I have a dark past. Literally. I was born with dark skin. It genetically makes sense. My dad is Puerto Rican. My mom is a quarter Turkish. When my mom was pregnant with me, the question wasn’t whether or not I would be dark, but how dark I would be. And as you can see in the adorable baby picture of week-old me, I came out with black hair, dark brown eyes, and a nice café con leche complexion.
Many babies get darker after they’re born. I didn’t. I turned white. Really white.
By the time I was three my dark brown eyes were hazel, my black hair was brown, and my café con leche skin was coquito.
There were tons of explanations given for my sudden fade. Everyone settled on two of my great grandfathers. One was from Spain and had blonde hair and blue eyes, and the other was from Austria, also with blonde hair and blue eyes. My black great grandfather, my Turkish great grandmother, and the rest of my ancestors of mostly indigenous descent must have decided not to make an appearance. White power!
I have spent my entire life getting whiter and whiter. People see my baby pictures and can’t believe it’s me. If I didn’t look like my father’s side of the family I would be convinced that I was switched at birth.
Rachel Figueroa-Levin as a baby.
I’m two nose jobs and and a bag of sequins away from being Michael Jackson.
And my march to whiteness continues. By 2015 doctors predict that I’ll be Scandinavian. By 2030 I’ll be completely transparent and live out the rest of my days in isolation to spare people from seeing internal organs through my clear skin. I think there’s a colony for people like me in Alaska.
My one consolation is summer. I don’t burn (a remnant of my dark past), but I don’t exactly tan either. I get freckles. Lots and lots of freckles. If I start now, I’ll get enough freckles that they’ll all blend together and I can look like a blurry photograph of my younger self by mid July. When I spend time out in the sun, people don’t snort when I tell them I’m Puerto Rican. Wepa.
Which is why I’m so pissed that my daughter tans better than I do. My husband is Polish. My daughter has blonde hair. Where does this Quarter-Rican child get off tanning better than me? Why does she -even with blonde hair- turn darker than I do? She doesn’t freckle. She tans evenly. Even though I coat her in SPF 9,000 sunscreen and limit her time exposed to sunlight (while I lay out in the sun all day) she’s darker than me. Those are my genes she has and I want them back!!!
Sun safety is important. Sunscreen helps prevent skin cancer and wild jealous rages from moms who miss their dark skin. This summer Adi will be wearing sun hats and sun glasses and those UV-ray-blocking t-shirts. She will sit in the shade and apply sunscreen hourly. I’ll tell people it’s because I’m a good mother but really it’s because if I get any whiter I’ll have to dangle her from the balcony of a hotel room. Plus, I don’t want her to get skin cancer when she’s older or something.
Rachel Figueroa-Levin is a soapmaker, cofounder and educator at Urban Babywearing, a hyperlocal Inwood blogger and organizer, a political/life/religion/parenting satirist, and all around trouble maker. She is also the creator of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Spanish-speaking alter ego @elbloombito. You can reach her via twitter @Jewyorican.
Tagged: black, child, children, city, family, Hispanic, identity, identity politics, Latin mothers, latino, Latino identity, mother, motherhood, new york city, Puerto Rico, race, skin safety, skin tone, sun tan, sunblock, urban
