Liliana

But anyway, so yeah, I saw the way that my parents treated people of color.

And I didn't know that I was a person of color.

I just thought I was tan because I lived in California.

Like I'm just getting a tan on the beach, bro.

Like whatever.

But I started to get bullied a lot at school for being ugly.

Like that's the number one thing that I received as a kid.

You're ugly.

Like you're so ugly.

And now that I'm older, I think it was just racism.

I think they weren't used to certain features that I have.

You can definitely tell I'm a person of color more when I don't have makeup on.

But, yeah, I think they just weren't used to seeing certain features.

But, again, I internalized that I'm ugly and clearly that affects me because at home I'm told I'm ugly and worthless and all kinds of stuff anyway.

So at school I'm also ugly and therefore unworthy of friendship because I'm ugly because that's something I had learned previously and stuff like that.

So it was just it was just tough.

And while I was in third grade, there was a time where I started, I developed this like really bad cough.

Like I would cough and then I couldn't catch my breath.

And my parents thought I was just sick, so they kept me home from school for a couple days, but it wasn't getting any better.

So they were like, okay, I guess we're going to go to the doctor.