A Short Memoir:(Afro)aggression

Have you ever been asked the question: “Describe yourself in 10 words?” and not liked the response you give for yourself? I have been in this situation. Often the reason why I dislike my answer is because I limit it to how I know people perceive me. I base my answer on questions such as: “But you don’t look it…Are you sure you’re Latina?” it is as if people are waiting to tell me who I am. Growing up I’ve always had a complicated relationship with my identity, more specifically, accepting parts of my identities as a part of my whole identity. Why can’t I just say my name and my favorite color an have that be who I am? Why do I have to limit who I am to my appearance?

Recently one of my friends said: “Identity is as deep or as surfaced as you want it to be.” This statement has stuck with me and prompted some reflection. Nowadays, anytime I join a club or participate in anything that requires an introduction or a fun fact I decide to talk about my hair. Recently, my hair has become a huge signifier of who I am. Throughout my academic career, it has seen many phases and experienced a lot of neglect and manipulation. Much like the rest of my identity.

For a huge chunk of my life, my hair has been, not itself. Imagine hair that is voluminous, black, curly often unruly. It demands attention like no other part of me. My friend Katelyn described it as me. She claimed that it was a perfect example of my personality, “it is bold, big and super bouncy- happy.” I remember telling her how happy that claim made me. With that, I reflected on how far I have come. Throughout my life, my hair, like my personality and like my identity have gone through a lot of changes. Through my reflection upon those stages of change or growth, I found that there is a lot of huge topics, that for most of my life I neglected to acknowledge.

Before I started school I was as wild as my hair. My parents would let me roam around the house with a mini fro and no clothes. My childhood was full of color. It was bright and happy, I was accepted for who I was-- a carefree child. My fro was often the center of attention. Every time there was a family gathering, the photo album came out and a bunch of my aunts and uncles would tell me of a young me that for a long time was more of a stranger. My Abuela always pulled out the worst picture of me. It was taken in Puerto Rico on her farm. I had a smile full of baby teeth, a purple dress that seemed perfect against my baby-like bronzed skin. Still, the only thing they ever talk about is my crazy curly hair. Thinking back to the days of sun-kissed skin and unruly hair I am overwhelmed by the feeling of comfort. According to my mother, I was an outgoing child. I was curious and always on the lookout for new friends.

I said that I have recently accepted my hair as a part of my identity. I think, upon reflection, it acts as more of a signifier of who I wanted to see myself as. A signifier of who was influencing who I was at any given stage of my life. My hair became a symbol of cultural assimilation, it was a reaction to microaggression. Cultural assimilation “involves ethnic groups taking on the cultural signifiers of the host nation. Here minority groups are expected to adapt to the everyday practices of the dominant culture through language and appearance...It is agreed that, in this regard, assimilation becomes easier for the children of immigrants who are invariably socialized and educated in the culture and history of the dominant society from a young age” (Holohan, n.p.). In the case of me and my family, this pertains to American (white culture) influencing Puerto Rican culture. Everyone has an idea of what Puerto Ricans look like and not everyone is aware of the diversity within the island and the ethnicity. As a child what people thought about my identity shaped my identity, it dictated how much of my identity I embraced and how much I hid.

Microaggressions are complicated to explain. Upon my first introduction to this term, I thought of them as comments from people that give you a hard time. They are present in questions such as, “What are you?” Yet, according to Catharine Wells, “Microaggressions are not merely insensitive remarks. If that is all they were, it would be bad enough; but, they also operate in predictable ways to ensure that the interests of insiders are protected from newcomers. Thus, they have the overall effect of maintaining current patterns of exclusion.” (Wells, 320). In my case, I am the newcomer, my hair sets me apart from my peers, from my family, a lot of people and the insider is the people with “manageable” hair, people who don’t look “exotic.” Still, what is microaggression? The Atlantic defines it as “behaviors or statements that do not necessarily reflect malicious intent but which nevertheless can inflict insult or injury.” I am far too familiar with comments about my hair and my appearance that as I reflect on them now, are forms of microaggressions.

This all started with school, being exposed to people of different cultures, my mother feared that I would not be accepted for the things that made me different. Growing up, she had hair skin, long black wavy hair the laid the length of her back. She spoke of her hair as a personality, it was a part of her that she was taught to value. She did not know what it was to live with short curly hair and to be of a darker complexion in a place where three shades lighter was a majority. There was so much she did not understand about my experience with my physical appearance, that did not stop her from trying to alter it. It was as if she was trying to correct something that was irreversible.

I remember the summer before Kindergarten she tried so many different styles on my hair. She braided it and brushed it back into high buns. I always felt restricted in those styles it was as though those styles were hiding something about me as if they were holding back some extreme truth. Nearing the end of that summer neither one of us was happy with what she had experimented with. Nevertheless, I started school, I was coined the “shy kid” by my peers. I did not talk much and I don’t remember making friends in school. I couldn’t wait to get home and let my hair down.

That next summer, my mom was determined to find a style that suited me for school. A style that would allow me to fit in with my peers, one that I was comfortable with. One Thursday afternoon, she walks into my room and says,” I found someone that would love to do your hair.” She was letting the fate of my hair, of my approachability, of my identity on a complete stranger. She was going to drive me to this women’s house and run some errands that Saturday. I was completely mortified the two days leading up to that.

I was seven years old in a stranger’s house, sitting on an isolated chair in the middle of the living room. The lights were dim and the air was heavy with smoke, it was carrying whatever was leftover from the degraded cigarette. My head tugged back and forth as if it were playing tug of war with the stranger’s rough, aged hands. The sound of two metal plates clasping a portion of my hair ignited a sense of fight or flight in me. I flinch and clench my jaw. All at once this misleading soothing “Quedarte quieta!” as her hand repositions my head. She says “Como se dice? Pain is a beauty”. This instance stayed with me for a long time. I used it every time I sat to straighten my own hair. Pain is beauty, beauty is straight hair. This was one of the instances that helped implement the idea in me that my hair, in its natural state was not enough.

This idea was further enforced by comments I heard from people in school. In the third grade, my mom came to the revelation that she didn’t want to ruin my curls by having my hair straighten frequently. It was two months into the third grade and I walked in one morning with my curls as shiny and tight as I could get them. My peers followed my every move with their gaze. I was usually the tallest kid in my classes growing up. In elementary school, the students in each class would have to form a line in order to go anywhere as a class. Since I was the tallest I was used to being placed at the end of the line because it was best to be in size order. One day the teacher decided that instead of having the tallest at the end of the line, the tallest should get to lead the line for a day.

I remember being really excited. I get to the front of the line, I knew that I had huge responsibility as the line leader. What I did not know was that everyone would be looking at me as the line leader. Everyone would have their own observations of me. As the line leader, I could hear what was said behind my back. I remember a conversation between Paulex and Ryan. It went something like, “look at her hair. “ Ryan responds, “why is it so big?” Paulex answers, “I don’t know, it kind of looks like a poodle.” Ryan jokes, “Yeah, a poodle that needs a haircut.” Paulex claims “ it kind of looks like a bird’s nest too.” they proceeded to invite more of my classmates into the conversation. By the time we reach our destination the cafeteria everyone in my class had made a comment about my hair. It was as if they were coming across something alien. I felt as though I was out on display, something that was less than human. I was embarrassed. We entered the cafeteria and as everyone ate their lunch, whatever space was left in the room was filled with loud voices. Inaudible voices crowded my mind, I could not help, but wonder how many of the conversations were about how “different” my hair was.

This moment led me to conclude that my hair made me different and I didn’t want to be different. I did not want to be looked at as an outsider. Being an outsider means being alone, being unwanted. Who would want that? I chose to give in to the culture that for most of my life was dominated a culture where straight hair made me less of a joke. For years I straightened my hair every day of every other day in order to fit in. People always seemed to respond positively to that. I felt more confident but, I was still quiet. It wasn’t until high school that I began to experiment with my hair again. At this point in my life, I had friends that I felt comfortable around with. I saw my appearance as a way to express myself. I would still have to listen to people say, “Have you ever tried… you would probably look better with your hair like that.”

During my senior year of High School I decided that I would not straighten my hair. This year I felt more myself than I had felt in years. My hair became an expression of who I was. Still, I was challenged every day by some type of microaggression. Earlier in that school year, my English professor asked about my family history. I remember talking about the fact that my dad’s side of the family has roots from Spain and Portugal and that a lot of them settled in Puerto Rico, as I continued she interrupts, “Ah, so you really are a mutt.” imagine a professor saying this in a room full of your peers. I remember thinking, what am I? A mutt? A mixture of two extremes? Answering No, I am human. I did not say this to her because one of my peers beat me to it.

The Entirety of my life I have faced microaggressions, mostly through comments about or relating to the appearance of my hair. For a long time I assimilated to the hair culture I was surrounded by. I did so in an attempt to be accepted by my peers. I found that by doing this I refused to accept myself. My youth, my academic life, my peers and my family has taught me how enabling it is to accept myself. My crazy curly hair is apart of my identity. It has taken me a while but I embrace it. I still face microaggressions based on my hair but, I take that as a sign of ignorance not as a fault on my part. Identity is something that is constantly changing it shifts and evolves but it is crucial to personal growth as well as societal growth. That is what I have taken from my experience of living with curly, unruly hair in an environment that prefers straight hair manageable hair.