The girl with the long braid: my intellectual autobiography

Up until perhaps a year ago, I felt trapped within my own life, standing on the border between where I was born and what I was born into. Today, I wouldn’t say I’m trapped. I would just say that this is who I am. There are many names for what they call someone like me: Chicana, Tejana, Mexicana, Hispana, Mexicana-Americana, Latina, etc.

As far back as the battle at the Alamo, my family has lived on Texas soil. We are true to the word Texan. But, we are also all Mexican. I am seventh-generation Mexican. It’s hard for me to call myself Mexican when I am also American, and vice versa.

I remember sitting on top of my Nana’s powder blue, linoleum bathroom counter as a child with a worn maroon towel wrapped around my shoulders as she trimmed my bangs. I remember my mom ripping into my hair with a brush afterword and pulling it into a sleek tight braid down my back. I remember going to school and my girl friends wanting to undo my braid so they could play with it.

I had longer hair than anyone all through elementary. It went down to my hips. My classmates adored it and wished they had it. I didn’t really care about it. All three of my sisters had long hair until they got to middle school. It was normal. But still, my hair made me feel interesting. Different.

Like a lot of children, I played outside constantly. My sisters to this day will tell you stories of times they would sit at the kitchen window and giggle as they watched me playing make-believe by myself. I would talk to trees and I would hold sticks, turning them into rickety canes. I would play in the bushes pretending it was my little cave home and use milk crates as stools and dinner tables. When I got my first bike one Christmas, I went nuts over it. Every day I would ride down the alley to my special hide out, a sewage spillway. I would carry my bike down to the bottom and then spend all my time riding up and down its slanted walls under bridges and down to the hidden ponds on the other side. It was always an adventure. My sisters weren’t like me. They didn’t care for the outdoors like I did. So I mostly played by myself. I could be free outside. There wasn’t anyone to judge me (and once I had a bike, no one to watch me through the kitchen window). And all the while, my long dark braid flew behind me in the Texas breeze. It was a part of me.

In fifth grade, I cut it. I didn’t want to really. But I had to. My sister had given me head lice, and, in my mom’s opinion, it was about that time anyway. In any case, I thought I would end up feeling the same as everyone else after that, less different. And maybe this was a good thing. I didn’t want to feel different anymore.

This wasn’t what happened. In fact, the opposite happened. Middle school marked the beginning of my facing the truth. Whether or not my hair was trimmed and sitting on top of my shoulders, I was different.

When I got to high school, I had finally broken through my largely lonely and awkward pre-teen adolescence but at the same time, I walked into a world of segregation and animosity that I chose to attempt to ignore. After all, I wasn’t just Mexican. I was American too, right? Wrong.

It quickly became apparent to me that with my clear and educated vernacular and less than witty attitude, I was the “white” girl on the school soccer team. And on the flip side, my white friends would crack jokes about my ethnicity, and when I would get angry, they would simply respond by saying, “It’s alright, Ceci. I’m not talking about you. You’re not like them.” What is that even supposed to mean? But nonetheless, I was the token Mexican in the group and they never let a day go by without reminding me.

There were times where I found myself in fights, curse words streaming out from between my lips. There were times where I didn’t know what to say, taken off guard, stunned. There were times where I found myself sitting on the bleachers of the school gym crying out of anger.

I had many friends in high school, but because of this issue I had, I was never quite accepted in any group by anyone. For a long time I resented this. And at times, even in high school, I would escape to my sewage spillway and sit on the slanted wall. Thinking: Why does everyone think I have to be one or the other? Why can’t I just be me?

Later I would realize that by not fitting in either category, I would forever be the girl with the long dark braid. It follows me everywhere. To some it’s interesting, to some it’s weird, to others it’s just different. To me, it’s just who I am. I can’t help it.