Black women and hair in the Caribbean/West Indies, Central a

The conversation of Black hair is not whole until we take in consideration Black hair in other parts of the Black Diaspora. What have you noticed about the topic of natural hair in Central and South America, the Caribbean/West Indies, Africa, Europe, Asia, etc? Also, please add to the discussion if you have immigrated, and your comparison of your country of origin and your present location. I will post my views shortly.

In August I went to Jamaica and I was shocked at the amount of weaves (blonde ones) and relaxers of the locals. I honestly expected to see more naturalness on the island.

MY family is from Barbados... There is an Euro-centric movement happening where a lot of folks are moving to make their appearance more "familiar" to vacationers and holiday'ers. This is something that has been slowly happening in the islands that I know...

So it was no surprise that natural locs were traded for relaxed tresses...

I'm from Haiti and I remember going back to the island a couple of weeks after my BC and everyone looking at me like I had 3 heads or something! I think in the islands just like here a more eurocentric ideal of beauty dominates, which is sad really...

dajewel, i love this topic, this gives me the opportunity to talk about my Caribbean blood and I could talk about that all day lol.

I'm from Trinidad and Tobago and with many Caribbean islands, I suspect we have been heavily influenced by our colonial history and modern day realities.

As a teenager, my "hair influences" came from mtv. I'm a rock head and I wanted rock hair. I thought mohawks and other rocker styles that looked so very edgy were beyond my reach tho (imagine my dismay that it's now "in style" that I see that it could have been done...still not doing it now tho) . My fellow teens were influenced by the hip hop/rnb styles of destiny's child, the teeny bopper shows on the cable network, and saw the kind of girls our favourite stars were into (they usually had long, bone straight hair). Our parents most likely permed regularly and our female soca artiste relied on their well dressed, well permed appearance to garner fans.

Back then, a lot of us relaxed our hair. It was in and hip and easier than dealing with than that "natty picky hair". After a few years and we eased into the our 20's, locks had become all the rage (I still remember when rastafarians were not pleased with these "fake rastas"), natural hair was in...but only if you were wearing locks. Rarely have I seen anyone in Trinbago wearing afros, twist outs, and other styles of wearing natural hair. It is usually under the cover of weaves, braids, or slicked down with gel. By the age of 14, most girls have suffered through their first perm. Almost everyone at my high school graduation had one (including me).

I'm currently in NYC and I live in a strongly populated district of Caribbean nationals, I lovingly refer to it as "Caribbean Village". Two blocks from my house is a hub of business and restaurants. There are too many hairdressers to count, all of them are managed by women of Caribbean descent, all of them specialising in perms, braids and locks and only a handful or so may know how to deal with natural hair.

Most of the women here wear weaves, wigs, braids and relaxed hair. The women I see with natural hair wear locks. I may see the rare intricately patterned cornrow. Sadly, no beautiful, wonderful afros.

I think what has essentially occurred within the Caribbean is little experimentation. My friends and myself have had little experience manipulating our natural curls. All we've seen and felt is our coils being cornrowed or pony "puffed" for school. We're jetted off to the hairdresser when we're old enough to get it "manageable". Our influences are minimal and instead of cultivating our own culture, we look outward...to the US and Europe for the latest styles and fashion. We look to beyonce, michelle and rihanna and think of how beautiful they are and want to echo the look. We are not taught that coily hair is beautiful, perhaps a bit challenging in the beginning to learn but amazingly diverse.

When i thought about going natural, my concern was not what other ppl thought but what will I do with my hair. I had no knowledge of what products to use, how to style it, that co-wash is good, that shampoo was not even necessary (imagine telling caribbean ppl this) , that I could wash my hair more often, that I can make curly afros, twist outs, flat press, braid outs, up dos, side dos, cornrows, mini puffs, big puffs, mohawks, and many more. I knew none of this til i took the chance and I think the information needs to spread a lot more.

I hope i stayed on topic. I tend to stray after the 2nd paragraph or so. ^_^

my family is all from Jamaica (i am the first from the family born here) my fathers side is what they call "coolie" jamaican....(he is mixed Portuguese, Indian and Scottish) and even though they mostly have 2-3 hair, they get relaxers, weaves, etc (even though they all have long gorgeous hair) they DEFINITELY dont really get the whole "natural" thing.

My husband, however, is Israeli and he was the one who convinced me to wear my hair natural ( i had stopped getting relaxers about 1 year prior but always wore weaves/braids/etc. I wasnt transitioning or anything, just wanted to stop getting relaxers (my dominican hair stylist toldme i dont need them)

My husband likes my hair natural because he can play with it, we can shower together without having to wear a shower cap and there is just so much less stress about my hair.

My family is from Panama (I am the first from the family born here). And this Central America country is very much into "good, soft, coolie hair." [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] It is a big "no no" to wear natural hair, unless it is one of the words I described above. Otherwise one should be seeking a relaxer.

elleeccentric wrote:I'm from Haiti and I remember going back to the island a couple of weeks after my BC and everyone looking at me like I had 3 heads or something! I think in the islands just like here a more eurocentric ideal of beauty dominates, which is sad really...

Ditto! Im also Haitian and my biological father who travels to Haiti often says natural hairstyles are not widely accepted. And if a guy w/ dreads = drug dealer, gang, etc.

Splitsun, do you live in Brooklyn? I dont know of any carribbean spots like that in manhattan or queens. I can only think of Brooklyn who has that much carribbean family. I actually live near Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn and the bunch of caribbeans there do not wear natural hair, but weaves and extensions. I not carribbean myself, I'm native american. But I really didn't expect to see people born and raised in the islands to wear fake hair.

gammainme wrote:

elleeccentric wrote:I'm from Haiti and I remember going back to the island a couple of weeks after my BC and everyone looking at me like I had 3 heads or something! I think in the islands just like here a more eurocentric ideal of beauty dominates, which is sad really...

Ditto! Im also Haitian and my biological father who travels to Haiti often says natural hairstyles are not widely accepted. And if a guy w/ dreads = drug dealer, gang, etc.

Yea, Having natural hair is pretty much frowned upon. A guy with ANY hair especially dreads is a NO-NO!
Haitians have a tendency to be really judgemental about guys with hair; which is sad.

Haitians (old school) are judgmental period when it comes to physical attributes. did you grow up in florida? i grew up in boynton which is where my parents still reside

yes ma'am I did. Broward county though. still reside here.
You're so right old school haitians will pass negative judgements at the most superficial things. My own mother looked at me crazy when i went natural, but now i'm the go-to person for hair treatments and everything else in the book regarding hair...its crazy

i know that's right....same with my mom

elleeccentric wrote:

gammainme wrote:

elleeccentric wrote:I'm from Haiti and I remember going back to the island a couple of weeks after my BC and everyone looking at me like I had 3 heads or something! I think in the islands just like here a more eurocentric ideal of beauty dominates, which is sad really...

Ditto! Im also Haitian and my biological father who travels to Haiti often says natural hairstyles are not widely accepted. And if a guy w/ dreads = drug dealer, gang, etc.

Yea, Having natural hair is pretty much frowned upon. A guy with ANY hair especially dreads is a NO-NO!
Haitians have a tendency to be really judgemental about guys with hair; which is sad.

You are so true! My dad doesn't like boys with lots of hair! I'm also haitian. And I just got some Haitian Castor Oil, so i'm happy about that!!

nice! where'd you get that from randrlove?

My fathers side of the family is Panamanian with Jamaican blood somewhere down the line(I'm not super close to my fathers side). Anyway, as many of you ladies have said natural hair is not something that is celebrated in that part of Central America. At our famil reunion a few years back there were a few of my cousins(younger generation) that had locs but the majority of the older folks had relaxers and weaves.

I'm from Bermuda (in the US for school) and natural hair is not uncommon here, though there are definitely more perms than naturals. Many women wear twas (including one woman who has had her twa dyed in a black and blonde checkerboard pattern for years!), as well as longer curly styles. "Pretty" hair (curly hair) is more common, thanks to a higher degree of past racial intermingling. It's a lot more rare to see a woman with natural 4b/c hair ("picky" hair), both because there's an underlying stigma against it and because its just less common naturally here.

My mom wasn't thrilled when I went natural, but now she loves my hair. As someone whose hair is neither "pretty" nor "picky", I got a lot of comments like what are you going to do with your hair from my family. My brother also jokes that my hair is hard or that it's going to cut him, even though it's soft and he has the exact same hair that I do. Now that it's grown I mostly get good reactions or none at all. There's still a subtle good hair/bad hair mentality hair, although it isn't phrased in those terms.

Differences between Bermuda and the US:
-Much more women wearing twas as a style choice. Amongst the natural community in the US, it seems like most women view twas as means to an end: longer natural hair. In Bermuda, women wearing twas for years is fairly common.

-Almost all little girls are natural. It's rare to see a mother perm her daughter's hair before she hits double digits or even her teens. Consequently, most women know how to care for natural hair (although not my mom) and extensions for little girls are pretty uncommon.

-Little girls aren't "required" to have their hair pressed for special occaisions. There are a variety of "acceptable" natural styles that girls wear for special events (cornrows with twists, straw sets, etc), not just the ole press and curl. For example, my niece was a flower girls in a wedding and wore her hair in cornrows in the front with twists in the back.

-Almost no stigma of natural hair being unprofessional, even in the most conservative settings. I'm a law student and have worked in legal jobs in Bermuda and the US. In Bermuda I felt free to wear any style from twists to comb coils and my boss would compliment me. In the US I mostly wore buns and puffs, keeping my hair as conservative as possible. I realize that many people wear unconservative styles to work in the US, but in Bermuda I didn't even have to think about it.

-No centralized natural community. Naturals in Bermuda don't really bond together. There's no forums, online groups, meetups, etc, at least as far as I know. I'm always thrilled when I see a fellow Bermudian on any forum or blog that I frequent.

Sorry for writing a book!

D-Lish wrote:Splitsun, do you live in Brooklyn? I dont know of any carribbean spots like that in manhattan or queens. I can only think of Brooklyn who has that much carribbean family. I actually live near Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn and the bunch of caribbeans there do not wear natural hair, but weaves and extensions. I not carribbean myself, I'm native american. But I really didn't expect to see people born and raised in the islands to wear fake hair.

Hey D, you got that right. I live in Brooklyn with my closest trainstop being Crown Heights-Utica Av (Eastern Parkway) ^_^ (hey neighbour!)

this is awesome convo!!! i will add my thoughts to discussion shortly!

but i thought there was plenty Caribbean massive in BK that were sporting their natural hairs??? isn't the natural scene big up there?

After reading all of the posts now I understand why one of the ladies there looked at me funny when I said something about wearing my fro. I thought I had a third eye appear on my head.

I'm from Jamaica and considered a "coolie". As a teenager and young adult, whenever I wore my hair curly my mom and grandmother would make negative comments about my hair. So I always made sure to straighten it whenever i go visit so I don't have to hear anything like that.

Now that I'm a grown woman (*hands on hips*) and have decided to embrace my natural curls....Thanksgiving should be interesting when I go down to FL to visit lol! But at this point I don't care what they or anyone else thinks. They (family members) always said my hair is my beauty but it seems that that only applied when it was straight. So I guess I'm going to have to teach them something new. If not them, my neices with beautiful thick curly hair!

My parents are Haitian as well and when I big chopped my mom was like umm, what's gotten into you?! lol. She thought it would just be a phase and was like so what are you gonna do after you get over this "natural" thing. Then when I told her it wasn't a thing and this was it she's was like oh I get it, you just are too cheap to get your hair done so that's why you're doing this. I'm like NO MOM. Lol. She'll get over it.

My dad hasn't seen me since my big chop yet and I'm going to spend Christmas with them there so we'll see his reaction! You guys are right though a lot of Haitians don't appreciate their gorgeous natural hair. And my parents think dudes with long hair = bums. So sad! Sometimes I wish they weren't so close-minded.

dajewel wrote:this is awesome convo!!! i will add my thoughts to discussion shortly!

but i thought there was plenty Caribbean massive in BK that were sporting their natural hairs??? isn't the natural scene big up there?

Not from my vantage point. It's quite dead. In the past week I saw two natural curlies (of course on the trains, it's the only place i seem to find them) which I consider to be a success and in my own animated mind, the rise of the curlies ^_^.



*Also I wondered if any of them were on CN.com but held myself back from asking cause that might have been a lil strange.