Normal Girl
October 14, 2022
Author: Kimberly Briceño
I was raised in an Ecuadorian household, with a family that was visibly Hispanic. I was visibly Hispanic. Living in a primarily white suburb, attending a primarily white school with primarily white friends, achieving normality felt almost like a pipe dream. And so, despite its unattainability, I did my best to assimilate and escape the reality of my heritage. I wanted nothing more than to feel normal, to feel like I belonged.
I started with my appearance – I dyed my hair lighter, waxed my eyebrows thin, and underlined my lips. When these small changes didn’t feel like enough, I forced a weaker accent anytime I spoke Spanish, and pretended I didn’t care each time my last name was pronounced astonishingly incorrectly. It minimized me and it consumed me. I knew forcing an identity that didn’t belong to me wasn’t helping, but I kept trying, until I realized I had never felt less normal.
When I arrived at college, I saw it as a new opportunity to connect to my cultural identity, rather than run away from it. I was optimistic about finding other Latino students that could push me to tap into my culture, and when I finally did, I again, felt out of place. It made no difference how many clubs I joined or parties I went to. I didn’t know certain pop culture references because I had, for so long, ignored Latino media, and my Spanish was far worse, thanks to a lack of practice.
So that was the verdict– I was too Latina to be white, but too white-washed to be Latina.
For a while, I painfully gave up on trying to be anything. I accepted my harsh fate as an ethnic outlier. When anyone asked where I was from, I intentionally dodged what they really wanted to know. “I’m from New Jersey.” If the interrogation continued, my script was handy and ready. “My parents are from Ecuador, but I was born here.” No further questions. As easy as it was to do this, though, I hated all of it. I constantly berated myself for abandoning my roots at a young age, and longed for a life where I had always been proud of my true identity.
So, just like I had already been doing for years, I dyed my hair again – except this time I went dark brown, and a few months later, black. There was no sudden click or life-changing moment like I anticipated, but for the first time in a long time, I felt like I looked like me. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.
I finally finished my sophomore year, and was ready to bask in the freedom of the next four months. To appropriately set the seasonal tone, I started my search for the perfect summer soundtrack. One that I could play in the car, request at a function, and maybe even cry to if needed. A few days before, I remembered, Bad Bunny had released a summer album, Un Verano Sin Ti. I knew some of his mainstream music, but because of my cultural disconnect, I had never made an effort to listen further – until then. I told myself I would listen to the entire album start to finish once, and just see if I liked it. It was the best thing I had heard all year. For the first few weeks of having it on repeat, I did my best to memorize the lyrics and catch up on the meaning of the Puerto Rican slang I did not understand. I started branching out and listening to other Latino artists, staying in the know of their celebrity gossip. I unknowingly continued immersing myself more, until I realized that the voice in the back of my head telling me I wasn’t normal, was gone.
I’ve made the executive decision to start pronouncing my last name right, and have even added the little tilde to my Instagram bio. I embrace the power of gold hoops, a slick-back hairdo, and perfectly lined lips, because it was made for me. I’ve shamelessly accepted that my obsession with Bad Bunny has probably led the DJs at Skeeps to hate me. My Spanish is nowhere near perfect, though, and I still find myself asking my mom how to say words I should probably know. I sometimes feel left out when I don’t understand certain trends on Latino TikTok. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to love myself for me, and not who I was trying to be. But in truth, I can’t go back in time to change that. And although this road to self-discovery and acceptance took longer, none of these things make me more or less Latina, and they certainly don’t make me more or less of a normal girl.
