon in ''Fanfic/MyDeepestDarkestSecret'' hides his werewolf half from his pure vampire brothers and from the rest of the world, for [[BeyondTheImpossible there's no such thing as a hybrid between a vampire and a werewolf]]. [[spoiler: Fittingly enough, his brothers weren't too happy to discover his werewolf heritage and he gets targeted and kidnapped by hunters later in the story]].

* In ''VideoGame/{{Oddworld}}: Stranger's Wrath'', the titular Stranger is actually a [[spoiler: Steef, a lion-buck-centaur hybrid creature]], but masquerades as a bipedal being because [[spoiler: Steefs are popular game for hunters to the point where they became endangered]].

* ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist'': Due to the persecution that the Ishvalans face, Scar, on a journey of vengeance to kill as many state alchemists in the country of Amestris following their committing of the Ishval Massacre, hides his heritage by way of wearing sunglasses to avoid revealing the distinctive red irises that Ishvalans have.

-->-- '''Creator/TrevorNoah''', ''Literature/BornACrime''

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', Rikku hides her true identity as an Al Bhed from Wakka because he's prejudiced against Al Bhed.

* [[SociallyAwkwardHero Cards Adler]], of ''RWBY'' fic, ''Fanfic/AMoreFlawedGem'', keeps her bird Faunus heritage a secret by wearing a [[NiceHat nifty beret]].

* ''Film/{{Illusions}}'': As if being a woman at a film studio in 1940s Hollywood wasn't daunting enough, Mignon has a secret: she's black. Or rather, she's biracial and light-skinned enough that she can pass for white.

* Nella Larsen's 1929 novel ''Literature/Passing'' is entirely about examining this phenomenon -- it contains three "black" women, one who has basically switched to a white identity by continuously passing, one that can pass, but doesn't, and one who passes occasionally out of convenience. [[spoiler:It does not work out well for the first two in the end.]]

* Nella Larsen's 1929 novel ''Passing'' is entirely about examining this phenomenon -- it contains three "black" women, one who has basically switched to a white identity by continuously passing, one that can pass, but doesn't, and one who passes occasionally out of convenience. [[spoiler:It does not work out well for the first two in the end.]]

* ''Literature/{{Passing}}'': Like the novel, in 1920s New York Irene finds that her childhood friend Clare, who is black, has been passing for white for years. Clare's husband John has no idea despite being a virulent racist, although he does note that Clare has gotten darker over their marriage and "affectionally" calls her a racial slur as a pet name. Irene herself is also able to pass, although she only does it in certain situations.

->''"My birth certificate doesn’t say that I’m Xhosa, which technically I am. And it doesn’t say that I’m Swiss, which the government wouldn’t allow. It just says that I’m from another country. My father isn’t on my birth certificate. Technically, he’s never been my father."''

* Miss Martian is a White Martian in ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'', just like in the comics, however, her reason for hiding it is different. It's instead written like a more traditional example of this trope. In this verse, White Martians and Green Martians co-exist, however White Martians suffer FantasticRacism back on Mars. M'gann is half-White and half-Green, though physically she looks like a White Martian.

Compare to HideYourOtherness for fantasy variants, HidingTheHandicap for when a character wants to hide a disability rather than their ancestry, {{Fauxreigner}} for when a native-born character claims to be a foreigner, EthnicityObscuringMutation when a mutation unintentionally hides their ethnicity, and ReallyRoyaltyReveal when a character is revealed to have royal heritage. If biracial, the character is likely trying to avoid HalfBreedDiscrimination. SuperTrope to PassFail.

* A subplot in ''The Help'', by Kathryn Stockett, concerns a mixed-race girl who was given up for adoption by her mother because she looked white, and in 1950's Mississippi the social pressure on the mother was too much. The girl later returns to her birth mother in Jackson, where she deliberately passes for white at a Daughters of the American Revolution meeting, then lets everyone there know that she is, in fact, black (and indeed, a member of the Black Panthers). It does not end well.