The Crown and the Mask: Hair, Assimilation, and Selfhood
I was a joyful child; woefully pleasant, never crying, and as soon as I could learn to talk, seven months into my life, I was always chatty.
“Ryann, do you wanna say anything?” my Aunt Janelle, known to us as Aunt Jan, asked.
“Uh-Uh,” I whispered softly, looking down upon my bubbles. It was a warm day in Chicago, the sun ablaze, the wind swaying gently like leaves falling from the autumn trees. My blouse was yellow, adorned with white stripes, and had little puff sleeves fit for a princess. My tortoiseshell sunglasses were on, and so was that Juicy Couture charm bracelet my parents could never get off of me.
“You don’t wanna say anything for the camera?” my Aunt Jan whispered.
“Uh-Uh,” I said as I gently fixed my right hand with my bubble wand.
“Say, hi, Grandma,” my Aunt jittered.
“Hi, Grandma,” I smiled sassily.
“Say, hi, Grandpa,” she said.
“Hi, Grandpa,” I cheered with a grin.
“I love you,” my Aunt beamed.
“I love you,” I shouted as I threw my head to the left.
“Blow a kiss!” my Aunt laughed.
And so I did. That’s the kind of child I was, unapologetically me—a child with tight coils, a booming laugh, and the kind of confidence only innocence allows.
That anecdote is a story from when I was around the age of three or four, before I entered kindergarten and attended the Trevor Day School. Back then, I attended a little school called New Generation Academy in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. It was familiar, warm, full of kids who looked like me.
But in what felt like a single day, my parents uprooted my life and sent me to school in Manhattan.
Manhattan, oh, Manhattan, how I hated that place. By car, it wasn’t so bad, but by train, it was a nightmare. Underground lie grim, dark, dreary grey tunnels with small ledges that are far too easy to stumble off of and fall to your inevitable death. But worse than the train was the school itself.
Trevor Day was small, but somehow I felt even smaller inside it. The other. The single chocolate chip in the cookie. Quite literally, I was the only mono-racial black girl; there were two mixed girls and three black boys. By the time I reached middle school, that number dwindled to me, one mixed girl, and two black boys.
No matter how different I felt, I refused to be silent. I answered questions, laughed loudly, and carried my curls like a crown, at least, at first. But being the only one takes its toll. Slowly, I began to wonder if my loudness, my curls, or even my sense of humor marked me as too different. Let’s just say I didn’t navigate school seamlessly. Switching schools left little Ryann feeling like another fish in the pond, but no matter what, she was emphatically herself, with tight curls and a boisterous laugh. Little Ryann was never afraid to answer questions or share her own thoughts, and she was always smiling, happy despite being practically alone, as she had never really settled on a friend until late elementary school.
Then came the hair. The first time I straightened it, people started treating me differently. Teachers and peers began to compliment me in ways they hadn’t before. A parent even came up to me and said, “I had no clue your hair could even be that long.” That stuck with me. It wasn’t just hair anymore; it felt like belonging, but little did I know it was a farce. And soon, the perm made it permanent. Straight hair became a part of who I was— or who I thought I had to be. I even begged my mom for a scene haircut during my goth phase, because my hair was already straight as a pin. She said no, but the point is, I couldn’t even imagine myself without that hair anymore. Over time, I began to forget what my natural curls looked like. Literally forgot. My hair wasn't a crown anymore; it was a costume.
COVID hit when I was in seventh grade, right before I entered high school. When salons shut down, perms were no longer an option. I turned to braids instead, opting for protective styles that kept my hair manageable, but something deeper shifted within me as well. Even though I didn’t fully embrace my curls yet, the pause from straightening made me wonder who I was without the mask of assimilation. A seed had been planted.
Assimilation had always been tempting. So, a space that should’ve been a place where new beginnings occur instead became another stage for assimilation. My class only had eighty-six people, too few to disappear into the crowd, and too few to avoid the pressures of fitting in.
Sometime during my sophomore year, I got kicked out of a friend group by association. My best friend at the time had been pushed out, and I’d forcibly followed. Eventually, we formed a new friend group, but I realize now that many of those friendships were about avoiding loneliness, not about genuine connection. A lot of those friendships felt superficial and transactional. They were about survival, not belonging.
By senior year, the pattern was evident: I had learned to shrink myself. I stopped sharing my political opinions, something I’d once done freely. Back in third grade, during the 2016 election, I’d watch adults debate politics on the news and at home. By eighth grade, during the 2020 election, I was old enough to feel the tension of polarization. And I stayed practically silent.
Just like with my hair, I thought the less I stood out, the safer I’d be. It wasn’t until the last week of my senior year that I wore my natural hair out for the first time since elementary school. I felt terrified. Vulnerable. Like showing my younger self to the world again. But it also felt right. My friends Chris and Sasha loved it. Their excitement almost made me laugh, because they were celebrating something I had long since buried. To them, it was new. To me, it was a homecoming.
What did I lose by hiding my curls? Myself. Well, I still clung to many of my morals and principles, and straightening my hair was the first time I compromised who I was in the name of fitting in. Looking back, it was the rehearsal to the social compromises of high school, where I made friends just to survive, not thrive, muted my opinions, and chose safety over authenticity.
But what did I gain once I stopped? Integrity. I ended high school the way I began life: coils intact, laughing, booming, unapologetically me. My hair was no longer a mask, but a mirror, reflecting the person I'd been all along.
Assimilation is tempting, not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt like “the other.” The world tells us that sameness equals safety, and indifference equals danger. But sameness comes at a cost: the slow erasure of one’s self.
When I think about my father, who has always said that his goal is to “die Black,” I understand him now more than ever. His words remind me that holding onto yourself even when it’s hard, even when it isolates you, is the greatest form of integrity. And that’s why, in the end, I chose me.
