Carmen Murguia
Celebrating Women's History Month always gets me revved up feeling muy lista (very ready) for whatever comes my way—and I like it like that! I stand tall, I stand bold, I stand firm, I stand feminine, I stand beautiful. I stand up for myself and for my fellow hermanas (sisters), I stand for my mother and for my ancestors with a fist in the air. I think of Sandra Cisneros in red lipstick behind the wheel of a red pickup truck. I think of Ana Castillo in botas de vaquero (cowboy boots) walking the streets of Chicago. I think of Gloria Anzaldúa, the scholar who opened the eyes of a 23-year-old me with her book, Borderlands/La Frontera. I think of Albita, who in her sexy Cuban ways had me singing out, “Que manera de quererte, que manera!” (“What a way to love you, what a way!”) I think of La India, princess of salsa, encouraging me to stand up to men who tell lies when she could not. I think of Carolina Herrera, who showed me that a girl can grow up to run an empire, design elegant clothes, flawless under the pressures of a male-dominated industry. I think of the gavel struck by the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor.
Being a proud Latina woman also doesn't mean I'm limited to only thinking about other Latinas; after all, I was raised in a household that valued diversity and nationalities and cultures and races. So, I also think of activist Angela Davis and ballerina Misty Copeland, Rabbi Alysa Stanton and Princess Grace of Monaco, author Amy Tan and astronaut Mae Carol Jemison, comedians Ellen Degeneres and Margaret Cho, WNBA star Kayla McBride and Serena and Venus Williams, whose talents are on and off the courts.
I am a proud Latina woman. It hasn't always been this way. The messages I received early on contradicted my difference as a girl who liked being a girl. It was brought to my attention by boys and adults (both men and women) around me that girls were second-class citizens, girls were not as important as boys, girls had their place` and boys didn't; I was told that girls were designed for cooking, cleaning up after the boys and, one day, strive to marry a man who would take care of me and my needs so long as I wasn't too demanding and played the role of wife, girlfriend, lover and friend. There wasn't even a decent term to describe all of who I was as a girl when it came to playing tag or basketball, climbing mountains and trees, riding my bike from morning until the streetlights came on—the word was opposite of who I was as a child, a teen and young adult and how I moved through the world: tomboy.
The origins of “tomboy” come from the mid-16th century, it actually was a name for male children who were rude and boisterous. But by the 1590s, the word underwent a shift toward its current, feminine usage: a “wild, romping girl; a girl who acts like a spirited boy.” Many girls, of course, exhibit both girly and boyish traits and the infinite shades in between. Nevertheless, the tomboy is an overlooked part of how American society understands gender, race, class and sexuality.
How could this term possibly define me? It was confining, but I lived within those confines and accepted them as my own. Tomboy was smooth. Tomboy was tall. Tomboy was masculine. Tomboy was cool. Tomboy fought back. Tomboy was not always me, just sometimes. Tomboy was too masculine to the girl who also enjoyed certain dresses (i.e. not too frilly) that I couldn't wear if I was going to wear the badge of tomboy. Tomboy was not the girl who enjoyed writing love letters for her friends in high school. Tomboy was not soft and sensitive and pretty and sexual and sensual and emotionally in touch with all senses that made sense. It meant being flat chested and muscular, not curvy and flowing through life with muscles.
As I got older, I started to outgrow the term tomboy because I embraced my power that I found in my entire body as a female: I learned to touch myself and be in touch with my power within, no longer without, because I was no longer blocked by all that boyishness that I once thought was all of “me.” I learned that if I wanted to wear a skirt and blouse it did not take away from my masculinity—in fact, I could carry both! All my upbringing as a Latina came through, especially that I loved my lipstick with blue undertones and fuchsia toe nail polish that glossed like a boss. I could be tall and smooth and cool and collected and dance cumbias and merengue and move my hips and not have to always lead, I could be led if I felt like it. When I spoke to other girlfriends in Spanish or Spanglish, I could do so in that beautiful sing-song way Mexicans speak and use the term girl and muchacha, or deep and smooth like my American side. Something as fun and simple as high-fiving my sisters and brothers no longer felt weird or uncomfortable. (You see, high-fiving was seen as something the guys did, not women; at least that was my experience.)
I am a proud Latina woman. I am proud to once again celebrate this throughout the month of March and beyond and particularly on Friday, March 8, International Women's Day! Join my sisters and me as we honor and pay homage to the women within, no longer without. And quite simply, I like it like that!
