I’m really looking forward to seeing this movie because the whole hair issue is extremely interesting to me.
Growing up, I even dealt with it and I don’t even know why because my hair was never flowing like Banderas, but it wasn’t as coarse as you’d expect from someone my complexion.
There were times I permed my hair at the shop and looked like Pedro Martinez, who still perms his hair on the regular.
I’m talking lots of 99 cent store green, pink, and clear gel and Uncle Jessie from Full House mousse.
But, alas, it was way too much maintenance. I know, I sound like a girl, but it was. Some mornings I’d wake up and wouldn’t know what to do with it.
As for women, which is who this movie is about, it just doesn’t only affect Black women, but all women, especially my Latinas and specifically, mis Dominicanas.
I can’t speak for any other segment of the Latino population, but I know its a huge issue amongst Dominicans.
My mom and sister are both part of the perm committee. Well, they recently stopped because they’ve been doing it since they were small. They’ve decided to go with their hair natural because its better. But, I still know many Dominican women in my family and outside who are on the ‘creamy crack,’ as the sister’s like to call it.
Man, there were times I was dragged to the salon with mami when I was younger and I’d be there ‘all day.’ I mean, ‘all day.’ Looking back, I was miserable, but nowadays, sheesh, I wouldn’t mind spending a day mopping a floor in a salon with all those Dominican Milf’s.
Let me stop.
One of the reasons Black women go to Dominican hairstylist’s a lot is because they’re good at it, and Dominicans know how to handle their hair.
Why?
Because its basically the same.
Of course, you’ll find more Dominican women with more free, flowing hair, but a good portion of the population’s hair is no different from Black women’s because of the African ancestry factor.
In final, I really wish more people, especially Dominican women, would stop this perming nonsense because I see kids as young as 4-5 years old doing this and its not good for them.
I also hope that Dominican women go out and see this movie. That they don’t lie to themselves and say ‘this isn’t an issue I can relate to; only black women can.’ That would be my folks lying to themselves yet again.
So I urge all women to go out and check out this film and get off the crack.
Love your hair, but most importantly, yourself.
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7 responses right now ↓
1 Goddess Intellect // Oct 2, 2009 at 11:51 am
I have yet to go to a Dominican salon although Ive heard nothing but good things…
stopped perming my hair in early 20s…embracing my curls cause natural is whats up
but once inawhile I’ll swicth it up..its fun to experiment
2 admin // Oct 2, 2009 at 11:56 am
Trust, I understand some women like weaves because its more manageable and stuff. I have no problem with that.
Your hair can be real or fake, I just think some women go too far with the perming especially when its with their children.
3 lolitapop9 // Oct 8, 2009 at 10:01 pm
This response is not as timely as I would have liked it to be. Nevertheless, I’m intent on composing it for myself more than for having promised I would. So without further ado…
The best kind of truth is the kind so incredulous that you confess it rarely, so that you’re ensured that no one will ever believe you. There are many truths like that in my life, but this post is about hair.
One evening, when I was fifteen, I discovered I had curly hair. I remember it well: my two cousins and I had just returned from the beach and were grabbing supper at a pizza parlor in Port St. Lucie, Florida. My mother wasn’t with me, or she surely would have pinned my locks into a chignon the instant I emerged from the water and put a towel to my skin. I looked into a mirror hanging from the pizza parlor wall to check out how well my tan had taken, but what grabbed my attention were my curls. My “nalga”-length, Botticcelian corkscrew curls that could have been mistaken for dreadlocks, if the lights were ever so slightly faded.
Since I could remember, my mother and I had had this ritual. Every five to seven days, when my hair 1) became so greasy you could see your reflection it 2) retained the smell of my grandmother’s cooking so well you could take a whiff of it and sate any cravings you may have had for platanitos and congris or 3) made my scalp itch so bad it hurt to think, it was time for my mother to sigh, throw her arms up in the air and declare that we could no longer put off washing “la pasión” (“pasión”, in this case, from “pasa” – the term Cubans use for black folks’ hair). These were always horrible affairs where my mother, wielding a circular brush in one hand and a blow dryer in the other, would yank at my skull until her hand spasmed and my tongue would stick to the roof of my mouth from dehydration – a product of my expended tears of pain and the voracious heat courtesy of ConAir. Not that any of this mattered, mind you. I grew up in Miami, where the air is more H₂0 than O₂ and no amount of Aquanet, “creamy crack” or combination of Con Air and muscle power – and I experienced it all in spades– would ever be enough to make un-straight hair straight.
But what floors me even to this day was how much of a cultural imperative it was to at least TRY. One night, as my friend Irene and I were heading out her door to go clubbing, we were met by her father’s disapproving look. Was it our skimpy dresses or our overdone makeup? No, it was Irene’s and my wash n’ wear curly brown locks that made him shake his head and declare that we looked “sucia”. I was pretty naïve at fifteen but even then, I knew what that was code for. (Irene has bleached and straightened her hair consistently ever since.) Reflecting on all the time, money, sweat, tears, humiliation from bad 80’s feathered haircuts meant for “good” haired women, names I got called because of said bad haircuts (“toilet head” comes to mind), Pavlovian responses to weather conditions, and involuntary feelings of inferiority every time I see a woman with a bowler haircut that even now, at age 35, I can’t completely shake – I wonder how much collective TRYING has gone into that cultural imperative, and just how powerfully our perception of beauty – racial beauty – is, that so much effort can so easily be justified.
After that night at the pizza parlor over my mother’s protests, I declared our weekly “pasión”-drying ritual over – a move spawned more by my exhaustion than any real incentive to look good. And I received so many compliments on my unusually curly hair thereafter that I’m certain many of my former romantic conquests remember me more for it than – ahem, other attributes. Nowadays, I look back on those days with tenderness: at 35, my hair still curls but not nearly as tightly as it used to. I may even go back on the creamy crack and get a bowler haircut in my old age, just to say there’s nothing I won’t try at least once.
4 KT // Oct 11, 2009 at 1:48 am
Claudio,
everything Chris rock said and everything you mentioned in your post is actually discussed in the book “black behind the ears” For me, it was one of the more interesting chapters actually. She concludes that hair (more so than skin color + facial features) were the true indicators of race (in Dominican culture) she also made a great correlation between the Dominican hair salons and and their role in reinforcing a “latino/hispanic look” among Dominican women. The salon she said was a place where many Dominican women went to do a way with blackness, a place they went to get free flowing voluminous “latino/hispanic” hair. She spent over 6 months doing a case study in a wahi salon and documenting the hair culture and understanding what exactly “pelo bueno” is. The interesting thing is, Nia Long’s viewpoint of “good hair” in the clip you posted, is the exact viewpoint of many of the clients in the case study salon. Everyone desired “pelo beuno” because they associated it with class and beauty. She even went on to talk about popular “hair” discussions that happened in the salon. Many of those discussions focused on the quality of hair their husbands or boyfriends had. They were very concerned about the quality of hair their children would have. So a mates hair quality was very important. I found it interesting that many of the discussions/sentiments were very similar to the unspoken sentiments among black people. the only difference is one group often wants to distance themselves from blackness, while the other group identifies as black but desire blackness with “good hair”. (at least that’s my take)
I think the one thing that the Chris rock movie is going to point out is the quest for “good hair” is very pervasive throughout black people and ppl with black ancestry.
check out this link from a few years back about Dominican hair culture.
http://www.miamiherald.com/multimedia/news/afrolatin/part2/index.html
5 admin // Oct 11, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Kenny -
I read that series in the Miami Herald a few years ago. Its really good stuff and focused on the Dominican ordeal with hair.
I think many Dominicans don’t realize what they’re saying which is: ‘We don’t like our hair; ourselves; and our history.’
Many dark skin women and women with coarse hair, marry light and go after men with free flowing hair because they don’t want their kids to come out with their hair.
Its really a sad thing.
Instead of accepting their kids as they are, they rather orcheastrate it where the kids ‘hopefully’ come out with the man’s hair or they’ll just perm and perm.
Sad thing is that I know many women like that who I grew up with.
I can’t speak for other Latino groups, but Dominican women seem so concerned with the opposite sex than ever working on themselves.
Lyana -
Great post. I can say so much, but having your own personal experience written here is enough.
You are a true example of this whole issue and I’m glad you shared. Hopefully your story can help other women be proud of their hair and not shun it.
6 Afrodominicano // Oct 25, 2010 at 12:07 pm
I belive you are all missing the point. The movie forces us to consider that perming your hair or wearing weaves and extensions (etc.) are things that not only Dominican women do. African American women are the queens of those processes, and the movie invites us to have a conversation beyond the usual suspects. A great many of African American women have tried to shift the focus of self-hate away from themselves by making us talk about Dominican women. In this, Dominican women have become their favorite scapegoats. But not this time. The movie turns the lens on them, and they don’t like it.
7 admin // Oct 26, 2010 at 5:47 pm
I agree with that, but also feel that they dont fully make Dominican women scapegoats in the movie. I dont even see them mentioning it. I feel the issues of Black women with Dominicans have to do with how the salons have overrun black n’hoods.
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