A biracial Latinx woman stares into the camera taken from an angle she grew up hating. The camera is angled slightly below her face. Her head is tilted to the right with her darkened eyes partially opened. The image is bathed in light the color of yellow marigolds. There is a shadow that barely touches the top of her head, it is a shadow of a window pane. She is wearing a V-neck sweater that fades into the light. Her nose is strong, skinny and long, with a shadow being cast from the sun across her face. Two gold necklaces hang from her neck, one longer than the other. A cross hangs from the longer necklace and a small heart on the other, both of which are family heirlooms. Her hair is up and out of her face, accentuating her large cheeks; the same cheeks she was made fun of for having as a child. They are the cheekbones of her ancestors. Full and round, her cheeks are the cheeks of her mother, of her Tata, and her great-great grandmother. Her great-great grandmother was a native woman who raised a family on her own and owned her own business selling food to the men who worked at the local copper mine. She lived and owned land on the “white-side” of town because she was the first person there and they couldn’t get her to leave. These are the cheeks of my ancestors who forged their own path in a world that tried to extinguish them. This is an image of a woman proudly adorned with the traits of her ancestors, basked in the golden rays of the sun.
Alt Text Selfies
