On almost bleaching her skin and how she managed to embrace her natural beauty:
Nyakim Gatwech: “So back to school at the end of next year, the same thing, and I would come home and try this stuff [cream for bleaching], and there came a time when I said, yes, go ahead, and do it. But I’m just like, no, no, that’s not right.
And then we moved. We moved from Buffalo, New York to Minnesota. When I was in Buffalo, New York, there were not that many Africans. It was just mostly African-American or Latina, white people.
Like, there was not enough black people, especially in my school. There were two families that were Sudanese.
And then [when] we came to Minnesota – we went to St. Cloud in Minnesota – there was Africans. There was Somalians, there were Kenyans, little bit of people that I was familiar with. That even though they’re lighter than me, they were raised in a country where they don’t look at skin color in a bad way.
So I started to surround myself with friends that were Africans that I know were not going to make fun of me. In high school, 9th grade, I started hanging out with Somalians and other Sudanese kids.
I started to hang out with the people who accept me for who I am. And I started thinking like I don’t care anymore.
And then so, I just started to look at myself, and working on me and say ‘you know what? I’m beautiful the way I am. I would wake up everyday and look in the mirror and tell myself ‘you are beautiful. You are beautiful just the way you are.’ So it became something I repeated.
And I used to call my sister and she would say, ‘aren’t you glad you did not bleach your skin now?’ And I would say, ‘Yes, I am.’ And so, I just then started embracing who I am.