'Hair Love': New London kids take pride in their natural hair
Jun. 12—NEW LONDON — Liz Quiñones stood in the Regional Multicultural Magnet School library clicking through a slideshow of elementary student faces — smiling radiantly, staring hopefully into the distance or with arms crossed in a power pose. They sported all sorts of hairstyles: braids, twists, locs, Bantu knots, cornrows or hair down, some styled with colorful barrettes or beads, and some with carefully styled laid edges.
Whether Black, Latino, Native American or a mix of cultures, each has a story about their hair. A 21-year teacher at RMMS in her first year as a library media teacher, Quiñones knows these stories, offering comments as she clicked through the slideshow.
"She was sassy." "Him, he said he didn't love his hair for a long time, and now he wears an afro." "She thanked me the most for including her. I'm like, 'You don't need to thank me; thank YOU.'" "He's been growing his locs since first grade."
With the help of photographers Deisha Quiñones — her eldest daughter — and Dro Lopez, a grant from the RMMS Foundation, Tony Sabilia of Fastsigns for photo printing, and 31 willing students, Liz Quiñones spearheaded a months-in-the-making photo exhibit to highlight the beautiful hair of students who may have a complicated relationship with their tresses.
The photos now line hallways outside the library and will be there indefinitely.
Third grader Orion Cort said he likes his hair and the reason he keeps it long is because he's Native American. But a kid once asked him what a girl was doing in the boys' bathroom.
"If I cut it, I would feel incomplete," Orion said. He was sporting a long braid as he talked but wore his hair down for the photo.
Friends Zamaya Mingo and Zoe Johnson, who are in fourth grade and both Black and Portuguese, have their pictures hanging next to each other. Zamaya said it's been hard but she's learned how to do her hair, and she now has it in braids, a protective style that means she doesn't have to do much.
"When Ms. Liz told us about this, I was so happy but also kind of nervous at the same time," said Zoe, who also said it took time to learn how to treat her hair.
Fifth grader Amerie Hipps dealt with her hair falling out due to her eczema, but when it grew back, she said it grew back thicker and stronger. For her photo shoot, her aunt curled her hair and put it into two buns.
"I love my hair. It was always one thing that was a part of me," said Amerie, who is African American and Native American.
Amerie has at home the book that was part of Quiñones' inspiration to start this exhibit: "Hair Love" by Matthew Cherry, based on Cherry's Oscar-winning animated short film of the same name. The film is about a father learning to style his Black daughter's thick, curly hair. Cherry told The Washington Post he wanted to encourage kids to embrace their natural hair and to depict a Black father who was deeply involved in his child's life.
On May 25, before the photos were hung in their current location at RMMS, they were placed around the library for a gathering with participating students and their families. Liz Quiñones showed the slideshow of photos she later showed The Day.
Principal Mariana Reyes commented on "how powerful it was that night when the families came to see it, and the whole student body was glowing with pride."
Quiñones said she "didn't hear a single negative comment, not a single one, and you know kids are brutally honest."
Learning to love curls and natural hair
At the beginning of the school year, Liz Quiñones got to see all sorts of different hairstyles and complimented the kids. Though she knew it wasn't the case, their reactions made it sound like they hadn't heard a compliment about their hair before. She said most of the students come from backgrounds where parents tell them how beautiful they are "but unfortunately what you're told at home is not always internalized."
"I genuinely thought that their hair was magnificent," she said. She reached out to students and families to see if kids would want to have their hairstyles photographed.
"A lot of kids were in disbelief," she said, reacting with, "Me? Are you sure?"
It's a topic that has personal resonance for Liz Quiñones, who is Puerto Rican. In Black and Latino cultures, there's the concept of "good hair," hair that others don't consider too "coarse" or "nappy." It's a mindset that has been passed down through generations.
Growing up, she had "good hair" but that came with its own pressures. Her father wouldn't let her cut her hair, with the attitude that girls should have long hair like hers. As an act of teenaged rebellion, she cut it off, and she remembers how disappointed her father was.
Liz Quiñones has two daughters who are both Afro-Latina but who have very different hair textures. Deisha's hair is curly, and her mother remembers her saying she wanted straight hair because it's prettier.
"I feel like I've always struggled to love my hair," said Deisha Quiñones, 25. She used to want to straighten it a lot and would get her hair chemically pressed. A lot of her friends had straight hair, and that's what she saw on social media and in movies.
In college, she and her best friend both decided to wear their hair natural together.
"When you're taking your curls away, that's taking part of our identity away," she said.
Deisha Quiñones is now a second grade teacher at RMMS, and she and her cousin Dro Lopez, a professional photographer, split up photographing students in front of a backdrop in the library in February.
"I just saw myself in a lot of the students, and I just wish growing up I had that," Deisha Quiñones said of the photo exhibit.
Lopez was willing to help his aunt with photography in general but, when he heard the details, his reaction was, "Oh my God, please let me be a part of it." Lopez, who grew up in Groton and now lives in New Britain, said this was needed for the kids of New London.
"Hair texture in the professional field is such a Big topic, and I think this was really important to do because we need to show diversity in hair texture," Lopez said. Similar to Deisha Quiñones, he said growing up Afro-Latino, his hair was one of his biggest insecurities, because he didn't see people on TV or celebrities with his hair texture.
"I thought it was an ugly thing to have," he said. "Now I have learned to accept my curls."
Throughout this process, Liz Quiñones has talked to the kids about their hair, asking questions: How do you pick your hairstyles? Who does it? And: "Has anybody ever made a comment about your hair that hasn't made you feel good?"
For that last question, almost everybody said yes. One boy said somebody told him his hair looks like worms.
Liz Quiñones said one family wanted their redheaded child to participate, but she said not this year.
"I really needed this to be about the Black and Brown experience exclusively," she said, and the principal stood behind her. She's hoping to do this again next year, and said maybe then she'll include redheaded children, or kids with mohawks.
But for now, she wanted this to be the moment for students of color to shine, given the "generations of self-hatred" that can come with their hair, and in light of the CROWN Act passing in Connecticut last year. It prohibits discrimination based on hair texture and protective hairstyles, including but not limited to wigs, headwraps and hairstyles such as braids, cornrows, locs, twists, Bantu knots, afros and afro puffs.
"I do love that there's this wave of acceptance, the natural hair acceptance," Liz Quiñones said. "That's huge."
