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narrative / section two

Erika L. Sánchez Learning to Love My Brown Skin, 160
David Sedaris Us and Them, 165
Burnell Cotlon Wearing a Mask Won’t Protect Us from Our History, 172

central text Julia Alvarez La Gringuita, 177
conversation / What is the relationship between language and power? 185

Learning to Love My Brown Skin

Erika L. Sánchez

Erika L. Sánchez is a poet, novelist, and essayist. She is a regular
contributor on issues of gender, culture, and politics to publications
such as Time, the Guardian, Rolling Stone, Cosmopolitan, Jezebel,
and many others. She published her debut young adult novel I Am
Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter in 2017, and her memoir Crying
in the Bathroom in 2022. This piece was published in Racked Adriana Díaz
in 2016.

hen I was four years old, I climbed atop pretty, and that my uncle was simply teasing me.
W our bathroom sink to look in the mirror My family often reminds me of my cute confu-
and see if I was ugly. My uncle had said just said sion that day. “Remember that time you thought
to me, “Ay mija, como estás fea,” which, roughly you were ugly?” We laugh because, of course, I
translated, meant, “Oh honey, you’re so ugly.” wasn’t.
What I didn’t understand was that he meant Still, I wondered about this throughout my
it affectionately, that he meant the opposite. He young life. Did the world think I was ugly? What
5
didn’t actually think I was ugly; that’s just the did it mean to be pretty? Who got to decide? The
way Mexicans joke around and show love. thin white girls on the ‘90s sitcoms I loved — Full
I remember I had my hair in a tight french House, Saved by the Bell, Sabrina, the Teenage
braid, which was typical throughout my child- Witch — were always lavished with so much
hood and frequently caused me headaches. I attention, and I didn’t look like them. For one,
looked at my big nose and lips and wondered if I was the wrong color: I was way too brown.
my uncle was right. I was transfixed by my own And when I watched Beverly Hills, 90210, I was
face for a few minutes. so confused that Donna Martin, played by Tori
While I studied myself to confirm my lack of Spelling, was considered a hot girl. Were all
beauty, my mother walked into the bathroom blonde women automatically considered beau-
and burst out laughing. She knew exactly what tiful? Was I missing something? Was it some sort
I was doing and reassured me that I was, in fact, of conspiracy?

160
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Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
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