ABSTRACT
A key feature in systemic racism is the white racial frame (WRF), which is an overarching white worldview that denigrates nonwhite characteristics and idolizes whiteness, including skin color. As a byproduct of systemic racism, colorism privileges individuals with lighter skin color and Eurocentric features over those with darker skin color and features. Research has found those with lighter skin color tend to have better life outcomes in education, career, housing, marriage prospects, and better self-esteem, so it is not surprising that common Spanish phrases indicate a preference for lighter-skin color. The early Spanish colonizers imposed the racist-sexist system creating colorism among the Latine community—especially among women, because Eurocentric features are heavily connected to feminine beauty standards, a form of racialized sexism. This “yearning for whiteness” leads Latinas and other women of color to use skin-bleaching creams, hair straighteners, and hair dye in hopes of accessing some social privilege associated with whiteness, but these Eurocentric beauty standards are highly unattainable and come at a high cost to Latinas as individuals and as a community.
