Khammila
“A feature I love about myself are my calves. They’re kind of like huge. I have big calves. I like them because they help me to run, and are very strong. They are a continuous reminder of my ancestry, back to my relatives in India. They climbed mountains and so big calves have become apart of my families genetics, and they make me feel more connected than most to my past.”

Nicole
“Growing up I never noticed any particular feature I had that stood out. No one ever really mentioned my height until elementary school, when I got made fun of for being short. But as I’ve grown up less people see being short as a flaw. I don’t mind being short, especially because of my heritage. My parents are Mexican and Persian, and both ethnicities are often times quite short. If I were to suddenly be tall I don’t think I would feel like myself, or have the same relationship with my culture that I have right now.”

Maddie
“Whenever I was younger I used to hate my nose, but I realized that I should get over that, and have been trying to for some time. I realize that it is a part of my heritage, as I got it from my father who is Puerto Rican, and I have learned to love that part of myself. I often find it easy to forget about that part of my identity because most people mistake me for being fully white, as every other parts of me looks alot like my mom who is white. My nose is a symbol of my heritage. It is important to me that I am reminded of my heritage in that way because I don’t get to see my Dad very often. I like knowing that he is, and always will be, a part of me. I can represent him in my physical features. My nose is a constant reminder that my Father is with me, as is my heritage.”

Tori
“When I was younger, during the summer, I would stay inside because I didn’t want to get tan out of fear that my family would make fun of me. I would come inside from playing outside, and be a whole different color than I was an hour ago, my family would laugh at me for getting so dark. But now as self empowerment has grown, people have started to love their dark skin, and embracing everything. Everyone has just become so accepting and I have learned to love the color of my skin and I am not afraid to get dark. People even compliment me on it. It’s amazing how I hve grown to love something that I used to hate about myself.”

Sam
“When I was little I did not like my eyebrows at all. I thought that they were too dark, too bushy, and stood out too much compared to my blonde hair. So many kids used to make fun of me for it. I remember in sixth grade I begged my mom to go let me get my eyebrows waxed that way I could just rip them off, and make them super thin. My eyebrows were like that all through middle school, just thin strips. But a few years ago the thick eyebrow became a sort of trend. And I thought ‘Oh. I have some sort of an eyebrow maybe I can do something with that.’ And after a while I started to care a lot less about them, and it became a feature that I embraced more. Despite thick eyebrows being a trend, I feel like I would have come to embrace my eyebrows either way.”