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What Color is Beautiful?
A kindergartner says he doesn't like his dark skin. His teacher grapples with how best to respond and finds a valuable resource in Nina Bonita.
Ernesto’s comment takes me back to an incident in my childhood. My mom is holding me by the hand, my baby brother in her other arm, my other three brothers and my sister following along. We are going to church and I am happy. I skip all the way, certain that I have found a solution to end my brothers’ insults.
“You’re a monkey,” they tell me whenever they are mad at me. I am the only one in my family with curly hair. In addition to “monkey,” my brothers baptize me with other derogatory names – such as Simio (Ape), Chineca (a twisted and distorted personification of being curly, and even more negative by the feminization with an “a” at the end), and Urco, the captain of all apes in the television program, The Planet of the Apes.
As we enter the church, my mom walks us to the front of the altar to pray before the white saints, the crucified white Jesus, and his mother. Before that day, I hadn’t bought into the God story. After all, why would God give a child curly hair? But that day there is hope. I close my eyes and pray with a conviction that would have brought rain to a desert.
“God, if you really exist, please make my hair straight,” I pray. “I hate it curly and you know it’s hard. So at the count of three, please take these curls and make them straight. One, two, three. ”
With great suspense I open my eyes. I reach for my hair. Anticipating the feel of straight hair, I stroke my head, only to feel my curls. Tears sting my eyes. As I head for one of the benches, I whisper, “I knew God didn’t exist.”
