For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts

by Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez

  My war paint is my defiance, on many levels. I did not grow up wearing lipstick, because I grew up in a conservative church where women’s clothing, makeup, hairstyles, and even mannerisms were strictly monitored and controlled. Women were shamed for wearing makeup. Heavy makeup was vanity; it was a distraction from God. Essentially, if you loved God then you did not need outside affirmations, because God was all you needed.

  Unlearning this was a process. Realizing how heavily policed I was by my church has made me more determined to reclaim these things that were weaponized against me.

  Slowly, when I started wearing lipstick regularly, I discovered the power of makeup as a Brown immigrant Latina living in a white city. Many feminine Black and Brown women have also framed their makeup as war paint. Interestingly, a white person’s response to the presence of a Latina wearing red can be rather revealing. The spicy-Latina stereotype depicts us as fiery, and thus associates us all with the color red. I learned to pay attention when I wear red lipstick, so I can see just how much of this stereotype each white person has absorbed. I can use this information as I strategize how to manage each encounter.

  Red is my color, and I have a feeling it will always be my color. Red lipstick is an homage to the tired spicy-Latina trope, but it is also my middle finger to those people who sexualize me without my consent simply because I am Latina, simply because they have never been exposed to someone like me.

  Racism comes from a place of willful ignorance. I am not one who is willing to tirelessly educate white people on how to approach me.

  Wearing my defiant war paint and armor, I dare anyone to call me spicy.

  I walk with that challenge on my lips and on my body.

  I am ready for war, and I have my armor on.

  Me being able to exist in this Brown skin, to exist as an immigrant, and still adorn myself with visible pride—it confuses racist white people. They cannot wrap their minds around people like me loving ourselves.

  So instead of feeling unprepared, as I initially felt when I first moved to Nashville, I now stand ready to protect myself. Living with impostor syndrome does not mean that I cower in a corner whenever I am in primarily white spaces. It means living fully even when I know I am not supposed to. It means living fiercely. Living with impostor syndrome means doing what I can to provide positive representation for little Brown girls in white cities. I stand proud and strong, for them.

  Because teeny Prisca got to see proud Brown people around her, and she got to dream because of it. Even when the current version of me struggles with keeping my lips from trembling when I speak, I still hold myself up and adorn myself with pride. I will take up space, even when it hurts. I will stand with my head held high, even when I doubt myself. I will prove them wrong, even if I have to prove it all to myself first.

  CHAPTER 4

  MYTH OF MERITOCRACY

  Meritocracy is the belief that hard work will pay off. It is the classic rags-to-riches story, a promise that we are told is reachable for anyone, across all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds.

  However, despite rare exceptions, meritocracy is a myth. Most people are not able to work so hard that they are no longer poor. Some of the hardest working people I know were born poor and will die poor. It’s important to accept that hoping to be the exception is not a solution. Radicalization can only occur after realizing that we are cogs in a large and powerful machine. Gatekeepers use the myth of meritocracy to distract busy working-class and working-poor folks with so much self-blame when they fall short that they will not think to revolt against their oppressors. Gatekeepers are everywhere, regulating who gets to live the American Dream and who gets to work hard for others’ dreams.

  I believed in a meritocracy, deeply, and then I did not believe in it. When I finally stopped believing in it, I found my way back home.

  My first memorable encounter with an adult gatekeeper was a high school guidance counselor. I knew how to spot him because I had already encountered young gatekeepers: my peers growing up.

  I was never that kid, the kid who was encouraged to go to college. I know what those kids look like, and they are typically middle-class, white or white-adjacent, well-dressed, well-spoken, and well-behaved by white standards.

  Me, on the other hand—I was not expected to go to college. Mi mami does not have a college degree. She was a stay-at-home mom, and I was told that being a homemaker was honorable and an aspiration that I should have too. I got this messaging very directly at home and indirectly at school.

  I was not one of those kids whose future looked bright. I was told I talked too much, and I seldom paid attention in class. I distrusted my father’s authority at home—but feared him due to regular beatings—and I brought this innate need to question authority to school. At home, I could not do anything about my own powerlessness, but rebelling at school seemed to give me some form of satisfaction. It made me feel like I had some control over my life.

  I created a different identity at school. I remember mi mami asking me: If she were to spy on me at school, would she recognize me? I nervously laughed and brushed off her insightful prodding. I had a life that felt like my own at school. I felt free, or at least free of my parents’ strict structure. I felt no desire to give up any of that freedom for my teachers and their fickleness toward favoring the most indoctrinated, assimilated kids.

  I was not a troublemaker, but I hated being told what to do because that is all that happened at home. I did not get detention but was suspended a few times because I was “distracting.” I was sent to “in-school suspension,” because my attendance still equaled dollars for the school and in-school suspension kept them financially compensated. I was someone who was policed specifically for my behavior, which was not properly muted in the ways that public education, more often than not, prefers.

  I was even suspended for reading in class. I read often, because I found more education from my own books than from my teachers, and I was penalized for it. And when my books were not on my desk, I resorted to talking to my peers, a lot.

  My mami still has a progress report from ninth grade, where every teacher gave the same comment: “She talks too much!” Mi mami would laugh about that for years, but she never reprimanded me. My education wasn’t a priority for my family. I figured that out in elementary school—when mi mami complained about all my honor-roll stickers becoming a nuisance—and carried that energy into the remainder of my schooling years.

  Because I wasn’t the quiet and obedient model student, teachers overlooked me at best, or, at worst, busied me with other tasks instead of teaching or even encouraging me. In tenth grade, one teacher was so frustrated with me that she tasked me with memorizing as many digits of pi as I could, as a condition for my getting a passing grade for the class. I hated algebra but I ended up learning five hundred digits of pi, and got a C grade for that school year. And while that should have impressed my teacher, she mostly just expressed relief at not having me as a student anymore. Sometimes your favorite teacher is someone else’s worst teacher, because maybe what they liked about you was your ability to do what you were told.

  I was not that kid the teachers deemed smart. That kid who shined, that kid who teachers believed in. I was not someone who people thought was bright and destined to go places. I did not learn to read when everyone else did. A few factors came into play for all this, including my migration.

  In my country of Nicaragua, I attended a public school. Most immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean will tell you that not many families opt to enroll their children in public schools, because our public education systems can leave a lot to be desired. Most people, if they are able, enroll their children in private schools in hope of a better education. We also migrated right when I was supposed to go to second grade, and by that point I was already struggling with my reading skills.

  Like many people who are illiterate and old enough to be aware of it, I did a lot of memorizing and reciting so as to appear as thoug
h I could read. But as soon as something came up that I had not memorized, I was quickly discovered. Learning to read was hard, and being the kid who could not read well was also hard, and it began to chip at my self-confidence at a young age.

  When we came to this country, we arrived on a temporary visa. Once here, my parents were told by an immigration lawyer not to enroll us in school until after we obtained our residency. Apparently enrolling us in school signified intent to stay, and that was the last thing we were supposed to do while filing for residency.

  I had been out of school for nearly six months by the time I started school in the United States, and by then the academic school year was a month or so from ending. Because of the timing of my enrollment, I was not expected to catch up to my peers and their coursework. We had the summer off, and when school started again that August, I was eight years old. I remember walking into my second-grade class and being asked to find my desk. There were name tags on each desk, but because I could not read, I just sat anywhere. My reading skills, or lack thereof, were quickly discovered and I was immediately sent back to a first-grade class, before the majority of my new peers had even set foot into that portable classroom.

  Soon after the teachers realized I could not even recite the alphabet, I was asked to stay after school to learn to read, one-on-one, with a teacher. I have vivid memories of learning to make sense of the alphabet. I remember the joy of learning to spell my first name and my last names. The haze was lifted, I could see clearly, and the letters suddenly meant something. This all came at a time when I was also learning that my parents had names of their own, aside from mami and papi. I felt such pride when I first wrote mi mami’s name: B-L-A-N-C-A. Because I was behind and was expected to have already learned this, my victories were not celebrated. My teachers just noted that they were making progress in solving my problem.

  Soon after, mi mami got me a library card and a rolling suitcase that I regularly filled to capacity at my local library. I inhaled books like my life depended on it. But I still hated school. There was a difference for me: reading gave me life; school was intended to be punitive.

  Back then we were living in a neighborhood that was predominately populated by Nicaraguan immigrants. Sweetwater, in the early nineties, was known as Pequeña Nicaragua. This was before gentrification and before the local university bought out a lot of the properties and essentially displaced Little Nica to another part of town.

  Our neighborhood had a huge influx of new immigrants, and teachers understood to speak to the students first in Spanish, and then they slowly introduced English. I was able to somewhat hide my lagging reading skills, as we were all learning the English alphabet together. I was only discovered as a student who was “behind” when I was asked my age at the beginning of every school year.

  In third grade, we moved to another part of town about nine miles from Sweetwater. My parents packed everything we owned, again, and we moved out from a neighborhood that had quesillos a block from our apartment, fritangas within walking distance, and a middle school named after one of the most famous Nicaraguan poets: Rubén Darío. We left all these comforts and remnants of our home country and moved to this new school and neighborhood.

  This new neighborhood had residents with a mix of immigration statuses. There were a few recent immigrants, including some undocumented, but most folks were born here and their families had been here for a couple generations. A lot of the kids in this new neighborhood seemed more American, more middle-class, with two working parents, and this neighborhood was less racially diverse. While the majority of my neighbors were Cuban, and thus ethnically Latinx, racially they were mostly white or white-adjacent.

  A lot of my Latinx peers did not speak Spanish, and many even spoke English to their parents. In this new neighborhood, everything about our migration, and our poverty, stood out. As a ten-year-old in third grade, I was noticeably older. And as a kid who had recently immigrated, I was noticeably different. I was a working-class kid and an immigrant, and I did not know how to dress like my peers. I remember trying to learn and use slang, only to get smirks or corrections. I did not move in our school with the same ease that the second- and third-generation kids did. So, I started to pay close attention.

  A funny memory I have in my quest to become more American and thus assimilated occurred in the summer between sixth and seventh grade, when I listened to Power 96.5 FM late into the nights, writing down song lyrics and practicing them. My middle school would play music in the cafeteria, and everyone sang along but me. I was preparing to not be the odd one out in seventh grade, like I had felt in sixth grade. I was not allowed to listen to secular music or even English-language music at home unless I translated the lyrics for my parents. My parents heavily policed what I consumed to keep me from sinning, and to avoid my eternal damnation. Whenever I was asked to translate, I was quickly told to shut down whatever I was enjoying. So, I made concerted efforts to learn these things in private to try to fit in, to avoid being an outcast.

  Starting middle school, I just wanted to fit in. I wanted to be a part of the larger American narrative, a narrative that felt white and middle-class.

  Adapting to popular culture meant accepting it as my own. I needed to commit and distance myself from my working-class, immigrant background if I was going to be accepted. To succeed, I knew I had to fit myself into the American definition of who I should be. My assimilation in America required my assimilation into whiteness. When I finally realized what had happened, there was nothing I could do but mourn the loss of so many parts of myself.

  Systemic oppression and internalized racism keep many of us down. So, to the ones who somehow make it out: it is our duty to become cheerleaders and advocates for those who are struggling. I was never the kid with a cheering squad of mentors and teachers and family members. I was the other kid, whose cheering squad was me, myself, and I. Growing up, I needed more supportive people in my life, because I would soon discover that the gatekeepers only get meaner and more aggressive.

  I was not the chosen kid, the kid who was doted on by the adults in my life. It is easy to praise the kid who always looks polished and gets all the good grades. Racism and classism are why it is easy to accept some children and easy to overlook others. Gatekeeping taught these adults which traits were indicative of success, and they perpetuated them onto us.

  Entire school systems have found ways to keep the good white kids away from the rest of the student population. We know today that gifted programs were invented to recreate segregation within desegregated schools. Gifted programs were not about the smartest kids but about appeasing parents who could take their kids to private schools if the public school did not serve their needs. These parents’ singular concern for their children is what created the school systems we have today. I was not dumb; I just did not fit into what school systems and teachers have been told to value.

  Racism and classism function in the trickiest of ways. Specifically, for this chapter, class creates a value system: your net worth becomes your actual worth as a person. And it should be noted that Black and Brown people are disproportionately part of the working-poor class bracket. So with that logic, white people are more valuable in society, and all those who come close to it also get value by proximity.

  I remember the first time I became aware of class. I was in middle school. Before then, uniforms were pretty strictly enforced in my schools. Ibiley, the official uniform distributor for Miami-Dade during that time, sold expensive official uniforms for each school. My working-class family could not afford to purchase uniforms at those prices, so mi mami sent some swatches to mi abuelita, and she made my uniforms and sent them to me before school started. Or sometimes we thrifted them from our local Goodwill store. But while I knew I was wearing Ibiley “fakes,” no one else seemed to notice. In middle school, though, the uniform policies were lax enough that class differences became more obvious.

  One day, as I walked into my math class and took my seat, and I overh
eard people talking about someone in our class wearing fake brand-name shoes. This peer was Black, and a minority in this neighborhood by a lot. The boy had made the mistake of showing his class status while being Black, and it was all our classroom could talk about. Before, this peer of mine was considered funny and, I would even say, nice. But then he had made the mistake of wearing fakes, and nobody would let it go. The jokes centered around him being poor and they were relentless. On that day, I learned that what I wore and how I wore it mattered to everyone, and that it revealed everything about my family, my upbringing, my home, my worth, and my future. I became aware of the ways that I should create distance between myself and my working-class context. I had too much stacked against me, and I needed to get people to not pay attention to all those other things about me.

  Fast forward to high school, where I often heard anti-immigrant slurs. This was also a majority Latinx student population, but it was common to hear insults like “reffy” (refugee) thrown around. The designation of reffy befell those who merely had Spanish accents. There was an us-versus-them mentality, “us” being the more assimilated Latinx and “them” being the ones who were not. We became gatekeepers, reflecting the media that was available to us and the adults in our lives. There is tangible value in aligning ourselves to whiteness, and we were simply reflecting the society we lived in.

  I had to do everything in my power to become an “us” and not a “them.” One year, our school was stripped of our soccer championship because many of our star players were undocumented. The opposing school, also a primarily Latinx school, had found out and reported them. Those players were given conditional passes to be included in the “us” because they had something of value, a skill we were told was important. Still, when they lost their title, nobody protested.