How to identify relative in paper?

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I recently interviewed my mother's life partner or my stepmother for a paper in a History class I am taking at college. The paper is supposed to discuss her life and views as a US immigrant. My biomom seemed very concerned about how I will identify her partner in this paper. I was planning to only use her first name (or alias) but I cannot decide if I should also refer to her as my mom's partner, my stepmom or a family friend (we need to identify how we met/know the person)? My stepmom made it clear that she doesn't care how I identify her but I'm not sure what the appropriate way to identify her would be? Another reason for my concern is I can't tell if my prof will be prejudice against my stepmom (who's from eastern europe). My prof specializes in African studies and is basically obsessed with Africa and Muslims, so I cannot tell if she will react negatively to a paper pertaining to a Eastern European individual?

if the prof was expecting all of her students [no matter what their background] to provide material relevant only to africans/muslims, she is out-of-line. if it was supposed to be about the immigrant experience in general, the specifics should have no bearing on it. if i were you, i'd just use the description of a "family friend" to keep it as simple as possible. just my jejune opinion here.