A Black Girl's Experience in Hispanic South Florida Many ethnic minorities sometimes face challenges concerning the norms of the majority group among which they reside. While these challenges vary, I faced a slightly differed challenge while growing up in predominantly Hispanic South Florida. In my locale, the standard of beauty is based on having long, flowing, straight hair, with a tan complexion. One might say that these features epitomize a southern European appearance. Given my Jamaican heritage, I could never really present such features since my hair is naturally afro-textured and my complexion is caramel-toffee in color. During my childhood, I was always aware of how different I was from most of the other girls. In elementary school, the majority of girls, who were of Hispanic heritage, typically wore their hair in cute ponytails while I wore mine in large plaits with colored clips. The other girls would always bombard me with questions such as "Why don't you wear your hair out?" or "Why can't you just brush your hair to make it smooth?" I was perpetually at a loss for words because, up until that point, the notion of having straight hair had not entered my mind. The sense of being different and the need to address the difference gradually became more real as time progressed. I began to ponder what I could do to become more like the other girls with straight hair. …show more content…
Hence, I continued to wear braids with my colored bubble clips until I was