She asked me if I liked stars.
Te gustan las estrellas
Pointing to my silver nose ring
te hizo daño?
Her 7 year old finger grazed the side of my nose.
She pointed to the volcano in the distance.
Mira esta echando humo
It was. There in the horizon was a thin grey haze over the peak of the volcano.
She lives in Tepotzlan. Her name is Jackie. I arrived at her house preoccupied with my recent decision to change my flight to an earlier date. Was I making the right decision? What if I mess it all up by changing things at the last minute? Why can't I just play it safe?
She put her bag on the table. Unzipping it, she took out a number of dolls.
(It took me a moment to realize it, but they were all blonde dolls.
Blonde with blue eyes and white skin.
This little girl, asking me questions like "how far away is your country?" and "How do you say Luna in english?" and "Do you like stars?" with her beautiful inkwell eyes and her beautiful skin, did now have dolls that looked like her.
She did not own any dolls that looked anything like her.
Or like me, for that matter.
This little girl, whose name is Jackie, short for Jacqueline, with her big smile and her bag full of dolls revealed to me a sickness in our world.
Not just in Mexican culture
Not just in north american culture.
We don't appreciate individual beauty anymore.
Anymore? I don't know if we ever have. Was it always that we strove to be blonde, trying to erase whatever trace of melatonin may be left in our DNA? As a child I put lemon juice in my hair and on my face. To be more blonde. To get rid of my freckles.
A friend of mine here in mexico has skin lightening cream. It's name literally translates to mean "White Perfection".
So I began to feel angry.
Angry at the injustices this little girl subconsciously faces. Angry at the injustices I subconsciously played into as a child. Why doesn't she have any dolls that look like her?)
She reached into her bag again and again, pulling out dolls, trinkets, tubes of lip gloss.
One by one, she went around the table and gave away bracelets and a ring of sparkly purple goo. Little gifts, she called them.
Aqui esta. Un regalito. Para ti.
Big brown eyes. She placed into my hand a little gift.
A tiny plastic kangaroo.
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1 comment:
Sad but true. I've always been scared of raising a kid in the US. the mind boggling facts include but not limited to ridiculous tv programming, horrid/way too slow elementary school academic curriculum (way way worse than in many "less" developed countries), ADD (non existent in most countries)...
however, things like un regalito para ti you have to appreciate. I think that kiddo will turn out well. as opposed to a lil girl at a mall that I saw few weeks ago that wanted me to pay before I could try the cake her mom made for her birthday. she wouldnt accept hugs nor birthday songs. only cold, hard cash. i could not believe that happened.
I did see some brown and black dolls about a week ago in a store in nyc. that's why your story made me smile. I remember how I was thinking to myself how that was probably the second or third time I've actually seen them. I remember seeing some colored barbie's friends back in the day. Had to make make the younger sister happy and play nice. Who am I kidding, I enjoyed it also.
loved the last paragraph of the tgiving blog. felt like that a few times myself, just sitting around and admiring the nature. have one of those pics from one of the summers right in front of me. wouldn't mind being there right now.
buenas noches.
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