I can’t say that I have always been proud to be a brown woman.

In fact I have spent nearly my whole life feeling embarrassed by the color of my skin and doing what I could to blend in and be seen as white.

I still distinctly remember the summer my prima and I would tuck our arms in close when riding in the car to make sure the sun wouldn’t make us any darker than we already were.

Somewhere around 30 I began to heal these parts of me, I’ve come to realize I was just fearful and held beliefs that I wasn’t safe while also being self-accepting.

I’m not sure this is a story that can be told in one blog post but I believe it important to start somewhere. It’d be really easy for me to blame it all of the white girls who made fun of me in school but the truth is that I began to be very aware of my brownness long before their name calling and harassment.

My mom has been an open book with me for the most part. She’s told me many of her stories some of which have included all about how my abuelita called her a “puta” for getting pregnant with me. She shared every painful detail of how my biological dad humiliated her while she was pregnant and on shift at 7-11 telling her to stay out of his life. And she’s also told me the stories of how our family hated my step-dad because he was a “monito de lodo” (doll of mud), they hated him because he is dark, moreno.

The thing about childhood is that we’re always learning, we absorb the most information from the people who are around us the most and from a young age I was like a sponge taking on my families beliefs and “manners,” the first child and grand-child making sure she was seen and good.

I’ve learned now as an adult that representation matters and while I am grateful to my parents and my ancestors for doing everything within their power to ensure our survival and safety we have to admit that there was still so much work that went unnoticed. I suppose its asking too much energy from people who are already overworked, stressed and quite frankly ignorant. I don’t say this with an ounce of judgement either, we have to admit that they did the best they knew to do.

My experience growing up was this: the town from which I came from was considered to be small and poor, Calexico, California. The population being prodominantly Mexican, most who live there are migrant workers who travel all across California with the seasonal harvests. My family were also migrant workers from my grand-parents to my parents who began working from the age of 11, all Mexican and yet there was still this sense that some were “better” than others.

I spent a lot of time in Calexico in the summers, my parents both worked and to save money when school was out my brother and I would go visit my abuelita and Abuelito. I think many can relate to their abuelas watching novelas from 6-9pm and I was not exception, after dinner it was time to plop down with my pillow, on the carpet right next to my abuelitas feet to get the best seat in front of the drama.

The curious thing about novelas is that although these actors and actresses speak Spanish, the standards of beauty were clear. The darker actors in roles of “paisano” often living in barrios, notably poor and good Goddess do they cry a lot. The leading men often muscular and light skinned along with the women who they were trying to win over.

Now I’m not saying that novelas are responsible for the way I felt but coupled with living in a Arizona with classmates who were mostly white, eventually the feeling takes over and you become an outsider.

There wasn’t space for a brown girl who’s leg hair wasn’t blonde and therefore noticeable, there wasn’t space for my love for Selena and there certainly wasn’t space to speak Spanish let alone have anyone to speak it with.

Eventually, without anyone to model what it looks like to be proud of who you are, you just get lost.

As I’ve gone through this healing and reclaiming my ancestry, my culture and my skin I’ve realized that its gone much deeper than my experience or representation. My mom has felt it, my aunts, my cousins, my siblings, my grand-parents all of us have at some point felt what has already been known that we were different but instead of feeling that the difference made us special we went down a path of attempting to become something that we won’t ever be…white.

Somewhere along the line the belief became that if we were seen in closer to relationship to whiteness by means of material wealth, ideal marriages and working hard then we too would be safe and successful.

I wasn’t allowed to wear listones in my hair, I couldn’t speak Spanish outside of my house and we certainly didn’t wear “Artisan” huaraches.

And I’ve gone around this many times in my healing because I’m not one to be quick to reach for the victim card. I wholeheartedly believe that our ancestors just wanted us to be safe and to someday not have to work so hard, but eventually we must go further.

I believe that to be where I am now..where do I go from here? A blend of both my environment in mostly white, English speaking schools and someone who is bien orgullosa to come from such strong and beautiful people.

I stand here at 34 years old not only reclaiming my brownness but deciding what being morenita means to me and moving forward on that journey unafraid to be happy, successful AND safe in this skin that my Creator gifted me with.

It’s a wild feeling to have been disassociated from myself in this way, to feel like a poser within your own culture and yet to feel it so deeply within your flesh and soul.

Identifying as brown, Mexican, or indigenous is so much more than speaking Spanish, eating Takis or wearing gold hoops. I’d like think that I am already well on my way to remembering this and so for now I make peace with being in both worlds. My ancestors did their part, they’ve ensured I am safe on earth and protected from the Spirit realm, now I get to carry them and their experiences within me as I exist in the world as a Morena, a Mujer, a Healer and a Mama.

I hope to make them proud when I cook the nourishing recipes that have been handed down, I hope I make them proud when I pray for their guidance and support and I hope I make them proud simply because I am alive and I remember.

Most of all, I hope to make myself proud. Every environment that I have existed in that I was not intended to be a part of have taught me valuable lessons and I continue to attract more opportunities to stand true to myself, to honor my ancestors and to continue to learn more about my beauty, resilient and ever-changing like the way my skin glows in the summer months but doesn’t forget that radiance in the cold of winter.

 

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