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An Open Letter to Latinos Concerned about Brownness

At a young age, I was taught to hate my skin color. To avoid wearing purples and pinks because they made my skin tone appear darker. To avoid playing in the sun because I would become tanner. Though I grew up in the United States, I didn’t learn to look at my brown skin in distaste because of gringos; I learned from you, members of my own community. 

Our culture has taught us to associate whiteness with beauty, and to view dark skin as a shameful feature, one that evidences our indigenous roots. Though over 16 million people in Mexico alone are indigenous, seldom did I ever see actors who weren’t white in the Latino media I grew up watching. In the rare cases that I did see someone with darker skin, they were a villain, a maid, a chauffeur, and never the love interest or main character.

Those of you who when asked whether someone is attractive and automatically respond with “si, esta guerito/a”, and disparagingly say “pues esta moreno/a” when the person is dark-skinned, I do not blame you for your aversion to brownness. Latin America has a long history of colonization and racial stratification. Prior to the arrival of European settlers, between 8.4 to 113 million indigenous people inhabited Latin America. Throughout the colonial period, Latin America was involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, and today the Caribbean, Brazil, and Colombia have some of the largest Black populations outside of Africa. To deal with the predominantly non-white population, Spanish and Portuguese colonizers pushed interracial mixing, or “mestizaje”, and created a racial caste system where the closer someone was to European descent, the more political and social power they held.

Latinos’ aversion to brownness is the byproduct of colonial thinking, which has celebrated whiteness above all else. It is for this reason that I do not blame those who told me to stay away from the sun. For most of you, especially other Black and Brown Latinos, you were taught this type of thinking, and I believe that when you tell younger dark-skinned generations to avoid wearing certain colors in order to appear lighter, you are doing this with the intentions of protecting your children and loved ones from a world of hurt. One that also taught you to hate your skin, that your darkness made you inferior, and that to survive living in a society that privileges whiteness, it was better to shy away from your brownness, your indigenous roots, or African descent. 

However, I beg you to consider the role you play in maintaining these vicious cycles of anti-indigenous and anti-black rhetoric each time you tell a child that their skin tone is displeasing. What message do you send younger generations when you tell them to marry someone lighter than them, so they can “mejorar la raza”? Each time you instill in a child to feel disgust at their brownness, or to view other people’s brownness as unappealing, you contribute to the maintenance of colonial thinking which has harmed and continues to harm millions of individuals around the world. For instance, the president of the Anti-Discrimination Council (CONAPRED) in Mexico, an indigenous woman, could not find an apartment to rent in Mexico City due to discrimination from landlords—in one instance, the person who was meant to give her a viewing of an apartment didn’t even get out of their car after seeing her. In the United States, dark-skinned Latinos face higher rates of discrimination compared to white Latinos; and throughout Latin America, Afro-Latinos make up over half of the poorest population in the region. While you are not culpable for the systemic issues that Black and Brown Latinos face both in their countries and abroad, you uphold these anti-brown and anti-black ideals whenever you imply there is something wrong with dark skin. 

Brown and Black Latino children deserve to grow up in a culture that celebrates their diversity. They deserve the ability to feel pride over their dark skin that is representative of their ancestors—ancestors who survived unimaginable horrors under the reign of European settlers. These children’s skin tone is a testament to the survival of multiple generations against all odds, and it is time to allow children to view their brownness with love and celebrate it. 

 You were taught to fear brownness, but you do not need to continue this generational cycle of anti-brownness by teaching other children the same rhetoric. The media does a sufficient job of upholding whiteness, and younger generations deserve a space—even if it is only a single adult in their life—to remind them that their skin color is beautiful. 

 Sincerely, 

a brown Latina.