It was the summer before the pandemic. I was sitting under the shade supervising kids as they were jumping in the pool. The orphanage I worked for at the time takes the kids to a water park every year. It is always a very fun day. As I sat there and enjoyed seeing the kids having fun, one of them approached me and sat next to me. He then asked me, ‘Misa, can I use some of your sunscreen?’— to what I replied —‘of course’—. After a few minutes, he asked again for more sunscreen. As the minutes went by, I couldn’t help but notice his behavior. He’d try to avoid the sun, wouldn’t get in the pool, and wouldn’t take his shirt off like all the other kids. He’d point at the lighter areas of his skin as if he wanted to let others know it wasn’t his normal to be that dark. All that behavior was very familiar to me as that was me as a kid. I saw myself reflected in his behavior.
Do you remember how old you were when you realized what the color of your skin was?
When I was six years old, my parents moved our family to Sonora, where my mom is from. We planted a church and lived there for most of the formative years of my life. I used to walk to school just a block away. Every day I would cross the street and walk by the store on the corner. The lady that owned the store was acquainted with my mom’s family since they had grown up together. My maternal last name is ‘Molina’. As a play on words, this lady began calling me ‘moreno’ which is also used as a last name and in Spanish means ‘dark skinned’ or ‘tan’. If you spend time around kids, you know how important names are for kids. Having her call me by another name started to bother me and I don’t remember if I understood why she was calling me that. Before the age of 6 I have no memories of understanding what the color of my skin was. It was around that time that I became aware of the color of my skin. Every time I would come back home from school, I would hope she didn’t see me because I didn’t want to have an interaction with her, or hearing her shout ‘moreno!’ from inside the little store.
As I’ve grown and matured, I’ve come to the realization that Mexican culture has a conflicting relationship with its ethnic identity. Because of Mexico’s colonization by the Spanish and French, we are a very diverse culture. Most of us are ‘mestizos’ or from a mixed race.
My family is somewhat diverse in skin color. There are all shades of brown and some even could be considered white or a lighter complexion. My dad is the darkest-skinned man among his brothers. And my mom is somewhat in the middle among her sisters. I’ve heard that when my mom was dating my dad, some in her family were mad at her for marrying a dark man. They used a very common phrase in Mexican culture. ‘Hay que mejorar la raza’ (you must improve the race), implying that a lighter complexion is considered superior or a way of bettering the race.
I don’t know what is it about our culture that skin color always comes up in conversations whenever the family gets together. When a baby is born, there is always some comment made and even lighthearted comparisons between different kids in the family. It is almost as if everyone is hoping the baby being born is lighter-skinned than the parents. I’ve got to see this firsthand in the hospital while doing my obstetrics rotation. There was one particular mother that I helped deliver her baby and the first thing she asked before she saw the baby was, ‘salió morenito’? (Did it come out dark?). Those of us who were in the room found it funny at first, but then it became painful for me to hear when I realized what she had just asked.
Growing up in this cultural environment shaped my view of skin color and also my self-esteem. Mostly in a negative way.
I was an overweight kid, and kids at school would make fun of me calling me ‘choco-Krispies’. Do you see what they did there? I’d come back home angry and I would tell my parents what kids in school were calling me. My mom and sometimes my aunts in their effort to comfort me would say ‘mijo, usted es morenito pero guapo’ (my son, you are dark-skinned but handsome). Almost everything about that phrase was right. Except there was a ‘but’ on it. Why did it have a ‘but’ there?
Thinking back, I can see how phrases like that reflect the belief widely held by Mexican culture that being of dark skin is not good enough, that it must be compensated with other things.
Growing up in church and being taught the Bible and encouraged to read it, there were some verses that stood out to me. This one in particular:
“Don’t stare at me because I am dark—
the sun has darkened my skin.
My brothers were angry with me;
they forced me to care for their vineyards,
so I couldn’t care for myself—my own vineyard.”
the sun has darkened my skin.
My brothers were angry with me;
they forced me to care for their vineyards,
so I couldn’t care for myself—my own vineyard.”
Song of Songs 1:6
Reading this passage stirred so many questions in me while growing up. Even when acknowledging the metaphorical character of this passage, I wondered, why was she ashamed of her dark skin? Should I be ashamed of my skin?
Because of my involvement in music, my favorite biblical character was always King David. Growing up I had this idea that King David was blonde and so was his son Absalon. The bible describes them both as having beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance. During Sunday school, all the drawings of David used to teach us or the ones I colored portrayed a white, blue-eyed man with curly hair. I have yet to find a scripture that explicitly said that he was blonde or white-skinned.
These experiences led me to have a personal conflict with God for making me dark-skinned. If the Bible itself, or so I thought, associated beauty with being of fair skin, then I felt like God deliberately chose to make me not as good-looking. This led me to harbor an unspoken sense of self-rejection and I developed behaviors to prevent me from getting darker. Growing up in what I believe is the warmest state of Mexico, I avoided spending time in the sun and I didn’t like going to the beach.
For most of my life, I lived as if being of dark skin was a disadvantage. I lived insecurely and often felt less than because of something that I could not really change. This was not something I thought of every day, but it wouldn't be long before there was something that would bring back the feeling.
When I was about to do my internship in Houston, Texas, one of my parent’s concerns for me to go there was racism. They were afraid I was going to be mistreated or rejected by racist people, and while I know racism is very prevalent in some areas more than others in the US, my experience in Houston was good, as Houston is a very diverse city, with a huge Hispanic population. The hospital staff in almost all of the hospitals I rotated was also very diverse. I found it hilarious that Indian nurses would ask me where I was from and when I’d tell them I was from Mexico, I could tell they were disappointed. They seemed ready to start a conversation in Hindi. I have not stayed in touch with many of them but I certainly have very good memories with them in the hospital.
Some would find it surprising that the racism that I have personally experienced has been mostly in my own country, in subtle and not so subtle ways. For example, I’ve noticed how differently I get treated when I am by myself than when I am with my white American friends. Whether it is in restaurants or walking on the streets. And that is on the subtle side.
Our beliefs about race and skin color get reflected in the way we do business. I find it embarrassing when I hear that my American friends get higher prices for common items we as Mexicans can get for cheaper. But I also find it equally offensive when foreigners equate being Mexican to a cheap labor opportunity.
If I’m allowed to make a broad generalization, it would be this: Mexico aspires to be white.
It really makes me uncomfortable to know and admit the fact that as Mexicans we are rejecting our own roots. I can easily compare this to an autoimmune disease. We, as a nation, are trying to erase our brownness. It only takes a few minutes of watching Mexican television and publicity to realize that the great majority of actors and actresses and models are caucasian. Being of lighter skin is associated with upper social class and status. Evidence of this is the newly popularized term ‘Whitexican’, and it refers to a subgroup of white upper-class people in Mexico.
It really makes me uncomfortable to know and admit the fact that as Mexicans we are rejecting our own roots. I can easily compare this to an autoimmune disease. We, as a nation, are trying to erase our brownness. It only takes a few minutes of watching Mexican television and publicity to realize that the great majority of actors and actresses and models are caucasian. Being of lighter skin is associated with upper social class and status. Evidence of this is the newly popularized term ‘Whitexican’, and it refers to a subgroup of white upper-class people in Mexico.
How did we get here?
I believe having been colonized by the Spanish we developed an admiration for their resources and education which led us to see them as superior. We learned to make a correlation between their appearance and their success. We deemed being of fair skin a desirable trait. Today perhaps our admiration of whiteness looks different but it is rooted in the same pattern of thought.
I find it completely absurd the fact that we as a culture have many ethnic slurs and names for our indigenous peoples and people of dark skin. Phrases and words that are not worth repeating here.
Call it racism, colorism, classism, or any other term you want to use, it’s all a byproduct of the same basic fear. Fear of what is different from us. Or on the other side, aspiration to become something we think is better than who we are now.
Over the years and as I have been exposed to other cultures, I realize that this is not only a problem prevalent in Mexico but all over the world. During my short time in Romania, I was warned that I might get mistreated in public spaces if I was confused with a roma person (gypsy) because of the color of my skin. A close friend recently brought to my attention the fact that in India there is a multi-billion dollar skin-lightening industry. And these are only two examples.
All of this makes me ask myself, why are we doing this to ourselves? Where does this end? What can we do about it?
Can you imagine what it is like for a kid to carry this unnecessary burden of self-rejection because of something they cannot change? To feel less than at such an early age? To feel ashamed of themselves?
I can, because I’ve lived it and I’ve seen it. And it’s not fun.
It took me a long time to bring myself to a place where I felt good about my skin. To love myself as I am and to feel good about what I see in the mirror.
I still catch myself sometimes looking around the room to see if there are others that look like me wondering if I am welcome in those circles. I still sometimes can’t help but notice people’s change in their treatment toward me before and after they find out I am a doctor, and in Christian circles, that I am a worship leader. In the back of my head, I wonder, why the change? Am I not enough without these titles? What if I wasn’t any of those things? I understand that perhaps their change in treatment has nothing to do with my skin color, but there still remains a stain on the lenses through which I used to see the world. A stain that is slowly but surely fading away.
I can’t change the way other people perceive me, but I can change what I think about myself and how I carry myself. I can’t control the way the world sees their neighbors of a different skin color but I will surely attempt to raise strong and confident kids that love themselves and everyone else regardless of their skin color or any other aspect of human life that makes us a little different from each other.
I believe God created us in his image and likeness, that He created mankind and called it good. I believe God chose humanity as the pinnacle of all creation and we are TRULY GOOD. I am GOOD just as I am. And so are you.
It gives me hope to know that a lot of work has been done and light has been shed on this subject. A lot of work still remains left to do, but we must first start with ourselves.
I don’t believe racism is going to disappear by burying the fact that it exists. Just as we need to debride a wound for it to heal, we need to expose the areas of our thinking that have been skewed by generations and allow ourselves to “be transformed by the renewing of our mind”. Only then, there can be true reconciliation. Reconciliation with our fellow brothers and sisters, and also with ourselves.