Vanessa Guzman,
Corona, CA.

I am a Mexican women who has brown skin and all my life I was always self conscious about it because people would always point it out to me even those who were also Hispanic but they were lighter skinned. Even my family would. And I always took it as negative thing because sometimes that’s what it felt like they were conveying. And then growing up and becoming aware of that some people weren’t always so nice to hispanics, I always tried to be less Mexican as I could be. When they would ask me if I was Mexican I would say “Yes but I was born here so Im Mexican-American”. It wasn’t until I got to highschool that I started to embrace that I was dark and that it didn’t that mean I was any less beautiful. I began to realize that being Mexican was nothing to be ashamed as either, its who I am. EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL. But I began to make sure people I knew I was Mexican because I felt like it was important to do, to give my heritage and culture an opportunity to shine through me and began to be confident in myself. And to those who made comments about my skin color saying, “Oh you’re so dark” , “Yeah you can’t really see you’re eyeshadow because you’re so dark” , “You look like exactly like Dora!” … I made sure I would tell them, ” Yeah and? My brown skin is beautiful okay?”.