Cuerpo

When I was as young as eight years old, I remember not feeling beautiful. I wasn’t tall, I didn’t have green or blue eyes, and my hair wasn’t blond. Instead, I had brown eyes and brown hair. I didn’t think I was ugly. I was just average, maybe a little less than — at least that’s how I felt. I …

Cam Herrera was 14 years old when her eating disorder (ED) started. At her predominantly white middle school in Plainview, Long Island, she was the only Latina in her grade. Her body was developing; to fit in with her peers, she tried stopping the curves that Colombian-American girls are expected …

The first time I became aware that I was different from some of the folks I would call “mi gente” was when Disney’s animated drama Pocahontas came out in theaters. It was 1995, and everyone in my second-grade class was telling me I looked just like the fictionalized cartoon heroine. I did not think …

When meeting potential romantic suitors, I find myself refraining from sharing that I’m Dominican. It’s not that I’m ashamed; with my friends, I’ll yell my Quisqueya pride from New York rooftops. But it’s not always safe for me to bring up my birthplace and cultural identity when dating because …

My parents always made birthdays a grand occasion. When I was a kid, my mami would bring a cake to my grade-school class; in those moments, as I sat in front of that confectionery fire hazard, I felt on top of the world. Blowing out the candles gave me a reason to dream. It gave me an excuse to …

There’s a memory that I’ve never been able to shake. I'm seven years old, standing in front of my 13-inch TV, watching the music video for Big Pun's "Still Not a Player " — and I'm enthralled. It’s not just the lithe piano hook that has me swaying my prepubescent hips. It's the bridge, "Boricua, …

When I was around eight years old, I had a pink and purple diary with scalloped pages. On its hard-plastic cover, there was an anthropomorphic bear dressed like a ballerina balancing on a single chubby toe. In it, I often wrote about my grandmother’s cooking. I loved her food and that it was …