Upon looking at somebody there are very notable characteristics that a person may possess, that may catch your eye. Maybe it’s their sense of style, height, or eye color. On multiple occasions, I have been referred to as the “girl with really curly hair”, as a description to help to identify me. And fortunately, that works out for me, because as much as it identifies me, I identify with it. I love that I can walk into a room and know that it is something that makes me stand out, it is feature pride. But it was not always that way. Coming from a very mixed background of Hispanic cultures ( Salvadoran, Costa Rican, Peruvian, and Argentinian) my parents had waves in their hair but their genetics somehow together left me with the most textured hair of my entire family. “You should be proud of that mija, it makes you beautiful and represents your diverse heritage.” This is what my parents had always told me, but the mental fortitude that is required to embody that mentality when surrounded by a predominantly white environment at school was a challenge that interfered with this ideal mentality. 

Life started changing for me as I entered middle school. I went to a school named Village Christian located in the valley and it was a Christian private school. Little did I know, and to my parents’ surprise, California is widely diverse and actually is filled with Latinos, but this small private school was quite the opposite. In a class full of 30 kids I was one of two or three POC’s in the room. At first, it was not something that got to me but I vividly remember going to class one day and our teacher was lecturing us on segregation, and he followed it with an example using me. He said if it weren’t for this moment in history, we wouldn’t be in the room with somebody like Sasha. At that moment I felt the awkward, synchronized looks of every kid in the class as I was sitting in the backseat.

That moment was ingrained into my brain throughout the rest of my time in middle school and throughout high school. And I’m sure you could imagine that it was true, I did stick out like a sore thumb and most of my classes. Especially as a Latina who was academically inclined and curious to expand her intellectual capacity, it turned out that the chances of me being in a class with another POC were slimmer in my AP classes for some reason. My hair was an indicator of difference. I didn’t like the feeling of not being similar to my colleagues, and I didn’t like that I had felt like people were showing me “pity”, simply because of my appearance. This subtle racism that I was experiencing on a daily basis reached a new high, as people thought that I was cheating to get the grades that I had achieved when it was merely just hours and hours that I was putting in outside of the classroom. 

To “ fit in” I decided that the definite move would be to assimilate. To me, my hair was one of the many things that prohibited me from blending in with the rest of my peers. So what did I do? I fell into the trap of using heat to my hair every day, every week. At that point, no one saw me with curly hair. And what was worse, was that people would tell me directly to my face, that I looked better with straight hair rather than my natural, “untamed and wild’ curls. I noticed a difference, and an unfortunate one, but one that I was hoping for. My theory about changing the state of my hair so that it would match the ones of those around me was working. I would spend hours and hours putting a straightener that was set to 360° and the highest setting directly to my hair. That was my life throughout half of my high school career. 

My parents were growing concerned for me as they realized that I was no longer wearing my hair naturally, they were desperately hoping that they would bring that side out of me again. After all, they associate all of my best moments with me and my curly hair. When I was just a child, jumping around carefree, smiling, and enjoying every single moment, they envisioned me, as a version of myself, with curly hair. They wanted me to bring my spark back, it was quite obviously dimming, and they really didn’t understand why. They would constantly be urging me to wear my hair naturally, especially when visiting my relatives and El Salvador, and I did, I listened. I wore my hair naturally around my blood relatives, and I was always embraced with love for my hair. They always loved how beautiful and luscious my hair looked, they would even joke about how they wished they could steal my hair from me, or if I could donate some to them. I would respond with a little laugh, but internally, I had wished to see the beauty that they saw.

I told my mom quite honestly when we got back from that trip that I wanted to straighten my hair using chemicals at a hair salon permanently. She was begging me and apologizing to me to learn how to do my hair because she realized that she failed in learning how to. She agreed that if I did not like my hair after doing everything I could to try and love it, that we could. So that’s when it began, I spent 3 hours on the internet looking at what could make My curls come to life, I went to Amazon, bought a couple of brushes and two products, and got to work. Doing everything in the videos felt so estranged to me, and it was weird not picking up a tool that exuded heat to try and change the natural state of my hair, but instead to enhance my natural hair. 

My mother was completely right, I loved my hair. It was different. It was big. It was very curly. But, I loved it. I remember the expression on everyone’s face when I wore my hair naturally again, and I wouldn’t take it back. Something that makes you stand out in a room is a great thing, you just need to learn how to take pride in it, and that takes time and growth to develop that confidence, but I eventually got there. I wear my hair naturally every single day of the year, and it is something that I take significant amounts of pride in. It is a reflection of my complex background that has come together, through various different types of struggle and refugee. It is a sign that I’ve made it here, where I can now proceed to take on the American dream that my parents have dreamed of. It reflects how different my culture is from one another, but they come together to create something so beautiful. There was so much more than just curls behind my hair, it’s history, it’s a tragedy, it’s a celebration, it’s my identity. Without difference in the world, we would not have diversity, and diversity is necessary for the progression of society. So you’re quote differences quote, make you beautiful,  necessary, and important.