A family story of position, location and identity.
I knew my grandmother Nalo didn’t care about beauty because her hair was always short. Curls rested on her forehead while straight baby hairs barely covered her neck.
She worked at Cub Foods, so a uniform was her skin. The makeup in her bathroom belonged to my aunt and cousins. The only thing that touched her face was kisses. Her skin, bare from gold, instead dripped in freckles.
My mother resembles her, the same milky skin dotted with stars. When I peek at her in the bathroom, she inspects herself ritually and coldly, mouth stewing with displeasure.
Drawers are filled with Ulta products, all meant to conceal her. Her hair, short and pin-like, framed her vexed expression well.
Beauty was warm with my other grandmother, Lalo. She and I raided every makeup section in sight. Our favorite thing to do was buy matching, dark red lipsticks. Back home, she would hand me brushes to make both of us colorful and bright.
I have understood beauty through the eyes of coolie women – the descendants of indentured laborers. When slavery was abolished, there was a demand for workers, and Indians filled it. A large population went to Guyana, where my family is from. The brutal sugar cane fields were their home, and coolie the common, sole identity.
Yet, this shared loss of dignity led them on different paths. Nalo never needed beauty to survive, so she never bothered with it. My mother, the first of her line to come to America, obsessed over beauty to be accepted. And Lalo, always bold, conquered beauty as her own.
For me, being coolie was never a barrier because it had no meaning in the U.S. Still, there are other reminders of my heritage. I belonged until I didn’t, and am still navigating how to belong now.
Our tales vary, but link us together to the broader experience of foreign women, brown women, being pushed to the sidelines. Too out of place to ever be considered beautiful. Our stories reflect how beauty isn’t only on the exterior, and everyone has an internal journey towards defying the expectation.
…
Both my grandmas got married around fifteen, to men nearly ten years older. Short-haired Nalo’s marriage was arranged, while Lalo’s was of love.
Neither ever really a girl, but a caregiver for their siblings and own families.
Nalo’s husband was in and out of the home for long periods of time, taking up work in Surinam, while Lalo’s stayed next door drinking. Rearing children was a constant, lonely labor.
Their difference was that Lalo was given a taste of the American dream. Family abroad mailed back clothes and food. Her children were among the few who never walked barefoot. She bobbed her hair and wore stylish dresses to the movie theater. She, too, can be like a Bollywood star.
Ten years later, that reality changed when she was a factory worker in New York City. Beauty was trampled by labor and survival. No longer with financial support, she was a coolie first, caregiver second and woman last. Nevertheless, every weekend she went shopping in Manhattan, never dousing her inner stargirl.
Back in Guyana, Nalo’s hair was short for other reasons. It didn’t get in her way while she cleaned and her husband couldn’t grab it as easily while he beat her. She had no American family who sent the essentials. Her relatives feared her husband too much to provide help. One mistake, one clap. Clap after clap. Unkempt hair was her protection.
She lived like that for nearly forty years until she came to Minnesota alone, her estranged husband elsewhere in New York. Survival stayed the same. She moved between her children’s houses to care for her grandkids, doing the only thing she had ever known, but now with styled short hair.
Lalo also lives in Minnesota, her hair shoulder length with soft waves. When I was moving into college, she came with. On my family’s last day in the city, they decided to visit DePaul’s Loop Center. As my grandma confidently strided past the security desk in a navy pantsuit, she was greeted as a professor. I wasn’t there, but I can imagine the immense validation she felt. Again, like so long ago, she wasn’t just a stargirl within.
…
Nalo’s youngest daughter, my mother, was the luckiest of her siblings. Being sickly, Nalo couldn’t care for her. The only person who could was her sister-in-law. My mother spent her days in a large bungalow playing with farm animals and bouncing gleefully on her uncle’s lap. From vague stories, she was a fierce little girl with thick, wavy hair.
When her aunt received the opportunity to migrate to the U.S., my mother was reluctantly sent with. Stumbling into the new American school with tight braids, she came out renewed: Debbie. Her original name was too mockable. At eight years old, she understood that her old self would have to remain in Guyana.
Debbie is fifty-one now. Any mirror reflection becomes a moment to study herself. She swears by Vitamin C serums and night creams that keep her ‘light’. Her hair is always up, and she wears outfits that mimic the suburban white moms around her. Never the butt of a joke again.
But at family gatherings, when her siblings break the composure, baby waves slip out from underneath the pins. That is when I love her the most, when little Vishwanie returns.
…
As a child, I attended Evergreen Park World Cultures Community School. Lalo would send me in with tight braids, and find frizzy hair let loose when she picked me up. I never felt out of place, as my classmates also had more textured hair — along with brown complexions and parents with thick accents.
Eventually, I moved away from this world and entered what felt like a new universe. My peers looked alien, with pale skin and thin hair. In my grade, I was one of five students of color. Standing out made it hard to make friends. A classmate, Piper, told me a fix would be to “look more like her.” So, I blew out my hair, plucked my eyebrows and wore foundation that was a shade lighter.
It wasn’t until the end of fall that I made a close connection: Wyatt. He needed help with math homework, so he asked for my Snapchat. We video-called often, bonding over Star Wars, baseball, and family. Wyatt’s gelled spikes made my frizzy hair not feel so out of place.
One night, we were discussing politics, and the topic of immigration came up. He said America was for Americans, and that anybody who wasn’t could get the boot. Clearly, frizz was more palatable than a foreign accent. I immediately ended that call.
I won’t lie and say I stopped being his friend, it took too many conversations to understand that I would never be the exception. One time, as he was ranking girls in our grade, he said I was higher on the scale than Kristi — another first-generation, but African student. Expecting me to feel elated, I caught him by surprise when I started bawling.
I so desperately wanted to hear I could be prettier than Piper and prove I could be the equal of a white woman. Better, in fact. Yet, in that moment, I realized I existed in an unbreakable limbo. Too brown, but not dark enough to be overly ridiculed. And luckily, I was close enough in accent, name and mannerisms to keep me higher on the scale.
My hair became thin. Slowly, I learned the fastest way to lose fifteen pounds and the “proper” way to present myself. And as I moved within the lines, my cooliness chipped away. I became what was expected of me, just like those before me.
Containing myself could only work for so long. During COVID, I moved to a different school with other Wyatts and Pipers. Being online allowed me to experiment with my interests freely. I found “moots” on TikTok and felt inspired by their daring looks and fascinating hobbies. Coming back in-person, I rocked St. Michael-Albertville High School’s world with faux-fur and glitter. My confidence became my armor.
In playing dress up with Lalo, simply existing with Nalo and arguing with my mother about my appearance, I remembered myself. The gold of my bangle began to feel warm. My frizzy hair finally looked natural. My grandmothers’ and mothers’ stars, within me and out, shone incredibly bright. I accepted that my cooliness does not sideline, but underscores everything beautiful about me.
These women remind me that relationships to beauty can be complicated, and sometimes inaccessible. But, whether it be as simple as styling your hair or transformative as completely changing yourself, beauty will always belong to you.
Header Image by Steph McClintic
Be First to Comment