Pelo malo

The mornings have been tough for me for as long as I can remember.

My mom would wake me up at five thirty, Monday through Friday, to do my hair. She would dress me while I lay in bed, rolling me from side to side to put on a clean set of undies, socks, and my school uniform. Then, on a good day, she would tickle me until I walked over to the little seat in the middle of the kitchen. The table held a container of water, a wide tooth comb, and a conditioner that smelled like roses.

It took my mom some time to learn that you cannot brush curly hair when it is dry.

Every morning I would sit on that kitchen stool, half asleep, holding back tears as the comb cascaded from my scalp down to my neck. Grunts. Whimpers. The occasional “Ouch.” That is the complicated thing about having biracial/bi-cultural parents. My mom’s wavy hair was used to a quick brush and a splash of water to tame the frizz through the humid coastal days of Ecuador. My dad’s thick curly hair was used to the pick he ran through it every morning to adjust his desired fluffiness. Neither of them had hair like mine. And neither of them quite knew what to do with it.

The Day My Brother Came Home

When my baby brother arrived, the first thing I did was take the little hat off his head.

He was the chubbiest little angel I had ever seen. Plump rosy cheeks. Little fists so tight you could see the white in his knuckles. We were a complete contrast from the very beginning. His eyes were light, mine were pitch dark. His hair was light brown, almost blonde. Mine was black as a night sky with no stars.

As I held him for the first time, I heard my mom’s sisters in the background.

“He has good hair. He is perfect.”

I was four years old. And in that moment, without fully understanding why, I felt it.

That sentence set the tone for my entire childhood. I knew my mom would not have to struggle with my brother’s hair the way she struggled with mine every morning. I knew she would prefer his soft curls as he grew older, not because she loved him more, but because his hair was not difficult. His hair was tamed. His hair was good.

And mine, by comparison, was not.

A small footnote to this story: the day my dad cut my brother’s curls, my mom lost it. How dare her husband deprive the world of their softness and bounciness? To this day, if you ask her, she will tell you with welled up tears that it was the last time she saw those curls fall around his face. To this day, she tears up at the memory of my dad’s hands ruining her son’s hair. Her son’s good hair.

Pelo Malo

The first time someone used those words, “pelo malo”, I was surrounded by women who loved me.

My mom’s sister, the one with the straightest hair of all the sisters, had come to help. She had heard from friends and neighbors about how to manage curly, unmanageable hair. My mom had done her own research too. She had asked my dad’s sisters for advice, bought every cream and conditioning product she could find, and gone into debt trying to figure out my hair. Not out of vanity. Out of love. She wanted me to feel included and loved. And I did.

Everyone had an opinion. So that weekend they sat me down, sprayed my hair, combed it in sections, and made two braids.

But the neat, detailed braids you see on straight hair did not show up on mine. Braids in my hair do not look like braids. They look like someone tried and gave up halfway through.

“Stubborn,” they said. “Pelo malo.”

Nobody meant it as cruelty. That is the most complicated part. It was just the language they had inherited. A language that decided, long before I was born, that some textures were good and others needed to be managed, tamed, fixed. It arrived so quietly, in a kitchen full of women who loved me, that I did not even know it had landed until I got older.

I was four years old and my hair was already a problem to be solved.

My Mom Was an Innovator

Eventually my mom got tired of the spray bottle. She was a busy stay at home mom running a full household with a storefront attached. She made breakfast, got me ready for school, fed my baby brother, did laundry by hand, made lunch, made dinner, and took in the neighbors’ laundry for extra cash. The day was never long enough.

So, she innovated. She started dunking my head in a bucket of water until my hair was wet enough to comb, then pushed it all to one side and tied it with an elastic band. And just to be clear, she was not trying to drown me. I simply tilted my head to the side and let the water run down. My mom was a thinker. She was ahead of her time. She was also just very tired of the spray bottle, especially when my hair dried like a sponge in about two seconds flat.

The sided ponytail became my signature look for longer than I care to admit.

Honestly though? I still use that method to this day. Not a bucket anymore, just running tap water. I push my head under the stream, get my hair completely drenched, and work from there. Some things stay with you.

Learning on My Own Terms

Then one morning, while boiling water, my mom lost control of the pot trying to save my brother from being burned. Second degree burns. Her whole hand, up her forearm.

I was four and a half. Watching her struggle to get me ready for school through that pain was all the motivation I needed. I was going to figure out my own hair. I was also extremely bored of that sided ponytail.

With practice and a lot of trial and error, I learned. Wet it first. Brush from the bottom up. Move fast before it dries. I started with clumsy one-sided braids. By my teenage years, with the help of the internet, I had graduated to French braids and beyond.

Back then, the only person constantly reminding me that my hair was beautiful, was my mom. When I was about 8 years old, I wanted to relax my hair to straighten it. After much begging, my mom took me to the hair salon and asked them a list of questions about the process, the pros and cons, how long it will take for my hair to go back to normal. She asked questions at nauseum, all while I was standing there next to her hoping and praying that after all her questions were answered she would give the okay to straighten my hair.

The Only One Who Always Said Otherwise

Back then, the only person constantly reminding me that my hair was beautiful was my mom.

When I was about eight years old, I decided I wanted to relax my hair. Straighten it. Be done with the whole ordeal. After much begging, my mom took me to the salon and proceeded to ask the hairdresser every question known to mankind. The process. The pros and cons. How long it would take for my hair to return to normal. She asked questions ad nauseam, all while I stood next to her hoping and praying that after all of that, she would just say yes.

She did not.

She bent down, took my hands in hers, looked me in the eyes, and said: “Lo siento mija, but your hair is too beautiful to ruin with chemicals.”

The hairdresser smiled at me and said to give it some time. That I would learn to love my curls.

I did not believe either of them that day. But I never forgot what they said.

Where I Am Now

It took me a long time to stop seeing my hair through the eyes of the women in that kitchen. The ones who loved me deeply and still handed me a word like pelo malo like it was just a description and not a verdict.

That is the thing about colorism. It does not always arrive loud. Sometimes it arrives in a kitchen full of aunties who mean well, in a comment about a baby’s good hair, in a belief so old nobody remembers where it started. It arrives quietly and early, and by the time you understand what happened, it has already shaped how you see yourself.

Thankfully, my mom saw the potential in my curls long before I did. Even through all my teenage years of begging for a hair straightener, she never wavered. She just kept telling me to give my hair time.

She was right.

I wear my hair curly now. Fully, proudly, loudly curly. I have learned what it needs; love, water, patience, and to be left alone sometimes (just like me lol). A bad hair day is usually just a day I forgot to listen to it and tried to rush it into being something it is not.

But at the end of the day, my hair was never bad. She was just misunderstood.

And honestly? Same.