A Quote by Philomena Kwao
Growing up, I had body confidence issues, not really so much because of size but my skin color. I had trouble recognizing that the depth of my skin tone is really beautiful because whenever people referred to a beautiful black-skinned woman, you'd see Beyonce and Rihanna.
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I grew up in Houston, and I remember we had separate drinking fountains, and black people sat in the balcony of the theater... We had an African-American housekeeper growing up who was really like my second mother. I thought it was silly - hatred just because of the color of somebody's skin.
There's not many models in the U.S. that have my depth - like, really dark skin - that are also plus size. Skin color has been one of those things we haven't really, really addressed on a large, widespread scale.
For me, it's really important to take care of my skin. Especially because when I see someone, and they're just so fresh and beautiful, you always notice their skin first. So having a really good skin-care regimen is a must. I just wish I would have started taking care of my skin earlier!
When I was, like, 5 years old, I used to pray to have light skin because I would always hear how pretty that little light skin girl was, or I would hear I was pretty to be dark skin. It wasn't until I was 13 that I really learned to appreciate my skin color and know that I was beautiful.
It's hard to find powder and things for my skin tone. I look at Rihanna's collection, and I'm always in awe because there's a shade that exists for every skin tone.
This is really skin privilege, the ranking of color in terms of its closeness to white people or white-skinned people and its devaluation according to how dark one is and the impact that has on people who are dedicated to the privileges of certain levels of skin color.
Cinema is a little over 100 years old, and a lot of what we do is built around film emulsion. Those things were calibrated for white skin. We've always placed powder on skin to dull the light. But my memory of growing up in Miami is this moist, beautiful black skin.
Brown people and black people and red people swarmed through our great halls, until those who were white looked simply faded-out human beings beside them. Indeed, I came to see that white is not a color in skin any more than in textiles, and if it had not quality, it had no value even for humanity. I saw that color in skin had a certain advantage in strength and warmth as a means of beauty.
I don't do any microdermabrasion or any type of injections in my skin because I think that's really just temporary. And if the nerve system is damaged... I know some women who thought they would look much more beautiful if they had something done, and then their lives were destroyed because of that.
Do I love you because you're beautiful, or are you beautiful because I love you? Am I making believe I see in you, a woman too perfect to be really true? Do I want you because you're wonderful, or are you wonderful because I want you? Are you the sweet invention of a lover's dream, or are you really as beautiful as you seem?
I grew up in a big Mexican family and... we always were so comfortable in our own skin. So society, the stuff that I think we see a lot now for young girls, didn't really reach me because I had this huge Mexican bubble around me saying, 'You're beautiful. You're amazing. You're strong. And be you.'
MYOB - mind your own body. It's important because I don't happen to have the kind of body that we usually see on television and in films. I am plus-size. I have dark skin. And I am 100 percent beautiful. But I get a lot of flak - oh, you should lose weight. And now that I have lost weight - and I lost weight for health reasons - I get, you look good but don't lose too much weight because your face is starting to sink in.
Growing up, I had really bad skin. I had a skin disorder. Yes, I did. And my mother went to great lengths to try to find something to remedy it. I remember she took a trip to Madagascar and came back with all these alternative, medicinal herbs and stuff. They didn't smell so good, but I think they worked some magic.
I was teased a lot, growing up, because of my skin tone.
I've pretty much given up on the orange. I really have. I just don't even bother. It's just either sour, or woody, or the skin's too thick. It's very nice when you come across the perfect orange, because it's really a beautiful experience. But the stakes are too high.
I'd had a racist experience as a child at age 10, where people had thrown rocks at me and bottles. I didn't understand. And all it was, was because of the color of my skin, nothing I had done, nothing I had said.
