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The flat iron addiction

SAHANA NANDIGAMA MiC Columnist

With each tug on a strand of my hair, my confidence grew. The sizzle of the flat iron slowly transformed my frizzy, untamable curls, filling me with joy as I felt like I was enhancing my beauty. I would cringe as I saw my natural hair make a reappearance after a shower. I’d quickly dry myself off, ever rushing to the glorious moment I could straighten it again. The cycle continued throughout middle and high school.

I grew up watching both Bollywood and Hollywood movies and wished my hair sat as uniform and straight as the women on the screen. My hair is thick, coarse and a mix between curly and wavy. I never knew how to classify it on the thousands of online quizzes I would take to identify my hair pattern. It is unique, but not in a way I would like. I would always spritz water in my hair before leaving the house in an attempt to smooth it down because it was frizzy and “hard on the eyes.” As I grew older, I found that many of my Desi friends felt the same. What I realized is that Bollywood does not accurately represent the hair (or skin color, among other things) of South Asians. They produce content that presents Desis as closely as possible to Eurocentric models: straight hair, fair skin and thin bodies. This way, Desis fit into the Western ideal of neat, put together and professional, contrary to how we are represented in America.

When I discovered my ability to straighten my hair in seventh grade, it was like finding gold. People take me more seriously when my hair is straight, which I’m guessing is because it looks more “American.” People compliment me noticeably more, I get told to “do my hair like this more often,” and sometimes, people are even kinder to me. In a way, I feel like I’m treated more human. In Western culture and through colonialist practices, straight, uniform hair is the ideal look. These notions reiterate harmful racist notions which perpetuate Black and Brown individuals as physically unattractive, unprofessional and disruptive.

These stereotypes and expectations are widely accepted in society and are the reason for most of my insecurities regarding my hair growing up. My hair has been one of my biggest insecurities since I was young. Its coarseness, the bushiness of my eyebrows, the “unladylike” hair that grew on my arms: These were all evident perceived flaws that you could not miss when you looked at me. I attended a predominantly white elementary and middle school growing up, so I was acutely aware of how my hair, among many other things, made me visibly different. I was never able to forget how the scent of my hair stood out when I had layered coconut oil in it the night before, how my eyebrows took up my whole forehead or how I had to shave my arms before pool birthday parties because the other girls “did not want lice.” Since the age of six, I would stress over being able to tie a bun in the very specific way we were required to for our performance for months leading up to my annual ballet recital. Straightening my hair made it more manageable and more like what it is conventionally supposed to look like. Finally, I was able to tame one of the most noticeable Desi parts of my appearance.

I used to go to local Indian hairdressers when I was younger, but once I turned 16, I started going to chain salons with mostly white hairdressers. They always lathered my hair with luxurious shampoos that I’d never used growing up and told me they would blow my hair out in the way I always wanted it to be done. I was finally proud of where I got my haircuts because, in my mind, these salons were representative of everything I intended my hair to be.

But I was always met with hypocritical comments once it actually came time to do the blowouts I waited so eagerly for. “Which side of the family gave you this curse?” one hairdresser asked me as she picked up my half-dried hair only seconds after expressing her jealousy at the preciseness of my eyebrows. This haircut happened five years ago, yet the comment has stuck with me to this day. How can something so integral to my identity be a curse? As the appointment continued, so did the hairdresser’s expression of discomfort with the thickness of my hair as she reminded me repeatedly of how blowing my hair out was her “arm workout for the day” and sent me off without completing it because the appointment had run too close to her next one. This is an experience I am very familiar with — I’ve been conditioned to understand that my hair is a nuisance, and I act accordingly: “Don’t worry about smoothing it down, I can do it at home,” “I want it straight, but it’s okay if it’s just a blow dry,” etc.

Just two months ago, I got a haircut at a popular salon in Ann Arbor with primarily white hairdressers. As soon as I walked in, I was met with numerous shampoos, conditioners and deep mask treatments on racks for sale. The waiting area smelled like lavender, and plants were perfectly positioned around me. The front desk employees even offered me tea and other beverages while I waited. I was delighted, as usual, to get the type of treatment for my hair that I’d always desired, unlike what I used to get when I went to the Desi salons at home. I came in wanting a specific hairstyle but was told that my hair would be too coarse and unruly with the product, so I should choose something else. I was prepared for this response, so I picked one of the hairstyles from the backup options on my phone — ones that I wasn’t excited about but pleased to get approval from the hairstylist. Throughout the haircut, I caught the other stylists walking past my chair as they whispered and pointed at me. Subtle gossip ended up with a group of hairstylists who were not assigned to my hair gathered around me as they frantically talked about how they would “get this done” in time. My face was so hot as I had no choice but to sit there in the chair with my hair half cut. Toward the latter half of my appointment, I had three hairdressers working on my blowout without any coordination with the style. It ended up being frizzy, and one side was slightly curled while the other was straight. Whatever, at least they had finished.

I don’t know if oiling my hair is bad for it, but honestly, I don’t care. I oil it when I am miles from home because it reminds me of how my mom would do so for me on Sunday mornings while she reminisced on how her mother would do the same for her. I oil it and feel, for a moment, that I know my grandmothers despite the fact that I never got the chance to meet them.

I can go to as many Dry Bar or Aveda salons that are out there, and surely they may be more aesthetically appealing in sight compared to the Desi hair salons I went to growing up, but they will never provide me with the same respect. They will never be able to speak to my mom in Hindi and ask her how her day was as they oil my hair in Parachute before combing it for my cut. Instead, they will explain to me the harm that the natural treatments I use have on my hair while they promote their alcohol-based shampoos to me after my appointment. They will continue to remind me that my eyebrows are only beautiful when they are threaded, and my hair is gorgeous only when it is straightened.

I ask myself what is it that makes the Desi hair salons less desirable if they have done nothing but welcome me? Is it that there is always a loud fan whirring in the background, the stylists are louder and the English is sometimes broken? Is it how these things are continuously associated with the dirtiness, nuisance and disruption that the Western world thinks Desis supposedly bring? I find it funny that I preferred light beverages, lavender scents and luxurious shampoos over actual quality customer service: Service that never made me feel bad for how I looked or like I had to admit that my hair was ugly.

To the hairstylist who affirmed with such confidence that my hair was a “curse” that my family inflicted on me, I ask why you decided to pursue a career in hair if you were never willing to work with mine? Yes, I am aware that my hair is perceived as big, hard to manage and loud. But you cannot marvel at my threaded eyebrows while rejecting the natural state of my hair.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

LUZ MAYANCELA MiC Columnist

It was the day – the first day of college. I’d been in Ann Arbor for four days, and it didn’t hit me until that morning.

It didn’t hit me as I told you that your only child was moving 206 miles away for college, nor did it hit me as you waved goodbye from the car window. I kept telling myself that I was okay. After all, I spent most of my life craving a whit of independence. The day before that morning, I strategically picked out my outfit, just like I did every year. You always told me that first impressions were crucial. I picked up my black mules, dark blue jeans and a black top, and the red beaded necklace I bought in our homeland, Ecuador. As I got ready, my heart was heavy, and it cried for you. I was officially a first-generation college student, and I was drowning. Once again, I was drowning in the American world of workaholism and college football. That morning, it finally hit me that I would say goodbye to the folkloric dance group sessions and our Ecuavolley (a form of volleyball invented by Ecuadorians) weekends that I called home for 18 years. Through the heartache, I got ready because I wanted this world to see me. I sought visibility after years of being shamed for my long black hair and broken English. Knowing that I carried you within the red beaded necklace gave comfort to my heart – comfort that I needed as I embarked on new terrain.

Learning the English language at a young age was the first time I felt myself drowning in this world. This process was new to us, given I was the first in my long ancestral Indigenous line to speak English. I was becoming a depiction of the phrase: ‘I am my Ancestors’ wildest dreams.’ I didn’t know it yet, but I was unfolding a lifelong process of being two-in-one. To you, I was your Mija (mi Hija, or daughter). But to this world, I was the daughter of immigrants. For my childhood friends and I, learning English meant unlocking a world filled with possibilities – possibilities our immigrant, low-income families didn’t have access to. We were too young to understand the value of American schooling, but you knew that attaining an education was key to our prosperity in this country. As I unlocked this world, I began to understand my life as a constant battle between two worlds: America and ours. At school, I was learning to be American. At home, I was back to being Ecuadorian-Indigenous. As I learned English, not only was I amazed by the social and cultural differences, but I was adding another layer to my dual identity. As astounding as learning a foreign language was, I resented my learning process. In school, following the English language standards was crucial for academic success. I couldn’t help but question how I was supposed to excel in school when no one at home could help me. Sometime in my early years of schooling, I realized that I would have to navigate this world without your guidance. That realization was reinforced by my placement in classes specialized for English learners. I recall feeling left out, so I began assimilating myself into this world. Ultimately, I began to receive academic validation. We relished those moments, but – deep in my heart – I felt misplaced.

Learning English and accommodating myself to this world inaugurated my lifelong journey of finding ways to live between both worlds. The more proficient I was in English, the more distant I felt from our culture. When did you start feeling my distance too? Was it when I explained to you why there are 535 people in the United States Congress? Or when I started forgetting how to say certain words in Spanish? Every day, I was more American than the day before, which was confusing to my Ecuadorian identity that was battling to show itself every day. I was burying your Mija, but I needed to for this world to accept me. This world didn’t let me speak Spanish in the classrooms. The longer my black hair got, the more I got called an ‘Indian’ by my school peers. Too often, I wanted to storm out of the classrooms and find you because you accepted me just the way I was. Every day in this world’s classrooms was a battle until I uncovered a solution: codeswitching.

The ability to switch between dialects was the answer to all my worries – at least, that’s what I thought. I could make a doctor’s appointment and rapidly repeat all the details back to you in Spanish. It was a gift. However, the more skilled I was at it, the more it felt like a chore. My code-switching skills steered me to be your local translator; gas paper bills, government-issued documents, and street signs in English seized my childhood. I had to translate backhanded comments like “Hey girl, tell your Dad to move the car?” and “You cannot help him fill out this form, okay?” Constantly using my linguistic skills to translate took over my younger years to the extent to which I felt tired and angry, but you know that. I felt worn out after having long days of school and coming home to another set of tasks. There was only so much my younger self could handle. I felt angry with this world that promoted equality and advertised itself as the Land of the Free but did not have a Spanish translator at our local Secretary of State facility. Although it was backbreaking at first, I could not say no to you, you who came to this world with nothing and allowed me to continue carrying out my ancestors’ wildest dream. As I battled through my American teenage years and learned more about this world, it became clear to me that code-switching could only help so much. Since then, I have been on the hunt for new ways to live in between worlds.

So that morning – after 18 years of resistance and invisibility – I realized I also had to come to peace with my dual identity. College would be a fresh start and an opportunity to pursue my dreams, so I decided to embrace who I was across both worlds: EcuadorianIndigenous and American. I recall putting on the black mules I bought at a Nordstrom store and thinking: Is this too American? However, the red beaded necklace I bought in a small artisan market in Ecuador a couple of years ago assured me that I was still your Mija. Since that day, I’ve found comfort in the little things. On some days, I wear the beaded earrings I stole from your closet for my research team Zoom meetings. When my professors and employers ask me to introduce myself, I tell them I am Ecuadorian-American and a first-generation college student. And when I hear someone mispronounce my name, I respectfully correct them because I recognize my name has power. I no longer feel like I am drowning. Instead, I am unapologetically swimming in a pool that I know wasn’t made for me. I walk into the classrooms of this 204-year-old institution every day acknowledging the history and power I carry. You gifted me life, and my everyday goal is to keep writing the history of our long ancestral line, even if it does take place in this new world.

Yupaychani, Mama

Yupaychani, Tayta

A letter to my immigrant parents

Yash Aprameya/MiC In Search of the Perfect Mango

NURAIYA MALIK MiC Columnist

Summer in the South Asian subcontinent is a thrilling time. Diets are forgotten, hardcore keto addicts take cheat weeks and the search for the perfect mango begins.

If you are Pakistani, you will most likely have grown up with an ingrained reverence or intense craving for the king of all fruits: the mango. Beginning in June, we anxiously await the ripening of Multani mangos. Still, it isn’t until after the monsoon rains hit that the sweetest mangoes make an appearance and the real hunt begins. Overseas Pakistanis will scour neighborhood grocery stores while those at home chase after their local fruit sellers.

Wrapped in netted foam, each orange gem is carefully tucked into place, ready to be devoured. For just a moment, you can forget your burdens and woes, and indulge in a mango. It acts as a reminder; a little piece of home delivered right to your doorstep.

There’s the Chaunsa, known for its exceptionally sweet richness. One must be quick not to judge this book by its cover since Chaunsas tend to have a fairly pale yellow exterior. My earliest memories revolve around summertime mango season: my grandparents would arrive with suitcases filled to the brim with Chaunsas. Soon, every room in the house would be infused with its fruity aroma.

People approach mangos the same way they approach life. Take the Sindri for example – a long, oval-shaped delight, and my personal favorite. Eating this mango with my family members is an anticipated yearly ritual. The simple act of cutting fruit is a love language in itself. My mother takes care to sharply slice each side and scoop out the mango with a spoon. She is swift and methodical, taking care to avoid any mess. My grandmother, on the other hand, is more chaotic. She will violently squeeze the mango, cut a small hole at the top and suck the juice until every last drop has been drawn. I learned to appreciate the nuances of each approach — most of all when I found my own. Each Sindri molds itself to suit one’s emotional needs — a space where creation and tradition can thrive alongside one another.

Then comes the long-reigning Anwar Ratols. With their delicate flavor, these pocket-sized prized possessions are a fan favorite. One bite into an Anwar Ratol and I am transported back to a hot summer afternoon playing cricket in the streets with my cousins. With piercing rays of sun and beads of sweat on each and every child’s forehead, our egos fuel our urge to carry on. After a while, we would run inside and lose ourselves in an ice-cold mango lassi: a work hard, play hard kind of lifestyle.

Langras are travelers. They are exported to Saudi Arabia, Europe and everywhere in between. As major players in the mango diplomacy between India and Pakistan, Langras also act as a bridge connecting borders. These two countries, which are at odds when it comes to political disputes and sports tournaments, are strangely bound together by this cultural phenomenon.

There is something beautiful about this shared experience — the ability of a single fruit to shape traditions, cultivate palates and revive childhood memories. While most fruits in Western countries are available all year round, Pakistanis are held captive by the changing of seasons. Bound by the natural cycle of fruits that come and go each year, we savor our moment in the sun.

The temporality of our time together makes each bite just that little bit more special. Then, when October comes around, we are forced to reconcile this bittersweet sense of loss, and the clock begins ticking in wait for next June.

CLAIRE GALLAGHER

MiC Columnist

Trigger warning: This piece contains depictions of acts of violence including but not limited to sexual assault and physical harm. Reader discretion is advised.

I.

The first time I see the girls, I am sitting in a café. I’ve settled on a booth with faded floral covers to claim as mine. I am conscious that this choice was made out of a lack of knowledge of anywhere else on campus, but the booth will do for now, until I find my way around or until I make friends to find my way around with. I think it is strange that everyone feels lonely in their first year of college but cannot be comforted by the knowledge that everyone feels lonely in their first year of college. It still feels singular and directed like the result of not sending a chain text message to ten new people when instructed to.

I read once that women cater their social performances to the male gaze even if this performance is not purposeful. Like I widen my eyes and swell air into my lips while I stand in line to order. In class, I tap my pen to my lips in between annotations like I am casually, sensually, pensive. In rooms without men, I puff breath into the gaze, ensuring its survival, hollowing my stomach into an ice cream scooper and maintaining a serene look of mysterious allure. There is something special about being a freshman girl that I did not embrace in high school and am determined to embrace now.

I met five of the girls first. Coming into the café, they move like mirages with the edges of their bodies flickering out occasionally. They walk with their arms linked or their hands intertwined up to the register with an airy quality that has always evaded my adolescent existence. I pull at my top. I don’t believe they are performing, but I also read once that not performing is a performance. The idea of this makes my head hurt because there are too many theories on what it means to be a girl. My breath is forced to slow. As they leave with their food, one girl, the one with black hair down to her waist, catches my eye and smiles at me like an old friend.

II.

My days and nights at school are routine. I want to cry when I am not invited to anything on the weekends and I do not attend anything I am invited to on the weekends. I pluck the hair between my eyebrows. I theorize that a boy in class has a crush on me. I smoke too much. I think about calling my mom, but never do. I text a girl in my class to ask if she has done the pre-lab. When she replies “not yet,” but doesn’t ask to work on it together, I cannot tell if I am humiliated or relieved.

Days are distinguished only by seeing the girls or not seeing them. I cannot explain how I can differentiate them from the general student population, only that it is simple and obvious. Sometimes I see one walking through campus alone or I see two at the smoothie shop or I walk past their sorority house and see them all through the windows. It is exciting to be near them. I study their movements, their clothes, their facial expressions or lack thereof, the way they speak to each other and the way they speak to others. I study how everyone else studies the girls too. I label awe, envy, lust, adoration and curiosity in their stares, but their eyes reveal things I cannot name as well.

I am sitting in my booth in the café when the black-haired girl approaches me. She asks if she can sit. My words stick in my throat, and I am grateful when she sits without a response. Her face is round and soft, the texture of caramel candies that can be pulled apart and tasted in pieces.

I’m Mary. It’s nice to meet you.

I settle into the feeling of being close to her because the last time I felt this weightless was the first time I learned to float. She is so still when she sits, and I didn’t know that it was possible for a person to not fidget or flush. She tells me that she has seen me around campus. I blush because she has taken note of me.

Three more girls have just come in. Mary waves them over. The blondest one introduces herself as Delilah, leaning over to kiss me on both cheeks as a greeting. The one with the low, commanding voice is Deborah. Rachel is dark blonde and tanned and reminds me of the fairy characters in a series I read as a child. I think she must be the prettiest girl I have ever seen. Not as powerful in her beauty, perhaps, as Deborah or as comforting as Mary, but certainly the prettiest, in the most uncomplicated of terms.

They ask if I would like to get coffee this Friday. At coffee, they ask if I would like to go out with them tonight. They invite me to their house, walking me up stairs and past rows of rooms. I meet a new girl at every turn. Each is welcoming and cool and beautiful. I think college is not so bad. In Mary’s room, Rachel styles me in her clothes. Shots are poured. Secrets of boys and sex and dads who don’t understand are passed around. Mary doodles a wheat field on my thigh. I swish the scene around in my mouth, and I am careful not to bite down.

At the frat, I am dancing. I jump with my arms raised above me, a permanent grin on my face. My hair flies around me with gossamer wings. Each girl wants her turn to dance with me, to go to the bathroom with me, to introduce me to a friend. I think college will be the best years of my life. Mary whispers to me that she can tell I’m a Theta girl. I repeat the words to myself. I could be a Theta girl.

III.

My life feels separated by before and after these girls. Like coming of age is behind me now. I wonder if I am one of them. I wonder if Mary was only telling me something that would make me happy.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

THE ORREN C. MOHLER PRIZE LECTURE

Fiona A. Harrison

Kent and Joyce Kresa Leadership Chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy at Caltech Harold A. Rosen Professor of Physics at Caltech and Principal Investigator for NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array mission.