racial identity
Pocas Pero Locas, Episode 3: “Wassup, M’ija?”
After a gang unit stopped my 14 year old cousin for driving in a stolen hoopty, they took her to Eastlake Juvenile Hall and handed her over to a new abuser: a cop.
Pocas Pero Locas, Episode 2: Chicken Soup for the Homies’ Soul
An older homegirl, a hood mom whom Desiree considered her mentor, announced, "I'm jumping you in."
Pocas Pero Locas: An Interpersonal Chicana Essay Where Two Primas Make Sure Shit Gets Told Right
Myriam Gurba writes about her cousin Desiree, female gangsters, cholas, Mexican bad asses with big hair, and the criminalization of survivors.
But You Don’t Look Asian: On Being Entitled to Pain
Who deserves to feel the pain of anti-Asian violence? Who deserves to take up space with their rage? As a mixed-race person, am I allowed to be here? Do I belong?
Africa is a Continent, the United States of America is a Nation, but Blackness is My World
“African” and “American” do not define me. The words “African” and “American” seemed to be at war with one another. When I became a teenager, I started referring to myself as Black. Not African American, not Black American, just Black. To be Black is to be my own creation.
Hilaria Baldwin & the Perverse Myth of Reverse Body-Shaming
Eating while beautiful isn't heroic. Neither is rubbing glitter into your butt's stretchmarks: Myriam Gurba on the weaponization of body positivity by Hilaria Baldwin and others.
When You Can’t Claim It, But You Can’t Escape It
Revisiting one of our favorite pieces from Tasteful Rude: “Are you Black?” my first crush, a white boy, asked me as we played together in the sandbox at school. I wasn’t sure. I thought of my nickname “negrita” but I didn’t know how to explain that I’m the darkest in my family or why it seemed perfectly natural to be identified by my pigmentation. When I couldn’t answer, he ran away from me.
