We may deny it, but many of us still remember the childhood tragedies that caused so much trauma and remorse. I'm talking to you - "metal mouth," "alfalfa" and "fat lard."
Whether you were the bully or the bullied, one thing remains true - being a kid and looking "different" sucked.
Fortunately, metal mouth's braces were removed to reveal perfect teeth. Alfalfa joined the football team and grew muscles. And fat lard, well, that was just baby fat.
But what about those whose unaccepted physical appearance never changed and never will? I present to you the traumatized, very dark-skinned Mexican-American girl who, despite fitting the stereotype of a brown-toned Mexican, was tortured as a child by her other Mexican-American peers, whose complexions were just a few shades lighter.
OK, I'll cut the third person stuff: I am really dark skinned and have always been made fun of for it. Evil kids used to say I fell out of a chimney, or that I should stay inside after the sun went down to avoid getting lost.
Don't feel bad if you're laughing, it's funny ... now.
After a childhood spent praying for lighter skin, obsessing over sunscreen and wondering what Michael Jackson did, I've come to accept (and even like) my dark skin.
Sure, I still get called "darkie" and "mocha" by a certain individual who shall remain nameless. People still get confused when I tell them my name, and they can't figure out "what I am." And inevitably, people still ask what my nationality is - Indian? Arabic? Filipino?
Despite all of these factors that deteriorated my self-esteem, I've often said I wouldn't change a thing. Partly because I've grown out of the self-hatred, partly because I never knew there were actual solutions.
But yesterday, I came across an article in TIME Magazine about a popular procedure in India that women use to make their skin fairer through simple cosmetic products that bleach the skin.
Such products include lightening soaps and creams, specifically the popular Fair & Lovely line of cosmetics. Skin bleaching has become a $250 million industry in India, with beauty salons offering services that include a procedure that blasts skin with sand blowers.
It has even expanded to suit interested men by producing Fair & Handsome, a new line this season.
Fair & Lovely's Herbal Fairness Cream, manufactured by a Malaysian company called Unilever, uses three natural ingredients (goat's milk, saffron and lotus), along with natural sunscreens. The cream promises to "safely and gently" produce lighter skin in just six weeks, for the price of about $8 per tube.
It's easy to say that skin bleaching in India is akin to the million-dollar industry of American tanning salons, but it goes deeper than that. In rural India, dark skin is associated with evil; dark-skinned women are portrayed the way obese American women in the U.S. are - lonely and unsuccessful, desperate to find a boyfriend.
Fair & Lovely's marketing strategies bargain in on this sad reality, airing commercials of India's top models advertising skin-lightening products. It's as if light skin is the only acceptable social norm.
For a girl previously ashamed of her complexion, skin-bleaching cosmetics may sound like a million prayers being answered. Still, although it's not a surgical procedure, it can easily be compared to breast-enhancement surgeries, liposuction or nose jobs.
The bottom line is this: We are born a certain way. And though it may hurt or be shameful, we should not do anything drastic (unless for health reasons) to alter it.
Make fun of my darkness. But I like to think of it this way: I'll never know the pain of sunburn.
Astrid Galvan is a journalism junior. You can write to her about your childhood tragedies at astrid.galvan@asu.edu.
