Daughter of:
Mr. Javier & Mrs. Maria Gomez
Hometown: Delicias, Mexico
Raised in Phoenix, Arizona
Bachelors of Science: ASU Fall ‘10 in Accounting
Masters: ASU Spring ‘12 in Taxation
Initiated into KDChi Fall 2008
Lambda Chapter Phi Class
Treasurer 2009
Vice President 2010
Irene Montoya Scholar 2011-2012
IN MEMORIAM
We share & remember the wonderful life of a sister called to Omega Chapter.
"Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”
Maria was a beautiful soul who cared deeply about her community, friends, and family. Her good faith, legacy, and smile is truly missed by those of us who were blessed to meet her.
- Diana Resendiz, New Member Sister
Maria cared about the world around her and wanted to make a difference. Maria was a fighter and determined to stay positive throughout her life. Maria is missed dearly by all who had the pleasure of meeting her.
- Danielle Corrales,
New Member Sister
Maria was a very genuine soul that would always put the needs of those she loved before her own. Maria was always a pleasure to be around and she left a big void within our sisterhood and she will always be remembered.
- Tanya Alderete,
New Member Sister
30
Chocolate and Vanilla:
Learning to Love My Skin Color
Reprinted with permission from blackgirllatinworld.com
By: KDChi Pi Alumna, Anali Martinez of The Nueva Latina
“Papi, porque yo soy de chocolate y Abner es de vanilla? Yo quiero ser de vanilla tambien.”
I wasn’t always as dark as I am now. I remember I used to be very close in skin color to my brother. One summer on our family trip to the beach, I came back in to the hotel room and as I turned to look in the mirror I jumped back scared.
I was dark. I was brown. What happened?!?!? I started crying.
I spent the rest of the summer trying to wash away my color by viciously scrubbing while I took showers. I was so ashamed of my new skin color and I didn’t even know why.
I watched novelas religiously growing up. In novelas, all the beautiful protagonists are blancitos for the most part. All the morena/os in the novelas usually play the help or someone who is not a good person.
One day when I was about 7 or 8, I decided to ask my dad, “Papi, porque yo soy de chocolate y Abner es de vanilla? Yo quiero ser de vanilla tambien.” Why was my brother vanilla colored? Why was I chocolate? I was so jealous of him and I wanted to know why I was “cursed” with being brown.
I would go to Mexico for my summer vacations and I would engross myself in Mexican culture. My parents even enrolled me in school for the two months that I would be there. Looking through the newspapers and the magazines, I noticed something. In all the social event pages of Mexico’s high society…there was no one who looked like me. Mexico has strong laws barring discrimination based on skin color or ethnicity, but the practices of public relations firms and news media lag behind, promoting the perception that light skin is desirable and dark skin unappealing.
My crisis with my skin color worsened and I felt as ugly as ever. I wanted to be light with my whole heart. Why did I have darker skin? Why were my mom and my brother “blessed” with light skin? Those are the kind of thoughts I would have.
In fourth grade, after our Spring Break vacation, I went back to school only to be nicknamed BMW or “Black Mexican Woman”.
For the last few months of school all my classmates would call me this and I would spent hours locked in the school bathroom crying because I felt like my life would be so much different if only I had light skin.
Freshman year of high school one of my classmates decided to tell me, in front of the whole class, that I looked like La India Maria. There was a picture hanging of her in our Spanish class and he would point to her everyday and remind me that I looked like that and that I was destined to be no more than an india for the rest of my life.
“[Dark] skin color is still associated with foreignness,” Luz Maria Martinez, a leading anthropologist on Afro-Mexican culture, told a newspaper. “We do not know how to value the indigenous culture, which is very rich, or the African culture, which is as great as any in the world.”
On a trip sophomore year of high school to Acapulco, a light-skinned Mexican girl about my age was laying by the pool at the report we were staying at. I walked by her on my way to order a burger from the pool bar. I was still in my “sleepy clothes” (aka sweats and a T-shirt) and was in no mood for anything at the moment. She called over to someone and kept calling. She kept saying, “Excuuuuuse me! Hellooooo! I need help over here!” I went to the bar and ordered my burger and started walking back. ------>