Johanny OrtegaWhen Speaking Truth Makes You the Problem
This is raw. It’s fresh. And it’s sitting heavy in my chest, so I’m going to write it the only way I know how: honestly.
It started with something that, on the surface, looks small. I was watching hair salon videos, the kind that flood social media feeds, and I made an observation to my husband that I’ve made many times before. So many Latinas are obsessed with dyeing their hair blonde. Not just lighter. Blonde-blonde. And I said how wrong that feels to me, especially because that color often clashes with our natural olive, brown, or golden undertones.
I know because I was that girl.
When I was younger, I dyed my hair blonde desperately. I wanted it so badly. At the time, I didn’t fully understand why. Now I do. It was the media I consumed. Telenovelas. Commercials. TV shows on Univision. Over and over, the Latinas centered on screen were the European-looking ones. Light skin. Straight hair. Fine features. The Black and Indigenous Latinas were erased, sidelined, or turned into stereotypes. The message was subtle but constant: this is what beauty looks like.
That message sinks in early.
My husband encouraged me to share this thought with my mother-in-law, so I did. I explained it calmly, factually, without raising my voice or attacking anyone. She responded by saying something along the lines of, “Oh, that’s just young girls and moms who let them.”
And that’s when I said what needed to be said.
I explained that it’s deeper than parenting choices. That yes, parents matter, but so do systems. Society. Government. The church. The long-standing Eurocentric beauty standards that have been pushed onto Latine communities for generations. I pointed out that when little girls with brown skin, like my stepdaughter who is Blexican, consume that messaging, they can internalize the belief that they are not enough as they are.
That’s when my husband cut me off.
“That’s enough. Stop.”
In front of his mother.
He said I was making her feel bad. That I was “talking at her.”
I stopped talking, but something inside me cracked.
I went back to my work and tried to shake it off, but the feeling wouldn’t settle. That familiar, ugly feeling crept in again. The one that tells me I’m an outsider in my own home. That my voice is too much. That my passion is inconvenient. That when his family is around, I need to make myself smaller.
I couldn’t sit with that.
So I went outside, found him alone, and said what I needed to say.
“Don’t you ever do that again. You made me feel like an outsider in my own home.”
He deflected. Said that wasn’t what he meant.
I asked him plainly, “Did you tell me to stop?”
He nodded.
I told him how that felt. How being corrected in front of his mother felt disrespectful. How I always make a point to pull him aside privately if there’s an issue, because that’s basic respect. How all I was asking for was the same courtesy.
I started crying. Angry tears. The kind that come when you’re tired of explaining why your voice matters.
I told him I wasn’t being disrespectful. I wasn’t yelling. I wasn’t insulting his mother. I was having an important conversation that many Latine elders need to hear. But instead of engaging, his family defaults to changing the subject. Food. Small talk. Safe topics. And that’s never been me. I don’t skirt around hard truths. I confront them head-on.
He apologized and deflected at the same time.
“You take everything so seriously.”
And that sentence hurt more than he realized.
Yes. I do. And he knows that. That seriousness comes from lived experience. From knowing what silence costs. From understanding that colorism and racism inside the Latine community don’t magically disappear just because we’re uncomfortable talking about them.
I told him plainly that he had effectively shut me up. That now I felt unsafe speaking freely. And I asked him if he understood how damaging that is in a marriage.
To his credit, he eventually owned it. He apologized. Fully.
But I was still angry.
I told him very clearly: “You will never do this to me again.”
Then I told him what I needed to move forward.
I wanted him to take accountability. Not privately. Publicly. I wanted him to go back inside and explain to his mother what he did wrong to his wife. Because I refuse to be the only one sitting in discomfort while everyone else gets to feel fine.
He did it.
And now things are uncomfortable.
Good.
I don’t believe in censoring myself, especially when I communicate without insults, without foul language, and with facts. I don’t believe in tiptoeing around conversations about colorism and racism in Latine homes. If we can’t talk about these things with our own families, in our own living rooms, what hope is there of dismantling them anywhere else?
Silence protects no one. Comfort maintains harm. And I am done being the one asked to swallow truth so others don’t have to feel uneasy.
If my presence disrupts, maybe it’s because the conversation is overdue.
#colorism #difficultFamilyConversations #DominicanPerspective #emotionalLabor #EurocentricBeautyStandards #internalizedRacism #LatineIdentity #marriageCommunication
Dr. Chetan Dhongade
Bernard Aybout