Hair Controversy

I always knew that I had nappier hair than the White, Asian and Spanish girls. It never bothered me. I knew I had shorter hair than those girls; that didn't bother me either. I liked my short and nappy hair as long as no one used it against me. Sure I cursed it when my hair had a lot of knots in it and it hurt when my mother pulled at it but I always liked the end result. Plus, I could pull my hair tight and it would stay while the other girls' hair would get messy very quickly. I had no beef with my hair.


I mean I had no beef with my hair until seventh grade. That day in class we were doing a group project and we needed to pick groups. Once we got into our groups, Ms Roos sat there thinking of a way to decide who was going to go last in the group . She decided that the person in the group with the longest hair would go first and the order would be set that way. Remember, I had short hair. Not short like a boys or extremely short. My hair grew past the nape of my neck.


This was an incredibly stupid way to decide order. This was not beauty school. And, it scared me that my teacher could not come up with something more creative. There were three girls in my group and two boys. I was one of the girls. I figured since I had shorter hair than the girls and longer hair than the boys I would go third. But, one of the boys came up to me and tried to convince me that he had longer hair than I did. It was ridiculous. The whole time we debated it and eventually it became some sort of contest for the whole class to vote on. That really bothered and embarrassed me. I never forgot it, as you can tell, but I still like my hair just the way it is. It is a part of my culture and I am proud of it. It is a part of my genes and I would never disown it. Where I came from, most of the little girls looked like me. And, even then they would tease and argue about hair even though all their types of hair were similar. After you grow up with it, you learn to live with it.