“Hold still,” the Bird Gang Philadelphia Eagles Shirt in addition I really love this doctor said. “Are you doing okay?” At times it was painful, but I got used to the process. I scabbed and then would peel. I chalked it up to acne issues when anyone asked at school. Like many first-generation Asian Americans, I felt a pressure to be the model minority, that I had to assimilate and adapt to Western culture in order to be successful. For me, that meant being the perfect Asian daughter—thin, sophisticated, accomplished, and with clear, porcelain skin. Soon the scabs healed, and for a brief period of time, I had achieved this uncomfortable goal: My skin was finally freckle free. My sessions eventually ended (they were pricey), but by next summer all my freckles came back. It was inevitable without proper upkeep. With ongoing sun exposure in Southern California, new freckles would find their way sprinkled across my cheeks once more. The following fall, I left for college, and in turn the drama of my childhood felt smaller and further away. As my priorities shifted, I found I was no longer preoccupied with alternate, more perfect versions of myself. Slowly, I came into focus—what I wanted to do, what interested me—and I began to appreciate the ways in which I didn’t fit the mold.
These days, I don’t see my freckles like I did as a child. These small dots, representing a constellation of insecurity for me and my family, now remind me of how I charted my path—an identity, and story, all my own. Body Language is an essay series that speaks to the Bird Gang Philadelphia Eagles Shirt in addition I really love this ongoing conversation about beauty standards around the world—an exploration of where we came from and where we’re headed. I was raised by a mother who raged against the strictures of 1950s femininity by lacing up her Converse and sprinting in the other direction. She wore Levi’s 501s and flannel shirts and dressed her two young daughters in kind, a second-wave feminist sartorial backlash that became rigid in its own right. Find your uniform, she preached, and get on with the important things in life. Makeup was anathema, as was any effort to enhance one’s appearance. Clothing was valued, coveted even, but only if it was classic, durable, and, in large part, purchased in the men’s section. In our family, we intuitively understood boyishness to be better than girliness. To be boyish was to be natural, serious, athletic, scrappy—yar in that WASP-y Philadelphia Story Katharine Hepburn way, never mind that we were bookish Midwestern Jews.
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