redo This I beleive

Growing up in a Latina family, the speaker was accustomed to seeing excessive arm hair on the women in her family. Despite being taught to embrace her natural features, she was bullied for her arm hair throughout her life. Eventually, she succumbed to societal pressure and shaved her arms, only to realize that no one noticed the difference. This experience taught her to reject society's beauty standards and embrace her heritage, including her arm hair, as a symbol of strength and identity. She now proudly wears her arm hair as an accessory, confident in being herself. I believe in arm hair. Growing up in a Latina family can be a lot different than growing up in any other family. You get used to things most people find odd. The constant smell of empanadas and other foods lingering around the house, Spanish music playing 24-7 no matter the day, and most importantly, seeing everyone around me be a lot hairier than the average person. I grew up seeing my mom, aunts, cousins, and even grandma have excess hair everywhere. More specifically, their arms. I grew up in a culture that told me to embrace my natural features because that is what made a Latina woman Latin. Yet, not everyone saw my natural hair to be quote-unquote natural or beautiful. For most of my life, it was the one thing I was bullied for year after year. I never knew the significance of my arm hair until I reached about the third grade. As a typical third grader, I wore short-sleeved shirts that often showed my arms. Even if I was a lot younger, that did not matter in terms of hair. The dark brown hair over my light skin definitely made it stick out more than normal, making it an easier target to start bullying me at. I remember telling my mom all the awful things the kids told me at school, and she would always grab my arms and tell me that my hair made me beautiful. Being more naked on my arms did not determine my worth, and just because I didn't look like everyone else, that did not make me ugly. She told me how soft and comforting my arm hair was, and it was our protection as Latin women against the world, our armor everyone else could see. However, the stares and comments never stopped. I grew up and was compared to Chewbacca from Star Wars and other hairy animal creatures. Other Hispanic girls in my class would shave their arms and then bully me about it because I decided to keep my hair on my own body. The boys in my class would compare their arms to me, saying I was more manly and if I was even supposed to be a girl at all. As strong as I was, and even as strong as my mother's words were to help me, it all finally caught up to me. As a kid, you can only take in so much before you eventually break. It was in the 8th grade. I kept being asked, why don't you just shave your arms and no one will bother you? So I finally thought, okay, why not? That day, I sat in my bathtub staring at the razor blade in front of me as if it was a snake. I kept thinking, really Anna, do you really want to shave your arms? But as I picked up the razor and started gliding it over my arms and chunks of hair fell into the tub, it was already too late. I sat there for over two hours trying to make sure I didn't miss a single inch anywhere on my arm, while in the process of accidentally nicking myself over and over for how difficult it was. I was 13 years old trying to meet these beauty standards the world put on me. Looking back, that's what makes me the saddest. The very next day, I wore a short sleeved shirt to show off my new hairless arms. And guess what? Not a single person noticed. For a week. Until I finally asked one of my classmates if they noticed what was different about me. They looked me up and down and couldn't pinpoint anything. When I pointed out my arms, they said, oh, I didn't even notice. The one part of my body I was bullied for, for years, didn't mean a thing once I changed it. I realized from that day forward, I would not give in to society's standards or fit into a box someone else made for me. From that day forward, I would not be ashamed of my heritage or my genes, and I would embrace my arm hair regardless of how others looked at me. Because to me, and millions of other Latino women all over the world, it really is our armor from the outside of the world. And not everyone is going to understand that. And that is simply okay. I learned since then to wear my arm hair as an accessory to proudly show off how confident I am to simply just be me.