“Sayang hindi maputi.”
Hi, I just want to share this to get it off my chest. I’ve been trying to brush this off for almost two months now. I’m also almost two months postpartum. Please do not repost this outside of Reddit.
I grew up in a household where skin color mattered and affected how you were treated. You were one of the favorites if you were mestiza/mestizo, and yes, morena/moreno were treated as the least important.
My mom is mestiza and my late father was moreno. I got my dad’s complexion while the rest of my sibs got my mom’s. Every family gathering felt isolating because relatives would only look for my sibs and take them out to eat while I was left behind.
Masakit? Super. As in. Masakit.
I got used to it and eventually thought maybe that was just the “cons” of not being mestiza. I was also bullied for years and got called “negra” countless times from elementary to high school.
I even had close friends who would try to comfort me by saying I was a “black beauty,” but honestly, I would still look in the mirror wishing I had been born mestiza instead.
Whenever my mom and I were together, her friends would ask:
“Anak mo ‘yan?”
And when she’d say yes, they would stare because they couldn’t believe I was her daughter since my mom was mestiza and I clearly wasn’t.
There was even a phase in my life where I only wore long sleeves and pants just to “hide” my skin.
After all of those experiences, it took me years to learn how to love my morena skin. Years just to feel confident enough to wear sleeveless tops again. Years to fully love myself.
Why am I sharing this?
I gave birth almost two months ago, and currently, we live in my fiancé’s parents’ house.
Everyone was excited about the baby finally coming home.
But the moment we arrived, instead of feeling “finally, we’re home,” I heard comments like:
“Ay, parang hindi maputi.”
“Bakit ganiyan kulay niya?”
“O, maputi naman, pero parang hindi.”
“Hindi nagmana sa tatay.”
“Sayang, hindi maputi.”
Yes, pamilya rin sila ng mapuputi.
And they immediately passed him around while saying those things.
He was only 3 days old.
In that moment, years of bullying and painful memories came rushing back all at once. I didn’t even realize I had stopped breathing while silently watching them until my fiancé shook me because I had apparently gone pale and started sweating cold.
I immediately told him to get our baby and that we were going upstairs because I needed to rest. I said it in a way that made it clear I was no longer okay.
That night around 1 AM, everyone was already asleep except me.
I was quietly crying while staring at my newborn son in his crib.
I just couldn’t comprehend how painful it was as a mother who personally experienced colorism growing up… and now seeing my own child experience it from people who were supposed to be his “safe place.”
We eventually moved out, and we’re now living peacefully.
But it still hurts whenever I suddenly remember it during quiet moments, and I think that’s why I needed to finally let this out.
So I can breathe and move forward.
My fiancé and I also made a promise to always strive to become better parents, to end these “old mindsets” and “traditions” with us, and to make sure our child never experiences that kind of pain from us.