beautiful, exotic

when i was nine years old, a boy at school pointed at my mustache and laughed. he followed me around the playground asking if my "real" parents got rid of me because they're actually monkeys. i went home with his laughter ringing in my ears, begging my mom to help me. 

she said that if it would make me feel better, we could try to shave my face. 

as my mother ran a razor over the tender shadows, she began the complicated process of molding the cruelty of others into some kind of teachable moment. it was a conversation that her research on adoption probably hadn't prepared her for. the unwritten chapter: what to do when your mixed race child becomes aware of their own ethnicity.

"when a girl is white, it makes the hair on her lip almost invisible if it’s blond. see? it’s just.. different for you.”

she points to her own pale face. i nod as she swipes a finger full of vaseline across my mouth. different, with hair just a little too dark for a mostly white private school. bad enough being one of the only adopted kids in any grade, anywhere on campus. but how much worse will going to school with razor bumps be compared to all the people who ask if my "real" parents are animals?

"mom?" my lower lip trembles, but i can’t make it stop. "i.. i just want to look like you.”

my mother hushes me immediately. tells me that in places i’ve never been, kids would envy my features. i am a classic island beauty with swirls of persian and the high, proud cheekbones of queens who have brought whole dynasties to their knees. i have sparkling, chocolate brown eyes all the way from puerto rico, bright with depth and light when i laugh. she notices my scowl and takes my hands. she says that my skin is not a mistake. i am the color of smoked caramel and toasted cocoa leaves; a strong cup of arabian coffee with extra milk, steam rising from my skin to the sky as i darken in the sun. she reminds me that my "real" parents are the ones who raised me, and aren't i lucky that i never get sunburnt like them? i was born with tumbling black curls, streaked with auburn and deep red golds — a gift from the mixing of cultures i've never been part of. 

my mother reminds me that the ladies at the day spa pay good money for looks like mine. they add layers of chemical caramel until they brown and darken like old leather, my colors worn home like war paint. ripping, waxing, thickening, tanning, curling, bronzing themselves into cosmetic caricature copies of people they don’t understand. i can't help but sympathize in the end, though. i hate these shades of brown as much as they do, but at least mine come free.

i turn to frown at the sight of myself. jet black eyebrows jut across my forehead in coarse, thick lines; my features severe. unkempt. intense. i run a finger over my full lips and thick eyelashes as my mother explains that my features aren’t “mainstream” in america, but would be somewhere else. the cultures that run through my veins are proud, strong, and desirable — just not here. “some people won’t understand you. you have to learn to ignore it.” i touch the side of my face, studying the dimples buried against the corner of my mouth like hidden treasure. brown. black. brown. other girls are white and thin and perfect. 

how do i ignore my own body?

"others can be cruel, but you’ll rise above! and that’s because you have an amazing -"

my mother's voice fades to background noise as tears spill from my brown eyes, running down a brown face that seems oceans away from anywhere it might belong. my mother continues on about the importance of diversity. i bite my lip and taste gooey plastic. vaseline shame.

"my classmates don't care about any of that," i mutter, unable to process how wrong it all is. i can't believe she doesn't see it, too. "people think it’s funny that i'm ugly, mom. they think my real parents are monkeys because i'm hairy like a boy. they said my last name starts with a B for baboon, and that’s why i smell so bad.”

it comes pouring out of me in a tearful rush. my mother blinks in surprise. 

"oh, sweetheart, but you're fine the way you are. you're exotic! you're beautiful! you just -"

i let her response fade out again, disgust burning in my chest. what does exotic even mean? none of the kids at school care about that. all they know is that most people our age have no moustaches and two parents who made them. the characters in our favorite stories all look like my friends, so they get cool make believe roles at recess. but there is a rule that you can’t join games as a character you don’t look like, so i am the disney princess jasmine every time. eventually, after watching the prince of egypt as a class my options expand to include the cartoon moses’ wife, zipporah, despite dubious ethnic similarity. but because she’s not a real princess, picking her earns me the role of ”pet dog” or “the maid who sings.” (it will be many years before i learn what ‘illusion of choice’ means in context.) no matter how many channels or pages i flip through, it's never my likeness staring back. 

even my adoptive family is prettier than me; fair skin and family resemblance straight down both sides. nobody else is visibly adopted. just me and my biracial younger brother, standing in such stark contrast to everyone else that strangers turn cold. we illicit all kinds of pressing questions at sunday mass: are we step-children? was our sperm donor black? do we have the same father? are my parents hosting a family from a third world country? church goers sneak glances at my mother’s ring finger when my dad stays home, as if a bare hand is enough evidence to convict her of mixing races without a (marriage) license. my mother wraps her arms around me and says that in another place, it would all be different. 

fifteen years later, from the balcony of every new place that has looked like me since, i’ve decided it has to be.