The Only Black Girl In The Room When…It’s Honeymoon Time
This series of blogposts are inspired by my forthcoming novel: The Only Black Girl In The Room (Release Date: May 7th, 2024), and my life growing up as frequently the only Black girl in the room. I hope that these posts can offer insight, understanding, and a little bit of humor to the small and big moments of being the only. Thank you for engaging with me and my work.
Welcome to Mexico. Bienvenidos! Yes, I still remember small bits of the Spanish I took from fourth to twelfth grade. Surprisingly, that came in handy while I was welcomed to Cancún for my belated honeymoon last summer. My husband and I ended up in separate lines going through Customs, and while I heard the officer ask my husband questions in English, mine asked me in Spanish after I said I spoke, “un poquito.” And, I was able to answer, even though I very regrettably stopped taking Spanish after high school, and lost so much of that knowledge.
It didn’t take long for us to see our compatriots start to embody the negative stereotypes often associated with tourists from a particular area of the continent. As we were standing at the baggage claim, a group of (presumably) twenty-something yt men began commenting about how Mexico probably wanted more people like them to come in and wouldn’t kick them out if they decided to stay permanently. Apparently, dudebros are God’s gift to Cancún, she says entirely sarcastically.
At the hotel, we got to hear some of the hits. My personal favorite, a throwback to every return-from-summer-vacation I experienced in middle and high school, occurred by the pool. The man in the beach chair next to us looked at a worker and said, “I’m almost as dark as you,” and expected the poor woman to laugh. She handled it as best she could, and quickly moved on. Dear reader, he was not tan. He was red. He was tomato-red. Cherry-red. Cranberry-red. Just so burnt. Dear reader, never look at a person of color and tell them that your skin is the same as theirs because you’ve tanned. It’s a microaggression, and it’s macro-weird.
As one-half of an interracial couple, I can also stress the importance of sunscreen. My white husband and I put on the same amount of sunscreen. I got a tiny burn on my nose that went away after a day. My husband had shoulder and neck sunburns that peeled for about a week. Thank you, Melanin, but we’ve learned our lesson. Both of us need to be a lot better with the sunscreen, regardless of who burns more.
On a lighter note, at the airport, we got a call back to themes from my last post. The airport worker assisting us with transportation asked where we were staying. When we told him, he responded telling us that a lot of celebrities stayed there (no clue if that’s the case!). He then looked at my husband and said, “oh! Doctor Strange!” Ironically, not the first time my husband has been compared to Benedict Cumberbatch, but probably my favorite one. Did I get a celebrity comparison? Nope. But, I did get a laugh, and a great honeymoon. I can highly recommend Le Blanc Spa and Resort in Cancún, where I was, yes, the only Black girl in the (hotel) room, and one of very few on the resort. We were so welcomed, and the food/drinks/atmosphere was amazing.