peola, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

peola n.

[Bantu peula, skin; from the 1934 movie Imitation of Life, with a plot derived from Fannie Hurst's 1933 novel of the same name, has as one of its heroines a ‘colored’ girl named Peola who passes as white [info. from J. Gibbons Apr. 2023]]

(US black) a light-skinned black woman.

1935		M. Fulcher ‘Believe Me’ in Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 16 Mar. 12/5: Dawn Patrol wags would have you believe there are more ‘Peolas’ at Howard than any college south of Canada.
1944		Cab Calloway New Hepsters Dict. in Calloway (1976) 259: peola (n.): a light person, almost white.
1942		Z.N. Hurston ‘Story in Harlem Sl.’ in Novels and Stories (1995) 1003: Git out of my face, Jelly! Dat broad I seen you with wasn’t no pe-ola.
1946		C. Himes ‘The Something in a Colored Man’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 406: She was a tall Peola [...] light. bright, but not quite white.
1961		W. Randle ‘Payola’ in AS XXXVI:2 109: Slang is a large repository of words ending in -ola [...] : peola.
1971		(con. 1930s–50s) D. Wells Night People 118: Peola. A very light-skinned colored person.
1980		J.L. Gwaltney Drylongso 219: Course, we always did have some peolas, an’ everybody know most of these whitefolks is passin’.