By Yensen Lambert
World Languages Chair
I’ve had a hate/love relationship with my hair ever since I was a child. My hair has a personality of its own. It’s moody and stubborn at times. It has been a source of stress, arguments, anger, joy, smiles, happiness, and tears. But its most valuable contribution to my life has been helping me define and redefine who I am and who I want to be. For a person of color, such as myself, hair can dictate where you live, how you plan your day, what activities you engage in, how late you go to sleep, how late you wake up, and summer outings you choose to participate in. It’s that powerful. Allow me to explain.
So, when my son and I first moved to Fairfield, there were very important places that we needed to locate: Starbucks, Whole Foods, a pizzeria, Five Guys, a
Dominican hair salon, and a barber shop. I asked [GFA World Languages teacher] Ronaldo John to recommend a barber shop for Ez and specifically asked him because I knew he would understand. The first day I took Ez to the barber shop, we bumped into Mr. John. While we waited for almost two hours, Mr. John and I got into a very profound conversation about hair. I showed him this picture of me from 1980 — he said it reminded him of a picture of a certain hip hop artist.
I vividly remember the day that photo was taken, because it was one of the few days in my childhood that my hair wasn’t tied up in a bun or braided tightly. My mom was out of town and my dad decided to pick out my curls with his hair pick. He was so proud of my ’fro, and so was I. My mother came home the next day and tamed my mane — I was back to very tightly braided pig tails.
I had the best childhood in the Dominican Republic. But I also remember the D.R. as a place where I wasn’t allowed to embrace who I really was. I was born on an island with a complicated history, which has made it very hard for Dominicans to define themselves. Our identity is a jambalaya of ethnicities that came together mostly by force, by accident, by power, by greed, and by love.
The DR was once Quisqueya, populated by Taino natives who were constantly invaded by other natives of Cuba and Venezuela, and conquered by Spaniards in 1492. The first African slaves were brought to the Caribbean in the early 1500s. During colonial times, we were invaded by British pirates numerous times. The French invaded Hispaniola in the 1700s, so we were French for a while, then Spanish again. In the 1800s the Haitians took over the entire island and stayed for 22 years. In 1916 we were invaded and occupied by the United States for 10 years and then again in 1965. So that explains why my sister and I look so different and the complexity of my DNA.
Sammy Sosa, one of the best Dominican baseball players in the history of the MLB, grew up hearing his black skin was ugly. He has spent the last 10 years bleaching his skin to appear less black. While this is extreme and very sad, I can relate to Sammy’s struggles with embracing his identity and physical appearance.
Growing up on the DR, natural, curly hair was considered “messy” or simply “bad hair.” At an early age, growing up with an older sister who looked nothing like me, I discovered that I was different. Her complexion was different, and her hair was always long, wavy, silky and beautiful. I remember people constantly comparing us and saying out loud that I had “bad hair” while my sister had “good hair.” At school, I wasn’t allowed to have my hair untied or unbraided because it was “messy” and not appropriate for school. So I would spend most Saturdays, from the time I was in preschool, under the hair dryer and getting my hair pulled and straightened with very loud and hot hair dryers.
Unfortunately, my straight hair would only last a day or two … sometimes just a few hours. This was very frustrating for my mom. See, I was always a very active child and spent a lot time in my backyard running with my dogs, chasing my ducks and peacock, feeding my crocs (let’s save that story for next year), and playing baseball with Papi. I used to sweat profusely and my hair would curl all over again.
My dad was a cool cat. He had the nicest fro and mustache. He always carried a hair-pick in his back pocket (the kind with a black power fist on it), wore white shoes and super ironed polyester pants. I look more like my mom, but I inherited his complexion, his super fly hair, and sense of adventure.
My dad would go to the barber shop every two weeks to get a “touch up” and I would always tag along. I was always intrigued by the practices and conversations that took place there. I still remember the smell of Cuban cigars and Caribbean rum.
It was at the barber shop where I saw my first Yankee game and where I learned about the cold war and Gorbachev’s perestroika. It was at the barber shop where my dad his friends introduced me Don Quixote, The Little Prince, and The Old Man and the Sea. It was at the barber shop where I learned how to play domino and learned about “Reaganomics.” It was at the barber shop where my dad told me stories about his time in Cuba during the revolution while the barber cut his hair.
As I got older, I started to feel self-conscious about my hair. One day at the barber shop my dad told me the story of Samson from the Bible. The Bible says that God gave Samson super human strength and that It was all contained in his hair. My dad wanted me to think of my hair as my source of strength. I can’t say that I quite understood how this story applied to my life, but that story stayed with me for a very long time.
My hair would tangle up so much that my mom would spend hours combing it and braiding it while I cried and cried. She also didn’t really know what to do with my hair. So one day she took me back to that hair salon and had Gladys, the hair dresser, cut my hair like a boy. She bought a thousand bows of different colors and pierced my ears to make sure people would know I was a little girl. My mom had good intentions — it broke her heart to hear me cry while she combed my tangled hair.
My mom kept my hair short for a few years — it became my trademark. When I was 6 or 7, she came into my bedroom while I played dress-up with my sister. She noticed I had pinned a towel to my hair because I wanted to have hair like my sister, whose wavy hair came down to her waist. She began to cry and promised me she would never cut my hair again. I never told my mom how much I started hating my hair and my appearance. Not only had I heard people say my hair was bad, but the monthly haircuts made it clear to me that it was unwanted. I was the only girl in my grade with short hair.
I also became self-conscious about my complexion. I spent most of my childhood with my mother’s family, whose complexion was much lighter than mine. They began to call me “la Morena” or “the darker one.” I know that sounds bad in translation, but it really is a term of endearment.
To protect me from society in general, my mother straightened my hair as often as possible and also made me use an umbrella when I was out in the sun for too long — she didn’t want me to get darker. In her defense, Dominican culture in the ’80s did not embrace their blackness and she didn’t want me to be rejected because of the way I looked.
My hair started growing again and it came back with vengeance: curlier, thicker, bigger, puffier. But I was still at the same school and was part of the same circle. So, my mom started getting creative about hairdos that would keep my “bad hair” tamed, but that I would also feel comfortable with. However, I never quite overcame the hatred I felt toward my hair, which later became hatred toward my physical appearance. As a teenager, I went back to the salons every weekend to straighten my hair.
It wasn’t until senior year in high school that I started liking my hair again. I started defining my identity and embracing who I truly was. It was a difficult time for me because my light-skinned Cuban classmates would constantly point out that my curly hair made me look “black,” which apparently was a bad thing.
During that year I remembered my father’s Samson story and it finally made sense. My dad wanted me to be proud of who I was and my heritage. My hair represented my blackness, my complicated identity, my sense of self, my pride. Once I allowed my hair to be free, everything else fell into place: my confidence, self-acceptance, self-love, and the way I carried myself around my peers.
My struggle as an adult has been learning how to manage and take care of my natural hair. My mother didn’t know how to manage it so she couldn’t teach me. My
father’s lessons on how to pick out my curls into a ’fro were great, but I’m not the ’fro type. As an adult, I’ve allowed my hair to be what it wants to be and not what others think it should be. I’ve had long hair, short hair, red hair, blonde hair and even green. Women of color can express and reinvent themselves with their hair. I tie it when I feel like it. I straighten it when I’m in mood to use a hairdryer. I use a comb when there’s time in the morning, if not, my fingers are just fine.
When Ezra was born he had super straight hair, but I knew it would curl up over time. Ezra looks exactly like his father but inherited a little bit of my complexion and my hair. I promised myself that I would celebrate his hair as an important part of his identity.
I started cutting his hair when he was 2 and those haircuts would take place every 5–6 months. As he got older I let him decide when it was time for a haircut and how his hair should look. I taught him how to wash it, style it and take care of it and
constantly reminded him how special his hair was. I wanted him to love his hair and to enjoy the experience of the barber shop whenever he chose to go. Now, he has his own hair pick (with a black power fist on it) and a variety of hair products.
Unlike me at his age, Ezra embraces his curly, messy, and unpredictable hair. There are no barber shops for our hair type in Fairfield, but it gives me great joy when he says, “Mami, can we go to Bridgeport? I need a ‘touch up.’”
Every morning I come to school and I see Madison and Menna and Jazzy by their lockers with their gorgeous big hair, it makes me so happy to see how they courageously embrace who they are and that they live in a time and place where they can do that. You are my Samsons.