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Erika L. Sánchez

Everett Collection, Inc mikel roberts/Getty Images 5

These are pictures from two of the TV shows that Sánchez says that she grew up with.
How do these images illustrate what Sánchez suggests about the effect these shows
may have had on her thoughts regarding beauty?

It didn’t help that growing up, skin color looked undeniably indigenous. I still wonder,
was the object of much judgment in my family. What did she see when she looked in the mir-
If I were to use food imagery to describe my ror? Did she have some sort of dysmorphia? Did
skin (which I know is frowned upon), I’m the colonialism burrow that deeply into her psyche?
color of lightly toasted bread or a well-stirred There was also Spanish-language television,
cappuccino — not quite caramel, with strong which was abysmal on so many levels. (Unfortu-
yellow undertones. This was considered nately, it hasn’t changed much since then.) I grew
acceptable on my mother’s side of the family, up watching telenovelas in which the rich protago-
for whom being dark was (and largely contin- nists tended to be light-skinned, while the servants
ues to be) undesirable. Some family members and evil-doers were dark and indigenous-looking.
used the word “indio” as a slur against darker- The sexy women on the television program
skinned Mexicans when I was growing up. Even Sábado Gigante, and even on news shows, were
now, members of my family will occasionally always voluptuous, scantily clad, and fair.
say that someone is “dark but pretty.” The word Colorism in Mexican culture has a long his-
“prieto,” which means “dark-colored,” can be tory rooted in colonialism. Many people don’t
either affectionate or derogatory, depending on know that Mexico had a complicated legal caste
the tone. system in the 1700s, which continues to influ-
My maternal grandmother, ironically, was ence beauty standards today. To exert control
one of the worst perpetrators of this colorism. over their colonies, the Spanish commissioned
With brown skin and thick, dark braids, she paintings to illustrate different racial distinctions.

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