Celia de la Barbie
Identity is an interesting concept. We use identity and reference these facets of self on a daily basis. We refer to ourselves with words like “fat”, “husband”, “Black”, “Gay”, “mom” and so forth. We do this because we become attached to the internal and external parts of ourselves that makes a person. But the number one identity we develop first is our name. I was born to a beautiful and kind hearted Latina mother and a risk taking bi-racial father of Mayan and Welsh descent. They named me Celia. No, not “sell-ya” like the infamous Celia Cruz, but “seal-ya”. However, if you ask my maternal family, I was often called the former as a sense of pride. My great grandmother that lived in Guadalajara, Mexico shared my namesake, with the traditional spanish pronunciation. From the time I was very small but old enough to understand, my father has shared with me that he chose that name because it was the name of an artist on General Hospital in 1984. According to my father she was gorgeous, talented and he wanted me to be just as pretty and artistic as she was. Gorgeous? Yes. Artistic? Not even close. I can’t even accurately draw a stick figure and although I am beautiful, I do not resemble the same beauty as the fictional Celia Quartermaine because I am not Sherilyn Wolter, and I do not pass as white. Growing up this whole “name business” was confusing! I did not know how White to be or how Latina to be. This difficult path of identity got even more difficult with age and with play.
In addition to being talented and full of pop culture references, my family members are collectors and lovers of toys. I was a child with an obnoxious amount of dolls. Specifically Barbie dolls. I had so many outfits, dream homes and cars. My barbies and I reenacted Disney princesses, various movies and rock and roll music videos. But it was my favorite play time when I would watch VHS tapes of Barbie cartoons and would sing along pretending I was Teresa, the only brunette Barbie made at the time. Barbie’s fashion was my first introduction to clothes, makeup and femininity. But as I got older, I recognized my body wasn’t developing into or looking like my dolls.
I was seven years old the first time someone other than my family called me fat. I remember being on the playground and playing tag. There were about five other first graders on the field, two boys, two other girls and me. It was my turn to be “it.” As I got close to tagging one of the boys, he stopped, looked me in the eye and said, “You can’t catch me! You’re too fat.” In that moment I felt ashamed, embarrassed, and also confused. What did it mean that this boy was calling me fat? How did that prevent me from playing tag? I stopped, put my head down and walked off of the field. Not only had I found out that I wouldn’t look like my Barbie doll, this boy had discovered it too.
A few months later, I was about to turn eight and in another school yard conversation, I was reminded that I was brown. My skin color was much darker than most of my friends’ - but I wasn’t as dark as Ashley, who was black. I remember in that moment sharing a defeated glance with Ashley because it was finally public. We looked different than the rest of our friends. This moment mattered because I was still trying to understand my own external identity. Just a few months before I was challenged by the amount of fat I had on my body and now it was being brought to my attention that I was brown, I was Latina, and it felt like there was this expectation suddenly laid onto me. I had to not only be aware of my skin color and weight, but I also felt that it pushed me to be more aware of what it meant to be Latina and female. Grade school got more and more difficult. I got fatter. I became more aware of my body, the space it occupied, and I also recognized how dark I was. I felt awkward, clumsy and found that faking sickness to avoid P.E. and school in general was in my best interest. I couldn’t face my friends and the fear of being teased as the apple-shaped brown girl as we ran laps and played volleyball. It was unbearable.
Looking back on my grade school years I get angry that my little girl self was that saddened by her body. It wasn’t always like that. At about the age of three my mom and aunt would take me to dance classes. There was nothing like being on stage, dressed up and caked in stage make-up. My family would tell you I was a camera ham. Drama and dress-up was something I did every day. Music, dance and art were staples in our home. I grew up watching old movies with Carmen Miranda and Rita Moreno. Their bright red lips, dark thick curls and form fitting dresses found their way into my heart and I was convinced that this look and the women who looked just like them was what I would someday transform into. There was not only something glamorous about this romantic look, but it was sensual and it was the look of movie stars. This look perpetuated my idea of what Latina women needed to look like. My own nana had the same hair and makeup in her photos of her younger days. But most importantly, Selena Quintanilla-Pérez had this same iconic look. Her hips, lips and hair are so ingrained into Latina culture and this repeated image messaged to me that I wasn’t a “real” Latina. It is disheartening to know that at such a young age we begin to form negative views of our identity, our body and where we fit in the world. No one ever explicitly said to me that I wasn’t a true Latina girl. I formed that truth all on my own due to the hypersexualization of the Latina body we as a society had in our pop culture of the late 80’s and early 90’s.
The idea of focusing on Latina bodies has been a long battle throughout history. It is an idea sprouted from racism and colonization when Latina’s were seen as promiscuous and highly sexualized. I’m sure we’ve heard some mention of how someone appears exotic or tropical-looking, and this is commonly referred to as Tropicalism. Tropicalism is the portrayal of Latin Americans as exotic, fun, and friendly foreigners. This phenomenon was a result of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy in 1933. The intention was to repair the relationship between the US and other Latin American countries that had been influenced by an embargo on American films, which was called for by Mexico in 1922 in order to stop the offensive portrayal of Latinos. Doesn’t sound so bad does it? I mean, we got the great Carmen Miranda! The Brazilian Bombshell and dancer who became the role model for all Latina Hollywood stars to carry out the bold red lips, dark brown hair, and curve-hugging outfits that display their voluptuous female bodies. But we also got a popular culture that turned Latinas into sex symbols most likely to be shown naked or partially naked on the big screen.
Growing up Latina and going through puberty in the late 90’s was a very hard time for me. By age eight I came to the realization I wasn’t going to grow into a body like my favorite Barbie doll Teresa, nor would I be able to have the talents of the iconic Selena. Just five years later, by the age of thirteen, I was becoming more introverted and wanted nothing more than to cover my body and skin. I didn’t want anyone to see me as the apple-shaped brown girl anymore. I abandoned the tight bright colored clothing of my youth and adopted long dark skirts, dark band tees, and long uncut messy hair. I no longer wanted to be on stage and seen, but rather to hide and become something I didn’t think possible. I wanted to become a real woman.
Salma Hayek was starring in films like Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn and Fools Rush In, around this time in my life. In each of those films her wardrobe included nothing but midriff showing, breast baring tops and short skirts - except for the scenes where she plays a pregnant Isabel in Fools Rush In. This reinforced the idea that Latina bodies were intended only to be admired and used for sex, but once you were to become a mother your sexuality no longer existed and your body was covered up. As a teenager beginning to experience attraction and romantic feelings for others, I started to grow more ashamed of the lack of development of my hips, breasts and derriere. This feeling of body disappointment only got worse when the other popular brown girls of that time perpetuated a very specific type of Latina; sexual, dangerous, and a hourglass figure that reminded me of my Barbie doll. But it just wasn’t this idea of body type that messed with teenage Celia. It was also how the other big Latina stars of my youth were able to “pass” in mainstream culture as white or “white enough.”
In the early 90’s Jennifer Lopez came into the pop culture scene and was a model for young brown girls with her dark curly hair, olive skin and curves when she was first noticed as a Fly Girl in the sketch comedy television series In Living Color. This was a late night television show I was excited to watch as a kid. On the show, the representation of black and brown skin, the dancing, and especially Jennifer Lopez all sparked something in me that was starting to fade out. In my youth I loved entertaining my family and crowds at recitals, and these representations of brown and black women on In Living Color really resonated with my dreams of becoming a professional entertainer. However, after she was given the starring role as Selena Quintanilla-Pérez in the biopic film of the slain Chicana queen of Tejano music, Jennifer began a physical transformation: a thinner body, lighter colored and straightened hair, and her makeup pushed her skin tone slightly lighter and more bronze than olive. All of a sudden Jennifer was no longer a Fly Girl - she was a movie star who didn’t look too brown.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, “J Lo looks so Latina, what are you talking about ‘passable?’” Here’s a look at her transformation from 1991 to now. Her look has changed in order to be more appealing to a wider audience and to be seen as a “woman” and not a “Latina.”
But it wasn’t just Jennifer who was topping the charts with blonde hair. I was fifteen years old when Christina Aguilera first hit the scene. I was a freshman in High School and pop music was taking a turn into female teen stars and boy groups. By this time I was a proud self-declared goth. I only listened to rock and roll, specifically punk rock. So why would I listen to pop princess Britney Spears or her rival Christina Aguilera? Well, the answer was simple, I still had that inner performer child. I secretly wanted my body to be thin with curves and to possess the talent to dance and sing. But this wasn’t the time for Latinas, I mean it was the generation of the blonde Britney, Mandy, and Christina white girls. But I was wrong.
My aunt was always an inspiration and influenced me on many things, especially my pop culture tastes. We were just ten years apart, so I idolized how she “got it”and me. One day we were driving and she turned to me to ask if I was a Britney or Christina. At first I scoffed and was offended, because my ego got in the way. I was so punk rock. How did she know of my secret love of pop music? Obviously my response was, “neither of them!” which she responded with, “I love Christina! She is my little Latina hoe. This is her CD.”
We listened to “Genie in a Bottle” before we reached our destination and it wouldn't be until years later that I fully processed that Christina Aguilera was in fact Latina. The world hadn’t referred to her publically nor made a big deal out of the fact that Christina was Latina. She had the creamy white skin tone, bright blonde hair and blue eyes. But I remember that moment for a few different reasons: it was then I realized we did have young musical Latinas in the mainstream, but everyone thought she was white. Also, despite her initial look on the Christina Aguilera album, she was seen as a provocative young woman, and was that because she was also Latina, or was that just our culture? Either way, it perpetuated my belief that to identify as a Latina myself, I still needed to be thin, have a lighter skin color, and I needed to develop some curves to be taken seriously in my own culture and to be seen as beautiful.
Fast forward a few years, and at age 19 for the first time I see a Latina in a movie who has more than curves, her hair is a little messy, her face is not painted with bright red lips and I see myself in the main character, Ana Garcia, in Real Women Have Curves. America Ferrera’s performance of Ana gave me a sense of freedom, sensuality and permission to be the Latina I was: real and full of ambition. America Ferrera was the first “Hollywood Latina” that showed me and many others that we are beautiful regardless of any amount of fat that we have on our midsections. It was about owning your body, the sensuality of your skin and the how you presented your external identity of woman. In Real Women Have Curves, America’s work takes her character through the journey of choice that many Latinas have to face; family vs. independence. Her choices led her to take the path towards getting an education. This was also one of this first impactful films where I saw a woman, especially a woman of color, choose an education and herself. In movies past and within my own family, women gave all of themselves to their family, their culture and their appearance. This was also the first movie where I saw that a Latina’s self-worth was not tied to her sexuality. America continued to choose films that were written to tell stories and not show off her skin such as The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer and Under The Same Moon. She embraced her identity, femininity and body not only as a Latina but as an icon. America gave me the ability to look past my skin color and curves while also straddling my identity as a child of an immigrant mother. It was my first step to embracing not only my identity as a fat girl, but also a fat Latina.
This new confidence in myself gave me the courage to take a job at Torrid, a plus-size fashion store. At the time, Torrid was still catering to the scene of alternative fashion as a sister store to Hot Topic. We dressed everyone from a size 12-28 in clothes designed for punk rock, the retro style of the 1950-1960’s with a rock and roll twist, and they also carried goth styles. Aside from the dark colors, crushed velvet and metal accessories, Torrid was also a place for current fashions and bright colors. They even found ways to mix the two which gave me the perfect ways to express myself. I was forced to face my fears and find my inner child that once loved fashion, color and being seen. I embraced short skirts and dresses, tops that hugged my waist and highlighted my chest. I began to obsess over makeup, jewelry, shoes and the purses. All of a sudden at twenty years old I was back to the girl I always was, happy, colorful, and confident in how I presented my identity; a Latina Pop/Punk Rock Woman.
I was twenty-six the first time I ever saw Gina Rodriguez. She took a small guest role on the Lifetime television series Army Wives. In just those three episodes her acting and her look caught my attention. I knew she was Latina and she was playing one on the show. Her character also had an important story; she was in a domestic violence situation but stood up for herself and left. It was rare to see such strong Latina representation on cable television or even in movies just six years prior when I finally felt that I was coming into owning my Latina identity and womanhood. I would be holding back if I didn’t admit that Gina is an inspiration to me and a celebrity crush of mine. Since Army Wives, she has worked on television in guest spots and one-off episodes in addition to starring in the sundance film, Filly Brown. Due to her performance as an aspiring hip-hop artist in Filly Brown she was approached for a role in a show titled Devious Maids; a drama focused on five Latina women who are maids to the rich and elite in Beverly Hills. However, Gina decided to take the lead role of Jane, in the CW hit Jane the Virgin instead. Her reasoning for declining the Devious Maids role is simple. She felt the “Latina Maid” character was overdone and that Latinas had much more complex stories and characters to be heard and seen.
In a “COSMOPOLITAN” interview when asked about Devious Maids she stated,
“I couldn't do that because I'm not going to give it 100%. I am not going to take a role because there's money. It might extend my checkbook but not my integrity. I need to be happy to go to work everyday. There are other stories that need to be told. I want to be available for those because I think they need to be told, and we don't have enough of them.”