Hanna

The Kyoshi Warriors - Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008)

The Vuvalini - Mad Max Fury Road (2015)

The Amazons - Wonder Woman (2017)

The Valkyries - Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

The Dora Milaje - Black Panther (2018)

Carrie Fisher hiding in the trash cans on the backlot of the Star Wars set, 1976

Brown Beauty

Growing up, I was raised to always stay indoors to keep my skin from getting dark. My relatives who traveled all the way from the Philippines bring pasalubong, and I have gotten the infamous papaya whitening soap as a gift.

When I visited the Philippines, the people portrayed in media look nothing like me, and instead are replaced with the mestizos/mestizas who are pale or light skinned, and are the beauty standard. Colorism is unfortunately still a big problem, and it’s so ingrained in our culture that I’ve struggled to even be proud of being Filipino. How can I when society tries to erase my brown skin?

I dealt with a lot of self-hatred, (still kinda do) but I recently decided to change that by drawing these girls. I wanted to draw badass and confident women that I could look up to, but most of all I wanted them to look like me: Brown, Proud, and Beautiful.