Home In My Brown Skin
Sitting on the couch reading a book, I keep catching glimpses of my brown skin. I love it now. It was foreign to me for a long time. I was not home in my own skin.
I have grown into my brown skin. Or maybe it's a coming home. The paler shade of me that turns to caramel hued cinnamon in the summer sun. Winter can fade my cinnamon skin, but I am still brown.
No one wants to accept a brown skinned girl who cannot speak Spanish very well. Especially when she wears her heritage on the outside. But I finally accept me. I welcome my heritage home in seasons and age.
When I was a little girl, my skin was darker from time spent in pools and summer camps drenched with sunshine. It made me different. Blonde and mouse brown hair was pale in my elementary school next to my darkness. They wore giant bows and special clothes. The darkest hair in class and dark chocolate pools of eyes stuck in books because I did not fit. I was not home there.
I wanted the paler skin of my ivory acceptable tone of my Mama. I did not know her olive skin would turn too in the sun. I wanted blue eyes like the tiny cheerleader girls. I was not anything but brown. Foreign to my classmates.
Foreign to my relatives too. My grandmother who spoke no functioning English. My cousins were good Mexican kids who spoke Spanish. I was sure they talked about me, made fun of me. Now I know they probably did not and maybe it was only in my head. But I wondered if they all thought I was too good for the Tex Mex brown I was. Too white, it would seem because I didn't stumble over English. I did not fit. I was not home there.
I grew into Houston in the 2000's. Where brown skin suddenly stopped being the wrong color. Except now it was fetishized and catcalled. Latina and exotic, not a person. I was not at home in my brown skin again, but in a new way. That beauty I carried in my body scared me. It plagued me - the insecure girl who wanted to hide.
But you cannot hide your skin.
I ached with out-of-place-ness. Never welcome in the Latino school groups without Spanish to aid me. Never welcome anywhere else because I was brown. I was foreign to everyone; Myself included. Not brown enough for college diversity, not white enough for skating by.
I got busy hiding my body in unflattering boxes and curveless-ness clothes. It was holy to hide your sexuality, after all. My religion told me so. And being Latina was sexual. Every cat call told me so. I was foreign to religiousness, I was foreign to me.
My head stayed down. Never looked anyone in the eye because I was ashamed of my body, my skin. Bold Latina women are scary, and I had to be a meek wallflower to be godly. So I bowed. I diminished. And I lost me - the girl I could have been. I was smothered by rules, by my brown skin.
Men only saw my exoticism - they abused it and used it. All they asked for was the object, not the person. Latina, curvy, exotic - not love. Love was foreign to my brown skin.
Until that man who saw me.
Until I recognized my own brown skin as beautiful and not the butt of someone's joke.
I stopped being ashamed of my brown skin. I stopped being ashamed of my lack of Spanish. I carry my heritage in my skin, not my tongue. My heritage is not foreign to me after talking to my parents and inhabiting their stories, learning the history.
My brown skin fits me now. It is beautiful and I am home in my brown skin.
I have grown into my brown skin. Or maybe it's a coming home. The paler shade of me that turns to caramel hued cinnamon in the summer sun. Winter can fade my cinnamon skin, but I am still brown.
No one wants to accept a brown skinned girl who cannot speak Spanish very well. Especially when she wears her heritage on the outside. But I finally accept me. I welcome my heritage home in seasons and age.
When I was a little girl, my skin was darker from time spent in pools and summer camps drenched with sunshine. It made me different. Blonde and mouse brown hair was pale in my elementary school next to my darkness. They wore giant bows and special clothes. The darkest hair in class and dark chocolate pools of eyes stuck in books because I did not fit. I was not home there.
I wanted the paler skin of my ivory acceptable tone of my Mama. I did not know her olive skin would turn too in the sun. I wanted blue eyes like the tiny cheerleader girls. I was not anything but brown. Foreign to my classmates.
Foreign to my relatives too. My grandmother who spoke no functioning English. My cousins were good Mexican kids who spoke Spanish. I was sure they talked about me, made fun of me. Now I know they probably did not and maybe it was only in my head. But I wondered if they all thought I was too good for the Tex Mex brown I was. Too white, it would seem because I didn't stumble over English. I did not fit. I was not home there.
I grew into Houston in the 2000's. Where brown skin suddenly stopped being the wrong color. Except now it was fetishized and catcalled. Latina and exotic, not a person. I was not at home in my brown skin again, but in a new way. That beauty I carried in my body scared me. It plagued me - the insecure girl who wanted to hide.
But you cannot hide your skin.
I ached with out-of-place-ness. Never welcome in the Latino school groups without Spanish to aid me. Never welcome anywhere else because I was brown. I was foreign to everyone; Myself included. Not brown enough for college diversity, not white enough for skating by.
I got busy hiding my body in unflattering boxes and curveless-ness clothes. It was holy to hide your sexuality, after all. My religion told me so. And being Latina was sexual. Every cat call told me so. I was foreign to religiousness, I was foreign to me.
My head stayed down. Never looked anyone in the eye because I was ashamed of my body, my skin. Bold Latina women are scary, and I had to be a meek wallflower to be godly. So I bowed. I diminished. And I lost me - the girl I could have been. I was smothered by rules, by my brown skin.
Men only saw my exoticism - they abused it and used it. All they asked for was the object, not the person. Latina, curvy, exotic - not love. Love was foreign to my brown skin.
Until that man who saw me.
Until I recognized my own brown skin as beautiful and not the butt of someone's joke.
I stopped being ashamed of my brown skin. I stopped being ashamed of my lack of Spanish. I carry my heritage in my skin, not my tongue. My heritage is not foreign to me after talking to my parents and inhabiting their stories, learning the history.
My brown skin fits me now. It is beautiful and I am home in my brown skin.
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