Bonus Solo Episode: Feeling Like An Outsider With Taylor Rae Almonte-Roman

Summary

Taylor shares experiences of exclusion and racism, inspiring the podcast. Taylor moderated a Girls Inc of NYC panel on outsider experiences. Stories include a first-grade racial comment, an AP history teacher's demeaning remarks about NYU admission and reverse racism, and hair identity struggles, highlighting a bullying incident with hair extensions in sixth grade. The narrative covers the emotional impact of hair extensions, bullying, and the journey towards self-esteem and empowerment through hair choices, reflecting on the deep-seated effects on identity and self-perception.

Transcription

Taylor Rae Almonte-Roman

Hello and welcome back. It's another solo episode of “On the Outside”. Hey, hey friends and welcome back to the podcast in today's solo episode. I am just telling you guys a little bit of my story of times that I felt like an outsider. I used a ton of these stories as a promo on social. So if you go to our Instagram, you'll see a bunch of reels where I'm telling some of these stories.

because this is really what inspired me to start the podcast. I don't think when I was a kid and when I was a teenager, I really would have described myself as someone that was being bullied, but I knew that I was ostracized, left out a ton that I didn't feel included and that I was definitely experiencing some forms of racism, some forms of, yeah, bullying.

But I don't think I really had the mindset that that's what it was. So those experiences really led me to creating a space for me and my friends and people that I didn't even really know too well. The different guests that I've had on the show, people that I got to know through our interviews and our episodes together. I really wanted to make a space for us to all talk about those times that we had growing up.

I feel like truly everyone has had those experiences from big to small, from super upsetting to a little bit funny. There are so many different ways that we've been made to feel left out or unin included. I'm so grateful that this week, I actually got to do the keynote panel. got to be a moderator for the keynote panel for an event with Girls Inc of NYC.

And I got to speak with seven girls that are about 1516 years old old and they got to tell their stories at times. They felt like outsiders and that was so amazing to hear and be a part of the way that they have experienced that and how they continue to empower themselves and grow. And I really wish I had had those conversations when I was their age.

So let's just get into some of these experiences. The first one that I got to start with is a classic, it's a classic Taylor story. When I was in first grade, I was sitting at the lunch table and this boy in my class reaches over to, you know, a piece of bread. One of my friends had like a toasted sandwich for lunch, which honestly, I always thought it was like a little bit weird.

I was always like, it's not, not getting soggy, like toast kind of needs to be eaten right away. But nonetheless, and said, you look like this and everyone else looks like this and then pointed to a piece of white bread and that was really the first time that I saw myself as different from people around me. It's so interesting how little kids won't really see color even though I think there's a lot of issues when adults say I don't see color because you do.

But in many ways, little kids really don't, they don't see the nuances of race and ethnicity and how we relate to each other in the world based on those things. So that was really the first time that I noticed, oh, I am a couple shades darker than the rest of the kids in my class because, you know, pretty much everyone that I remember being in my early elementary school days was white.

I think as I got older, there were a couple Asian students, there were a couple Latino students, there were maybe, maybe one or two other black students. But when I was really young, I really don't remember any. So that was kind of that first experience for me as I got older. There was this truly awful a p history teacher that I had. and he, oh my gosh, he was truly the worst.

I have like multiple stories from this man. One of them was when I was sitting in class and I had a clip on ponytail. It was not the best. This is, you know, it's early two thousands girl, these are not, we don't have the hair technology that we have today and it was looking a little bit rough. Nonetheless. I was doing my best. I was really working at it.

I was giving it my all and he's walking up and down the aisles of the classroom and he literally like taps the back of my head, like hits this ponytail with his pen and goes, why does it always look like you're wearing fake hair? And honestly, my classmates gasped because I don't think that he actually knew that they were extensions or, you know, a fake ponytail.

I think he was just being a jerk and you know, thought that he was being funny and he was like, I, I think I was just silent and I remember he tried to overcompensate, he started calling me prom queen, like started making that my nickname for the rest of class that day and tried to be really nice to me. But that as someone that has always struggled with their hair, always, always, always, always had so much insecurity about my hair, my hair texture and just so much internalized you know,

struggles with how my hair looks and how I think it should look. That was a really, really rough moment for me, that same teacher when I got accepted to NYU said I got accepted early decision and he said, to my class, how does it feel to have only gotten accepted because of affirmative action? And I, you know, once again, I feel, you know, I always wish I could go back in time and like, yell at this man, but I was, you know, 17 years old and he, everyone loved this teacher also.

So that made it, you know, even, even more difficult. And that was just so mean. And as I got older, I remember visiting visiting my high school after I'd gone away to college, you know, like, I feel like the first year of college people do that, they like go back to their hometown and visit their high school. So I did that with my friends a couple of times, who I'd gone to high school with and I remember walking into his classroom and he was teaching a class and I was no longer a student,

right? I'm like, you know, 18 or 19 years old at this point. And he's like, oh Taylor, perfect timing. We were talking about reverse racism. Do you think you can tell the class what that might be like? Just truly an awful man. And my parents have listened to the podcast and seen, you know, my reels and, and my tiktoks and stuff talking about this and they're like, girl, how did you not tell us this?

We would have gone to the school and yelled at that man. But I honestly don't know why because I'm such a blabbermouth. So I can't believe I didn't tell on him. But that man was so mean and I hope he has the life he deserves. I really, I really do. So, my final little anecdote that I will share is actually a memory that is kind of painful. I've spoken about it so many times and you would think that by this point it wouldn't really hurt anymore.

But the truth is it does like this was pretty rough. So when I was in sixth grade, that was the first time that I got hair extensions and basically how it went with my hair was my mom and my sister have pretty different hair textures than I do. I have hair that's a lot more similar to my grandma's on both sides. And that being said, my mom didn't always know exactly the best way to go about working with my hair a lot of times it was just slicing it down and slicing it back with gel, which looked

really good. But honestly didn't give me a lot of variety and I didn't really see anyone around me that was wearing their hair just like big and out and curly. So that wasn't really the look I wanted, I wanted super long pinch straight hair. That is what I wanted. So the truth is it doesn't matter how my mom did my hair. I would have still hated it because it wasn't just long and straight.

And that was what I thought was beautiful at the time. And that's something that I still struggle with today at 30 years old, almost 31. And so at this time in my life, I was in sixth grade and my mom says that she remembers me looking in the mirror and crying and just being like, I really hate how I look and I hate my hair. And so her and my dad got a bunch of hair extensions.

They got the hair glue. We didn't really look things up on youtube at the time. That wasn't really like common, at least not in my house. And so my parents like figured out how to do these extensions and they did glue in extensions in my bathroom. I remember all of it. I remember my dad with the gloves on. I remember them parting my hair and like gluing these extensions in.

And honestly, I felt so amazing. I remember exactly what I wore to school. The next day I wore this orange dress with rainbow like pastel polka dots on it over jeans because jeans dresses, dresses with jeans under them was such a look of the time. And I remember I like pulled my bangs if you want to call it that the front of my hair, like pulled it back and put it in a poof.

Because remember I was growing up in New Jersey, so having little poof was the look. And I just remember feeling like, wow, finally I'm going to look the way that I want to and these were curly extensions, they blended a little bit more with my hair. But I just so so vividly remember that experience. And then I also remember the day that my parents took those extensions out, it was a couple of weeks later, maybe two weeks or so later.

And I remember, you know, they had to come out, they were falling out and I had put so much glue, like trying to keep them in. When I got home from school, I would like sneak and grab the glue bottle and try and like glue them in longer because I just didn't want want it to end. And my hair was so so thin and like damaged from those extensions. And I remember actually looking at myself in the mirror of my locker and being so taken aback because my hair was so thin and I hadn't realized it was the

first day I was back in school without the extensions and I was just so so devastated to, you know, have my natural hair back. So keep in mind that this is a very sensitive time for me, for my soul, for my spirit, my self esteem, my confidence, it's all just, you know, it's, it's all very fragile at this time in my life and in sixth grade you're what, you're like, 12, maybe 1213, 14.

Yeah, maybe 1112. In sixth grade, I think. so that's kind of where I'm at. And, I remember my mom took me to a black salon to get a weave and this was not something that my cousins were doing. This wasn't something that I had seen anyone in my family do. because, you know, even my cousins didn't really have the same kind of hair texture as me and I always, you know, really struggled with that.

But my mom got this recommendation, I think from someone at work, took me to the salon, they cornrowed my hair, braided it down, did a sew in and wow, when I tell you this, I could cry, I could cry. This could bring me to tears with how much this meant to me looking in the mirror and feeling like I finally looked like who I always wanted to be. Like my reflection matched up with who I felt like I was inside.

Like the beauty that I felt on the inside was finally there on the outside. And if you've never experienced something about your appearance, that felt this extreme, then that might sound so dramatic to you. But if you have, if you've, you know, struggled with a facet of your appearance and then had it, you know what I felt like was solved. It just, it is such a huge, huge moment in your life.

And so I remember it and I went to school and this boy in my class, crushed up a bag of Doritos and at lunch and he poured it in my hair. And I, it's funny now because I'm, you know, I'm a boxer and I like, run around and punch people more often. But at the time, that was definitely not my demeanor. And I got up at lunch and I remember grabbing the collar of his shirt and he tried to run away.

So the shirt like started ripping like the collar was stretching and I was just like punching him in the head. And you know, I can't say I condone violence, but I can also say shout out to me because that man really sucked. and just crying so much in the, in the lunch room because of how embarrassed I felt. And I continued to struggle with my hair.

You know, I remember this girl making fun of me because she was like, oh the way you turn your hair because you're not used to having long hair like you look like you have a stiff neck. And I remember her making fun of me because I wasn't used to having all that hair on my head and I was so scared of messing it up or like getting a hair out of place. I just remember all of the, you know, the ways in which I felt like finally I'll fit in with this hair, but also the ways in which the bullying kind of

continued. And, you know, now today I'm so grateful that I started braiding my hair a couple of years ago because I think that makes me feel the most me that any hair has ever made me feel. But it definitely those scars have lasted me my entire life being bullied for my hair, being a little kid and having sticks and leaves thrown in my curly hair because I couldn't really feel it.

And the kids in my class like throwing and seeing how many things they could put in my hair before me noticing at recess, like these moments just so deeply stayed with me and really just truly made such a mark on my identity. and how I see myself and how I saw myself my entire life, how I continue to see myself and how my hair identity has really shaped so so much of my self esteem.

So those are some of my outsider stories. Guys, I have had so many ups and downs. I've had incredible friends and moments that I felt so seen for who I am and also so many moments that were rough. So if you've experienced with rough moments, if you're still experiencing those rough moments, I see you and I'm with you as always.

And that is why I started this show so we could have a space together to talk about all the ways that we feel different, which in fact are the ways that in, you know, a lot of sense, bring us together and help us empathize and really see one another. Thanks so much for being here as always see you out there.