Translates meaning “rind” or “outer layer.” Hair serves as our rind. Throughout this project I explore the dual role hair plays within young Latina women’s lives. Hair acts as both protection and vulnerability, resistance and assimilation. La Corteza, examines the cultural and emotional weight that we carry in each strand.

For many Latinas, hair is an identifier, its texture, color, and length are often points of personal tension. Holding both cultural pride and societal pressure. In the United States, Latinas often are pressured to favor Eurocentric beauty standards. Where straight, light hair is more accepted than textured, darker hair. Hair becomes more than appearance but a political act. Where braiding emerges as a meaningful performance. The interweaving of hair becomes a quiet yet powerful assertion of cultural continuity, resisting erasure and reclaiming visibility.

When invisibility can often feel safer than standing out, these decisions reflect the silent strategies of survival, self-preservation, and resistance.Throughout the making of La Corteza, I interviewed and photographed my participants who spoke candidly about their experiences:
“My hair is typically the only physical mark.”
“When I started embracing my hair is when I felt the most comfortable in my identity.”
“I feel ashamed of my hair. I just wish it was straight.”
“Being Latin American means balancing both identities... I know I’m both, and I know I’ll never fully be one—and that’s okay.”

These reflections speak to the layered and sometimes painful process of reclaiming beauty on our own terms. La Corteza lives in that delicate space between concealment and connection.