By Rebekah Warren
@rebekahwarrenwrites

“Mama, what color am I? You’re brown, and Annie’s brown, but what am I?” 

My youngest daughter, Lucy, looks at me with furrowed brows, holding out her lovely, olive-tinted arm.

My mind scrambles. She’s … tan? Not quite brown, but not white. Does she know what olive-toned means?

“Well, um, you’re a little bit brown, too. Especially in the summer, since you’ve been in the pool so much and your skin is more tanned …” She nods and runs off to play, unaffected by my rambling that, embarrassingly, proves I didn’t quite know how to answer her question. I stand on the porch, watching her across the yard, wondering what I should have said.

I am Cherokee and Hispanic. My husband is white. Our oldest daughter, Annie, has my features and my coloring—dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes. Lucy is a sweet replica of her father, with an expressive face that echoes her sister as a lighter version.

I tell my girls all the time that they are beautiful. I know that’s a bit superficial. I know I should also tell them they’re smart and strong and capable, and I do. But I also want them to know that their mixed skin is beautiful in spite of the contrast to what they may see in fashion magazines one day: a sea of glistening blondes with creamy complexions, the fairest of them all.

***

As a small child, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and was exposed to people of many cultures by nature of their mission work. I never felt out of place, whether we were in Indian Country in northeast Oklahoma or in Ojinaga, Mexico. My Cherokee grandmother taught me to read and how to behave politely around adults. My Hispanic grandfather, typically, thought I hung the moon and never let me forget it.

He called me his little daughter, the words smoothed together in Spanish: mi hijita. The words still sound comforting today, more than twenty years after his passing. They were also often accompanied by some adjective, and while he thought I was brilliant and wanted to show off my reading skills to anyone who would listen, usually I’d hear that I was beautiful. He celebrated my cocoa skin, my dark eyes, and my night-black hair. As a five-year-old, I agreed with him, spinning in the mirror and proclaiming I wanted to be a “chocolate ballerina” when I grew up. As I grew, after his passing, I had to navigate spaces that were nearly absent of color, such as school, and my physical features that were once so celebrated felt more and more like a burden.

***

We are fortunate to live within the Cherokee Nation boundaries. In our rural area, the closest town has a predominantly white demographic, but we don’t have to go very far to find a place that looks more like home to me. We drive east, cross a county line, and head into the hills where the trees and locusts are plenty and creek beds provide sanctuary for our worried hearts. There is a high school for Native American students in that county, where students that look like me receive an education that extends beyond algebra and biology. The school provides cultural enrichment and opportunities to learn about their heritage in ways that would never be touched in a public school setting.

“I think we should send them,” my husband says. “It would be a great high school experience. They’d learn a ton about Cherokee culture.”

I agreed with the many benefits, but I worried about one thing: Lucy might stand out with her lighter features. Would she be accepted into the group easily or would she have to prove her worth?

I quickly realized I was worrying about my light-skinned daughter in a school with students who might not look like her, when I have barely given a thought about my dark-skinned daughter in a predominantly white space. It hit hard at first, but then I understood that as a brown woman, I have already subconsciously been training her to exist in those spaces, silently cataloging the skills she would need to make it through. I know the skills I needed to make it through.

***

In high school, I was in a friend group made up of funny, talented, lovely girls, all of whom were white. Next to their fair skin and platinum blonde hair, I looked even darker in photos than I am. I wore the right trends, went to the right places, did what it took to keep up and fit in, but by my nature, I would always stand out. I had this sneaking feeling that my appearance was good enough but never perfect.

Once, a friend and I were primping and preening to attend a basketball game. I had left my powder compact at home, and I jokingly dabbed a bit of her powder on my cheek. We were both jarred by the contrast and let out startled laughs. Our shades were glaringly different, as much as we felt the same in other ways.

I truly believe my sweet friends would say then and now that they didn’t see me as any different. We are still friends, and I know now they value me as a whole person. Then, though, my color became a running joke with others in our class. If I had a different opinion on anything, maybe even the flavor of ice cream I preferred, I’d hear, “That’s because you’re brown.” I went along with it. Most of the time, I didn’t feel any true malice toward myself, and isn’t it easier to laugh?

I didn’t have the guts to challenge that unofficial hierarchy.  

***

Here’s my new take, though: I want my daughters to challenge that hierarchy. I want them to celebrate their skin colors, even though one will fit in and one will stand out in whatever space they end up in. I will tell them of my mistakes, my shortcomings, my failures to own my color and to stand in its power.

I will tell them when classmates said things like, “That’s because you’re brown,” I wish I would have let them know that it wasn’t a cool or funny thing to say.

I will tell them when a former supervisor referred to me as a “squaw,” a derogatory term toward Native American women, I wish I would have confronted them instead of being intimidated by their position of authority.

I will tell them when a relative used another derogatory term that I can’t even repeat to describe how dark I became in the summers as a child, from playing freely and basking in the sun’s nourishing light, I wish I would have known to speak up against them.

I will tell them every single second I spent worrying about feeling less pretty than white people, staying out of the sun to avoid tanning more, lamenting the fact that I would look ridiculous with blonde hair—that was all a complete waste of my energy and an affront to the Creator who made me and my brown skin in His own beautiful image.

***

I watch Annie pull back a bow string and release a flying arrow with graceful strength. I watch Lucy dance joyfully to the rhythm of her own imagined song. I see the way their lovely faces light up with laughter and the ease with which they move in this world. I know they won’t always feel this comfortable in their own skin. There will be a day when Annie might feel awkward, her lovely color setting her apart in school. There might be a day when Lucy notices she’s much lighter than her Cherokee and Hispanic cousins. When that day comes, I will have made sure they’ve heard, every day before it, that they are beautiful, just like my grandfather did for me. They are different shades of the same color wheel, and that uniqueness is to be celebrated and cherished. I pray their confidence in the color of their skin is used for good—for their own paths and for others.

***

A few days after Lucy’s question, we three are sprawled on the couch. They’re watching a movie, and I am watching their eyes, hazel and mocha. I am tracing the outline of their arms, olive and copper. When she asks again, I will tell her: “You are the color of warm sun and of golden light. You are wonderfully and fearfully made. You are beautiful.”

Guest essay written by Rebekah Warren. Rebekah is a wife and mama to two little girls, who love running barefoot through their acreage in Oklahoma. A newly minted member of the Working Moms Club, she handles billing invoices by day and teaches Freshman Composition by evening. She is a member of the Exhale community and has previously been published on Coffee + Crumbs. You can find more of her writing on her website and on Instagram.

Photo by Ashlee Gadd.