Transcriber: Leonardo Silva Reviewer: Cristina Bufi-Pöcksteiner
Alright.
So, when I was younger, we would drive by the hair salons,
and I would see the posters of the women with beautiful hair in the windows.
And I'd turn to my mom and I'd ask if we could go in,
with hopes that, if we did,
they could magically transform my hair into what it looked like in the poster.
And every time she told me no,
because the chances that the people there did not know how to work with my hair
were extremely high.
You see, I grew up with one idea of what beautiful hair looked like:
long, blond and straight, all of which my hair is not.
But that didn't stop me.
I wanted - I was so determined
and wanted to look like the women in the posters.
And so, in third grade, it was the very first time
that I got my hair chemically straightened or relaxed.
And I was extremely satisfied with the results.
I didn't care that I spent 3.5 hours that Sunday in the hair salon.
When I showed up at school the next day, my peers looked at me differently.
They told me how beautiful I looked because of my hair.
Now, imagine what that does to an ego of a third grade girl.
So, every day after that, I asked my mom to straighten my hair,
and eventually I learned how to straighten my hair.
And then, it was just a continuous process of straightening my hair,
and I would get my hair relaxed twice a year for eight years after that.
It seems bad, but at the moment it didn't,
because I wanted so bad to fit in with what society wanted me to look like.
And I knew that I still had to express
what it meant to be Puerto Rican and black,
multicultural, biracial,
but I just wanted this image,
and eventually the heat damage caught up with me,
and the hair that was at the middle of my back was now at my jawline.
You see, my hair is weird, and I think I'm allowed to say this.
I'm allowed to say this because I live with my hair every day,
and I love it infinitely.
Thank goodness I have learned to love my hair.
So, my hair does this weird thing
where it goes from straight to really tight kinky curls, to almost wavy,
but the thing is that this is not consistent throughout my hair.
I can't predict what my hair is going to do.
It literally has a mind of its own.
I know it's an expression, but I can tell you first-hand it's true.
But here's the thing:
if I say my hair is weird, do not misunderstand me.
It's weird in its texture,
but, in context of my racial identity, in context of my heritage,
weird is the last thing I'd ever call my hair.
See, you can see my mom and her Puerto Rican heritage in my hair,
in the curls and in the waves,
and in the colour because it's kind of reddish brown,
but you can see my father's heritage if you're looking at my father.
He's bald, so -
(Laughter)
But I promise you
(Laughter)
I get my kinky roots from him.
And, eventually, I realized that the way my hair falls into place,
the way the curls kind of do what they want
is kind of similar to the way that my family moves their hips.
It's similar to my family's rhythm,
and if you couldn't tell, I come from a family of dancers.
And you can see that in my hair because it's part of my heritage.
The way each curl falls into place
is kind of like each step that my parents take,
each step that my family took to be successful, to overcome stereotypes;
each dance that we practiced in the Thriller music videos.
But, regardless of any standard,
the one word that I would use to describe both my heritage and my hair
is "beautiful."
Now, although this is what I think, it wasn't always what I was used to.
That's not what people used to tell me.
The very first time I ever wore my hair naturally, kind of like this,
was in eighth grade.
And I was super excited, because I was ready for the compliments
that I got the first time I'd ever straightened my hair,
but instead it was very different.
I was told that my hair was weird, I was told it was strange,
that it didn't look the way it was supposed to,
because there was another girl who identified as black and Puerto Rican,
and her hair looked very different from mine.
Hers was infinitely curly, infinitely voluminous,
infinitely long, and mine was not.
So, after that, I didn't want to wear my hair
the way I knew my hair should be worn.
But that didn't stop me.
After I cut my hair and regrew it so that it would be healthy again,
in high school I began to wear my hair the way it always wanted to: naturally.
And the responses were a lot different.
I got that my hair was cool.
And then they would ask, "How did you get your hair like that?"
"I kind fo just washed it."
(Laughter)
But then, people would also touch my hair,
and the amount of confusion could fill this entire room.
You see, I didn't really understand why they responded this way,
when the first time it was such a negative response.
And I could tell that it was positive, but it didn't feel right.
In general, when something is foreign to you, when you don't understand it,
you try to experiment with it, because it intrigues you.
So, you touch it and you try to understand what it is.
And then, you put it underneath a category.
It's foreign, it's unusual, but it still intrigues you.
So, you use a word that seems to fit, like "cool,"
but then fail to understand the negative connotation behind it.
You see, "cool" is what you use to describe a painting in a museum,
an artefact.
My hair is not an artefact; my hair is my hair.
It looks just as beautiful as anyone else's hair.
Just because it's not straight or wavy or whatever else my hair is not
does not mean that you still cannot call it pretty.
And also, my hair is not a reflection
of necessarily what I look like as a person.
I am beautiful, and also my hair is beautiful,
but also my hair makes me beautiful.
It took a long time for me to realize that.
You know, there are challenges when you identify as multicultural,
or as an SDLC,
which is the Student Diversity Leadership Conference I went to.
We called it "multiculti."
When you identify as multiculti, it's kind of hard,
because of the fact that you don't really know where to place yourself.
You don't necessarily think that you fit into one category
because you identify as multiple different racial and ethnic groups.
But one thing every single one of us agreed
was that our hair was so good and that we loved it infinitely,
and it was probably one of the most important parts of being multicultural.
Now -
the problem that I had and still have
is that, when people see me, they try to figure out "what" I am.
Because I am biracial, they try to figure out if I'm black,
if I'm Puerto Rican, if I'm white, if I'm -
They try to categorize me,
and they look at my hair and they have trouble doing that.
Other times, it's kind of easy for them to do it.
But the reason why they struggle is because there's no one definition
of what it means to be black and Puerto Rican,
to be multicultural,
and in the same breath, there's no one definition of beautiful hair.
You see, the amount of hair that exists in the world
could go on for ages.
The spectrum of hair is just so wide,
but all of it, regardless of how many different types of hair there are,
they all fall under "beautiful hair."
If we get rid of this one idea that we have of beautiful hair -
long, blond and straight -
then we can soon realize that everyone's hair is beautiful.
There's no one definition of beauty.
Hair is something that we also take for granted.
We kind of wake up and we just shake it off,
and we go to work and school with our hair just looking the way it does,
but you see, for me, I spend easily 20, 30 minutes every morning on my hair.
I have to make sure it looks good, not only because it matters to me,
but because I have to overcome the stereotypes
that come with being biracial,
that come with being black and Puerto Rican.
And so, when I say my hair means something to me,
it means something to me.
It's my heritage, it's my life.
My hair is loud, and it's big, and it kind of looks like me;
I am loud, and my personality is big, and, when I'm in a room, you notice me,
because I want you to.
I want you to see me, I want you to see my hair,
and I want you to think, "She's beautiful,"
not, "Oh, look at her hair. I wonder what she is."
My identity is something that only I can tell you.
That's something very personal and it belongs to me, including my hair.
So, when you say that I am not black enough,
I am not Puerto Rican enough
because my hair does not fit one standard
that you have of what black hair looks like
or Puerto Rican hair looks like,
you are wrong,
because I am black, I am Puerto Rican,
and this is the outcome of what it means to be both.
But it's not the only outcome.
My sister, whose genes are identical to mine,
her hair is completely different.
Hers has curls that can go on for days, it's so beautiful.
And I always wanted my hair to look like hers,
because it was always longer, it was always fuller.
And I realized that my hair does look like hers, but it doesn't.
It looks like hers because we're both multicultural,
because we both know that our hair means something to us,
but it's different because everyone's hair is different.
It's different because there is no one definition of true beauty.
And I keep saying this because it's such an important message.
And, as a result, we have to keep in mind to always take care of your hair.
It's precious, it does a lot for us.
It can give you a horrible first impression,
or it could be the best first impression you ever give,
because you had a really great hair day.
But, in general, take care of your hair.
You love it, it loves you.
Don't force it to do something it doesn't want to do.
Don't straighten it every single day, don't.
But instead, understand that it is beautiful,
understand that your hair will not look like everyone else's,
and that's beautiful.
Thank you.
(Applause)