When I was five, I dressed as Rapunzel for my school’s Halloween assembly. The costume came from one of the many presents that I received simply for being the “baby” cousin in a sprawling family: a life-sized Rapunzel Barbie with a dress made to be borrowed and a long, detachable platinum blonde braid.
I stripped Barbie down until she was nothing but shiny bare plastic, sparkling eyes, and a smile faster than I’d unboxed her. I was the very image of wishful thinking: a girl with brown skin and black hair in the trappings of pink, gold, and blonde. There was no mistaking me for a convincing Rapunzel. But it was so much easier to pretend that I was the porcelain-skinned heroine of a fairytale—not the girl who got scolded for getting dark and ugly at the beach—when I dressed the part.
(When my mother saw me, she laughed. “Maganda,” she said. Beautiful.)
More than its color, I loved the braid for trailing several feet behind me as I walked. Long hair was important to me because it’s important to my father, a man who believes that flowing tresses are non-negotiable for beautiful girls. This stuck with me, and throughout my childhood and some of my adulthood, my hair fell to my lower back at minimum. Not so long ago, I’d have to brush it to the side before settling at my desk to make sure it wasn’t caught beneath me when I sat. It hurt my arms to style, took hours to dry.
Long hair makes me feel beautiful, but fragile. Its weight, a constant reminder that I can be pulled at any moment. The helplessness as it whips in the wind, a warning.
(I once read an article about a girl named Danielle who got scalped on a roller coaster by an unruly ponytail. I kept the ponytail and stopped riding coasters.)
But the inconvenience and the threat of it all makes me feel more desirable, as if people want a woman more if she is perpetually exhausted and easily restrained. It makes me feel more womanly, as if I’m privy to a particular dimension of femininity only if the tips of my tresses brush against my ass. Ultimately, it makes me feel guilty that somehow, I am still the little girl who believes in fairytales of well-meaning fathers and beautiful princesses.
(Even in fairytales, a man pulled at Rapunzel’s hair to climb into her bed.)
In a photo from the assembly, I’m seated on the grass next to four Mulans and a witch. I’m peeking over the puffed sleeve on my shoulder with Rapunzel’s braid cascading down my back, my true hair a stark contrast underneath. But it doesn’t matter. One of the Mulans is staring at the braid in envy. At one point, she pet it and asked me if it was real. That question alone was enough to convince me that I was the star of the parade.
Nowadays, I wear my hair short.
Mission Hair
text: Billy Babis
photos + graphics: Emily Sadeghian
While traveling, I’ve long found barbershops to be perhaps the rawest form of cultural immersion. This social ritual, with its topical conversations and two-to-six week drumbeat is a portal into mundanity.
These spaces represent larger cultural paradigms. When I explored barbershops, in the city I've called home for two years, I saw this more clearly. In these two shops, we see both sides of San Francisco’s Mission District: its vibrant Latin roots side by side with its burgeoning tech-hipster scene.
In the most charming way, the red-green exterior of Mary’s Barber resembles the generic house I drew as a child with a triangle roof on top of a square. It’s owner effortlessly spilled out captivating and hilarious stories of his past as an immigrant from Honduras. Inside is a bustlin’ community under a low roof and tight quarters. I chatted with Ray (pictured below in flat-brimmed hat), a loquacious dude watching his shy son get his same haircut for $12.
Two blocks down, we pass another barber pole above a clear glass wall laminated with “The Refinery Grooming Club” in gold. Beyond the glass are white barbers in white lab coats and white walls adorned with trendy solid-colored deer antlers; perhaps the cleanest place I’ve seen in years. We chatted with Courtney, a Michigan native who previously struggled to feel welcomed as a barber in a masculine industry. The Refinery, she explained, is not a barbershop, but a grooming club: a place specializing in precise, short-haired trims for anybody with $50+.
2589 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110
3430 20th St, San Francisco, CA 94110
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