May 14, 2005
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Not Only Padrisimo, but Hermosa As Well
© The Author, 2005My mentee Sandra* is a funny, whip smart girl. Her biggest challenge in life seems to be choosing which of her many talents she would like to make a living off of. She excels at science and could easily fulfill her immigrant parent’s dreams for her to become a doctor (her mom is Mexican and her dad is Puerto Rican). In fact, when prompted, Sandra will tell you that she’s planning to study pre-med in college. But once you get to know her, she quickly reveals that she truly desires something very different than a career in medicine. She is a poet, an artist, a fashion designer (for “real” women), a party planner, a bookworm, a public speaker, and an independent thinker. The community program that I became her mentor through must have known that pre-med was just her alibi when they assigned me to her.
When I first met Sandra two years ago, she was starting 8th grade. I was completely blown away when the first conversation we had was about her insightful and dead on accurate interpretations of Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha. Even more amazing, she was reading this heavy literature for fun. You wouldn’t guess that an eighth grade girl wearing a stilettos, gargantuan hoop earrings, and a tight, intricately parted pony tail would have Siddhartha, a sketchbook, and color coded chemistry flash cards crammed into her book bag, but Sandra’s favorite game is to throw people for a loop.
“My style is ghetto princess, but my brain is Harvard all the way.”
Sandra is great. Which is why it broke my heart today to find out that she doesn’t feel as spectacular as she is.
Today Sandra and I went to see a salsa musical play called Cinderella Eats Rice and Beans at DePaul’s Merle Reskin Theater. Despite being a production aimed at younger audiences, this play was the most revolutionary feminist work I have had the pleasure of encountering all year. I won’t spoil the plot adaptation for you here, but lets just say I was pleased as punch to have Cinderella recast as a Spanish speaking foreign exchange student who is stellar at math, excellent at salsa dancing, and in love with basketball. Cinderella Eats Rice and Beans takes an insipid fairy tale about a woman who is stuck with her crappy life until a prince charming decides to marry her, and creates an empowering story that encourages audience members to embrace sisterhood and their own cultural heritage. The new reality presented in Cinderella Eats Rice and Beans is amazing and beautiful and exactly the type of empowerment that every child needs to be raised with.
Anyhow, as we exited the theater into the gorgeous sunny day, I was eager to talk with Sandra about what she thought of the production over some yummy Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Sandra is always thoughtful and opinionated, but this play really brought it out in her. As we walked a few blocks to the scoop shop, our conversation quickly moved from a critique of the play itself to a critique of how U.S. culture treats women.
“Barbie’s are such crap! If you are a Barbie you are either white or black—you are never Chicano. You are never Puerto Rican. You are never—god forbid—mixed.”
This girl floors me. I had only thought to loathe Barbie’s because first of all, they are boring, and second of all they are bimbo’s with alien bodies with a “white” ideal of beauty. It never would have occurred to me to boycott them on the basis of not being biracial.
Sandra went on, lambasting women for being crewel to other women. “Sisterhood is a load of crap too. No one is a sister to one another—even your best girlfriend judges you on the stupidest stuff. If you don’t like a guy at the moment or you are just not in the mood for a boyfriend, they pressure you. They’re all like, ‘oh, lets go through the year book and find a guy for you to like.’ I don’t think so. That’s not sisterhood.”
Her diatribe continued, “And the way girls are always criticizing each other! They go through magazines and laugh at all the celebrities, ‘oh look how gordo she is!’ Or, ‘She Ugly.’ It’s like no body is perfect enough for them.”
I was almost too caught up in being amazed at how dead on she was to notice that this point on sisterhood really hit a sore spot with her. When I caught her eye, I noticed that her face had shifted, constricting in the way that faces do when they are trying not to cry. Her eyes looked sad.
“I know what you mean. But you’ll find girls who are revolutionary like you are, I promise. They are out there.”
“Well, they aren’t Latinas,” she said.
The el rumbled by and I let the noise of it break up our conversation, giving Sandra a bit of space.
“Do you say that because some of your friends at school are being weird?”
“You could say that.”
I didn’t press the issue. We walked quietly for a time, occasionally commenting on how weirdly quiet the loop is on the weekends. Sandra is very feline in her approach to opening up to me. If she comes to me, she’ll open right up. If I go to her, she shuts right down, so I kept my distance for a while. Once we were happily munching away on our treats at Ben and Jerry’s, she was ready to let me know what was up.
“I’m doing this project about Kenya for school and I found out about this artist guy who tried to find out what Kenyans thought was beautiful. He took all these pictures of people in Kenya and he asked other Kenyans to rate who in the pictures was the most beautiful and on what they judged that by.” Sandra paused for effect, giving her head a ghetto superstar swivel before continuing, “The top three things on their list of what makes someone beautiful were personality, fashion sense, and hair style. There was one picture of a girl who wore a really bright, red dress and wore her hair really long—almost down to her back—braided with cloth. But she had really bad acne, right. But that didn’t matter to the Kenyans who voted on who was the prettiest because she was so nice and she had style.”
Sandra hesitated before she brought tears to my eyes. “I wish someone would think I was beautiful even though I have a hideous face,” she said.
I was stunned. “What?”
She looked out the window. “My face—I hate it. I want to go to a dermatologist, but my mom says no, it’s not on our insurance.”
“Everybody gets zits. I get zits. Shaun gets zits. For god sake, my mom is in her forties and she still gets zits when she’s stressed.”
“I’m the only one in my high school who has zits.”
I restrained myself from being a know-it-all and saying what I was thinking, which was something like, I sincerely doubt that.
“You know, I thought I was really ugly in high school.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I am 6 feet tall and I stand out like a sore thumb, which I like now, but in high school it made me an easy target for teasing. I was just this skinny, gawky girl with no chest to speak of and I had HUGE zits all over my cheeks for years. I went to the dermatologist and it diddn’t even help. I thought I was the only one who had zits and I was the only one who was awkward looking. But now I look back at old pictures and my yearbook and I can see that wasn’t true at all. You know what I mean?”
“I guess.”
“Look—I still have acne scars all over my cheeks.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yes I do.” I pointed them out to her.
“Oh—I never noticed.”
“And I never notice the zits you are so worried about.”
She considered this for a time.
“You are so beautiful. You are smart, opinionated, articulate, and your face is movie star gorgeous.”
“No its not…”
“Yes it is.”
“Whatever,” she said.
Sandra turned to the window and stared out at the pedestrians. She blotted her eye with her sleeve, trying to look casual as she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye without me noticing.
But I noticed.
What were you self-conscious about in high school?
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*Sandra is not her real name–I felt weird writing her real name without her permission. Not that you, my dear readers, would know that anyway, but it will let me sleep better at night if I know that you know. You know?
Comments (12)
Omigod, what a question. Yes, yes, yes. Conformity was the thing then and you didn’t dare not wear long hair parted down the middle. I went to a predominately Jewish high school and many of the students couldn’t straighten their hair, so they invented what they called (their words not mine) a “Jew-fro.”
And zits. I still get them . I use Retin-A and the insurance can’t believe that someone my age would get zits, so I have to pay the full price. I laugh every time. Even the pharmacist laughs about it. “Of course adults over 30 get zits!” he said.
But I have to say the worst hell of all was junior high school when I was a short, skinny, ungainly thing with ugly glasses and braces. Oh, the torture.
About women being weird to each other: It’s bothered me all my life. I think I’ve made the best friend of my life and something bizarre comes along and suddenly we’re talking at a great distance. Three of my friends formed a tennis group and we played every Saturday for years. I happened to get pretty sick last year (turned out to be an underactive thyroid) and couldn’t play pretty often–and when I did play, I was bad. Events just happened, and suddenly my group fell apart and only one of them talks to me anymore. Why? I don’t know. Because I was not athele enough for them? It’s hard to figure.
I’ve lost women friends over men, over jobs, over some of the stupidest things in the world. I’ll never figure it out. I consider myself a practical feminist, but I think politics just can’t overcome what culture foists upon us.
Great topic.
Lynn
How come I’m the only one commenting here?
RYC: I know exactly what you mean about “movie of the week,” but this was really good. I don’t know if it was the star-studded cast or what. I said it was because Russo wrote his own screenplay, and we all know what happens when some Hollywood idiot rips a novel apart to fit his/her stupid screenplay concept. It’s not completely necessary to see the movie and I’m sure it will come out on DVD someday. The only thing that the movie had that the book didn’t was a funnier Max (you’ll see why) due to the genius of Paul Newman and hilarious cat scenes, which weren’t as funny in the book.
About karma: ain’t that the truth? We’ll see what the great universe has to hand to me.
Thanks for your pat on the back.
Lynn
By the end of that story, I was dabbing at my own eyes. I think “Sandra” is so far ahead of her peers that it must be hard for her to deal with their shallow school-aged antics and fit herself into their world. After all, the so-called ugly duckling was indeed a beautiful swan (not to be confused with the semi-reality TV show The Swan, which in itself exemplifies all that is wrong with how this society views women). Reading this passage, it becomes clear that not only are you a fantastic writer, but you would someday make a fabulous mother.
ryc: Belgian ales, particularly whites and lambics, are my favorites. At dinner last night I had to go with Guinness (the restaurant being wine-driven and not having a great beer selection, but Guinness will always do), but my bar visit included a Witterke wit bier (a remarkable Belgian white) and a Amani (sp?) Purple Haze, which is a wheat beer aspiring to be a lambic. A friend who owns our bar of choice, The Raven, is moving ever-closer to opening a bar next door to it that will specialize in Belgians. He even asks us for suggestions! Sweet!
Wow, “Sandra” is way ahead of everybody else…how she views the world amazes me. I was self-consious about everything, except for what people thought about me. I never thought I was pretty, athletic, or talented. I never thought I had a personality at all. However, I always wore jeans, t-shirts, and hoodies/sweaters. I didn’t care if anyone thought I looked stupid because I wasn’t wearing the tight hip huggers and tight shirts that all the other girls wore…I was also self-consious about my freckles. I have so many of them and I noticed that hardly anyone at my school had them (come to find out later on that they just put on enough make-up to cover them up)…I hated make-up (still do)
Anyways, thanks for the story. Have a good day. Peace Out and Take Care.
I love the way you end your entries with a question.
Self-conscious? In high school? Perish forbid.
I was self-conscious about everything, and not self-conscious enough to hide it, so the result was just waving the red cape around and wondering why all the bulls(xxx) came at me. Looking back, I was a nervous, uptight wonk. I wouldn’t have liked me much either. : – ) Fortunately, we do get to grow and change.
Acne? Don’t get me started. I had three major zits going just this last week. My father is in his 70s and still has acne.
But the thing that makes me most self-conscious, even to this day, is intelligence. Sorry world, some of us are smarter than the average bear. Our culture neither respects, nor values, intelligence. A person with an IQ of 130-140 is as far removed from the norm as a person with an IQ of 60-70, but our society makes no allowance for this. Instead, the attitude is, “If you’re so smart, how come (sic.) you’re not rich?”
Being unusually intelligent is simply not the inherent advantage it is generally perceived to be. “But smart people have it easier in school…” Or do we? Sure, we may spend less time memorizing multiplication tables, but like life, the hard part about school is not in the coursework.
If it’s any consolation to Sandra (or to you as someone who cares about her), she at least is a step ahead of most smart people her age in being able to frame the question and even beginning to answer it. Her project on Kenya should give her remarkable insights into her own culture. Sometimes, the only way to deal with our own worlds is to imagine ourselves as some sort of Jane Goodall, trying to understand the indigenous species.
It also may be some small comfort that there are lots of others like her out here, and we struggle, in our own ways, with what she is struggling with.
Wow. I think you and Sandra hit a nerve. Thank y’all, I need that occasionally.
Take care,
brad
ack- being intelligent in high school where you have to play dumb to fit in if you even want to have a friend or two, much less a date— and she’s right on about the viciousness of women- it doesn’t seem to end either! lucky her- she has you and you believe in her!
I posted an incredibly long, and silly, response to your stereotype question on my blog. I don’t feel like writing it all over again, but you might want to check it out.
Looking forward to your next post.
Lynn
I really enjoyed both the content and writing style of you post. In answer to your question, I think EVERYONE feels self-concious in high school. Even the people you thought were “it”… to themselves I’m sure they were never good enough. I was constantly trying to fly below the radar so as not to get noticed while secretly wishing someone would notice me. What a mess. I’m so glad those years are over and now I can just be me.
I remember even feeling awkward having to walk across a classroom or answer “here” when a teacher called role. I was soooo … ungraceful, despite my name.
In tenth grade we learned about multiple intelligences, and I was convinced I was definitely kinesthetically challenged. Now that my body is changing size and shape every six weeks, it’s not so hard to walk across a room gracefully. Amazing what a little patience will provide. 
RYC: I feel like I’ve been over here way too much. But Alice Hoffman’s “The Ice Queen” is extremely weird. Unlikable narrator who is rude and nasty. All kinds of bizarre stuff about people who have been struck by lightning. A strange love affair. The narrator mellows at the end, but not enough that I liked her. I also really hated the staccato style of the prose, which I see I’m imitating here in this comment. Not at all like “The River King,” which was a beautiful book. My favorite was, and probably always will be, “Practical Magic.” I wish I could write like that because all my books would be in the same vein. And I’d be rich and famous.
Lynn
Wow people write books in your comment section! I love the aside: for “real” women… here here!
I have a terrible war going on with my facial skin, but perhaps it is my perpetual stress condition. Hey, thanks for the kind words on my mommyness… I hope I’m being good. It feels sucky though. Did you know I’m also an artist? http://www.xanga.com/newblueshoes , click back to the beginning, it has tons and tons of great stuff, and also my fabulous drawing of ovaries. Everyone needs ovaries and fallopian tubes hanging on their wall! A little shameless self promotion there. Hah.
Thanks again!
ryc: the papery skins! that was the best part of drawing the garlic! how fun to find someone else similarly fascinated with vegetable art!
This is a wonderful story, Truly. I hope that Sandra has had the opportunity to read it, or maybe someday, at least. She sounds like an amazing young woman who is ahead of her years. For the past few summers, I have worked at a girls’ sleepaway camp in Vermont as a sailing teacher and a counselor to several groups of precocious (sp?) 15 year olds. The things that come out of their mouths have always really amazed me. I would watch in awe as they tried to figure out how to live with each other and work out differences and be sensitive to each others’ feelings and space while communicating their political opinions (if only these girls were allowed to vote in the last election, this country would have been a much different place) and social observations and critiques… Sometimes I would forget that they are only 15. And then one of them would express self-doubt about something so seemingly small it was hard for me to understand how everything else became subordinate.
And I’m 22 and I still have freaking acne.