Journey

by Yakari Gabriel   Sep 5, 2022


The hardest part of my woke journey was having to kiss my white and brown mentors goodbye. It was having to come home to the idea that the women I so profoundly loved and admired simply didn't have the tools to liberate me because the world treated them in a way it did not treat me. I very graciously packed all the lessons they gave me.
But liberation only came when I met other Dominican women, whose hair also grew towards the sky. That could make me understand the social position of my body, those who believed me when I said that men only look at women like me as something to sleep with.
Who could understand precisely what I meant with being the brightest person in a room and still be dismissed. Those who didn't question my insecurity but could point me exactly to the place it came from.
I had no idea I could reclaim my own power until other Dominican women in the diaspora showed up.

and I'm not gorgeous, smart, talented and brilliant in spite of being a black Latina immigrant, I'm all of these things because of it.

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