My Biography:
I was born and raised for 12 years of my life in a hamlet located in New York called Livingston Manor. The town was very rural, and it was very heavily Caucasian. It had a population of about 1,000 people. I grew up in this city very awkwardly, and with very low self-esteem, and I think the problem was that no one looked like me. I knew maybe 2 African American girls, and 2 Puerto Rican girls. Although I knew other minorities, I still felt somewhat alone. I felt that I was not accepted by the Caucasians, and I felt that I fell somewhere in between being African-American and Puerto Rican. I felt alone because my culture is different than African American’s, and I look “blacker” than the typical Hispanic girls that you see on television. It didn’t help that some of the Caucasian kids would joke about my race, or call me the “n” word. I didn’t understand it at the time because I was still a child, but I was confused because I thought it was something that only African Americans were called. But throughout all of this, I did gain a best friend who is Caucasian and who did not care about my color, and another friend who is Puerto Rican.
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| The Mountains of Upstate New York |
Then my father passed when I was 10, and my mom decided to move to Illinois (very close to St. Louis) when I was 12 to be closer to my sister who had relocated there because of the military.When I got to Illinois it was great. There were a lot more minorities, and I quickly made new friends. Most of my friends in Junior High School and High School were African American, and I enjoyed their company. But at the same time I still felt that I was alone. Although the area in Illinois was more diverse than the area in New York, there weren’t a lot of Hispanics in the area, let alone any Afro-Latinos. I could probably count the number of Latinos I knew on one hand. My best friend (who still is) is African American, and I did gain one friend who was Latina, and it was nice to have the company of another fellow Hispanic Latina. I did still feel somewhat alone, but I felt blessed to have great friends.
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| The St. Louis Arch |
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| The sign in front of Fort Hood |
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| Downtown Houston |
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| My daughter Adriana. Don't worry the stove was off! |
My Natural Hair Journey:
To say that I did not know how to care for my natural hair is an understatement. I was natural for almost my entire of my life, and at the age of 10 I decided to start caring for my own hair. I did a horrible job at this. I wouldn't detangle properly, and I would just throw my hair into a bun for a week. By the time I'd take down my hair I'd have HUGE mats that would sometimes have to be cut out.I would say around 14 I learned how to detangle properly, but I would still just throw my hairup into a ponytail. And of course I used all kinds of bad products with sulfates, silicones, and mineral oil/petrolatum.
Around 16 years old I started flat ironing my hair occasionally, and my once waist length hair broke off and got down to about bra-strap length hair due to heat damage. I did this until I was about 18 years old, and I stopped with the heat at that point. But once again, I would always just throw it into a ponytail. Why did I always do the ponytail? I did not know how to care for my hair, and no one I knew was natural, so I felt awkward walking around with a big fro.
At 20 I started relaxing my hair, and it looked great at first. Until my bra-strap length hair broke off to arm-pit length, and my hair was extremely damaged, since I was also coloring with hair-dyes that had ammonia. Man did my hair go through a lot!
When I was 21 I found a website called Naturallycurly.com (which I recommend to go to), and decided to transition to natural. Seeing all of the women with their great tips on natural hair, and many different successful methods to care for natural hair made me want my natural hair back. Now at 22 years old I have done the "big-chop", and am starting to embrace my natural hair. I do not regret relaxing my hair. Even if I had not relaxed my hair I still would have had to chop off all of the damage that I've done throughout the years by using bad products and heat damage. I feel like I am natural for the first time, since I have finally learned the right way to care for my hair. I am happy to have a clean slate to start with, and I am happy to finally embrace my natural hair.
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| Before Relaxing My Hair |
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| After Relaxing (Tex-laxing) My Hair |
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| After The BC! |
