PHOTO COURTESY/ Delilah Vega
I used to love my hair in the early years of elementary school. I remember the days where my mother would put my hair in little buns or ponytails, but as soon as she finished doing my hair, I would take out the small rubber bands. I loved the feeling of letting my big brown curls run wild and be free because I didn’t care about what people thought of me inside or outside of school. That all changed when I started to get older and looked at the students around me in middle school and high school, then I questioned why no one looked like me or had the same hair texture I did.
One day when getting up in the morning, I saw my sister in the restroom straightening her curly hair and placing long extensions on her scalp. Confusion grew inside of me even more because I thought to myself, “Is this what life is supposed to be like? Are women like us supposed to hide our natural hair in order to be an acceptable version of Black women?” So I began to do the same and use straighteners as well as other forms of torture to tame the curl of my hair and I tried to look like everybody else. In middle school it became even worse when some of my so-called “friends” would laugh at how short my hair was. At one point, I straightened my hair so much that it became quite short and didn’t look natural.
There would be times where whispers echoed in my ears from friends and acquaintances of mine saying, “Oh my god she has no hair.” When I would ask them about what they said, they would quickly answer, “Um, nothing.” I felt as though that each of these comments I heard broke my heart into tiny little pieces because I finally realized that I wasn’t accepted for having different hair. Simply being both Black and white made me an outsider in my own school and community. I felt like there was no place for me to speak about the pain I was going through. I had friends that treated me like a joke and I was too embarrassed to talk about it with my mother and sister. I convinced myself that not loving who you are was okay, but in reality it was not.
I kept repeating the same words I had in my head over and over that no one would ever understand me. Growing up in a community and school district where there were barely any Black students was quite hard. I didn’t see anyone who looked like me or at least understood me. All the while, TCHS did not try to make students of color feel accepted and listened to. While they were planning different events such as school dances, they did not see that students of color were feeling as though they were not loved or accepted by their own school and other students. School should be a safe haven for students, but for me, it felt like a campus filled with judgment. Some days I would walk into school and feel not only insecure about my hair but also my identity and I felt this struggle would never end.
Little did I know that my journey to self-discovery would begin once I decided to join Rampage. Rampage gave me the opportunity to speak my views and express all that I was feeling and thinking. I got the chance to write my opinion about discrimination against Black hair, police violence against Black citizens in America, why public schools needed to teach LGBTQ+ history, body positivity, the dehumanization of Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps and speak on a podcast with other brave students of color about their struggles with discrimination and other powerful topics. I felt like an outsider for all of my life and I gave a voice for the people who also felt like outsiders in our society today.
I want to thank TCHS. Without this school, I would not have met the teachers I call my lifelong mentors, friends who have stood by my side and most importantly, the people who I’ve encountered that made me feel inferior to them. I truly would have never grown as the strong Jillian I can call myself today. I am proud to say I found myself and the acceptance of my big curly hair and two beautiful ethnicities with being both Black and white. I hope next time I walk into TCHS I will see all students being represented from race, sexuality, gender and more.
I urge all of you to know your self worth and remember that we are all on our own journey to self-love, growth and acceptance. Don’t ever forget that you are yourself and no one can ever change that. To end my senior goodbye, I found that high school was not about what you looked like, but rather about how to accept people in the real world and use the opportunities you have to speak up for people who do not have a voice.
Say Their Names: Ahmaud Arbery, Rekia Boyd, Breonna Taylor, Atatiana Jefferson, George Floyd, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Tamir Rice, Darnesha Harris, Michael Brown, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, Trayvon Martin, Shelly Frey, Ramarley Graham and many other Black citizens who have lost their lives, failed by the system.