The Little Redheaded Girl
When my mom was eleven, living in Dayton, Ohio, she and her older sister would look for ways to entertain themselves. Their town was small and quiet; they had to get creative. One night, my mom thought it would be fun to put her hands in the wet cement of a sidewalk that lined the new store being built on Main Street. Feeling like a daredevil, knowing she was doing something illegal, she got a thrill.
By the time she got home that night, the police had already called her mom. They wanted to know, “Are you the mother of the little redheaded girl?” My grandma turned to my mom and sternly said, “You can do whatever you want. Just know that you’re always going to get caught. You’re forgetting that you have red hair, and do a horrible job of blending in.”
A faint moment, stored so far back in my mom’s mind, which she hasn’t recalled until recently. But stories about being a redhead are interchangeable to her. These moments frequently occurred. Her stories became our stories, as my four siblings and myself all carry her recessive MC1R gene—a very rare occurrence. All with different shades of red and all distinguishing ourselves as individuals through different routes. We were always clumped together as “that redheaded family,” which made us all eager to branch out in different ways. We couldn’t hide behind the tree when our teachers would call us in from recess, and we definitely couldn’t blend in with the crowd in any class picture, so we were forced to stand out. Rather, we forced ourselves to stand out.
Every year since 1998, my family has hosted the first night of the Jewish holiday of Passover. Our long wooden dining room table that encompassed most of the dining room, was set the day before, so that when guests walked in, they’d be greeted with a feeling of welcoming and belonging, because they had a place at the table. The kids in the family—the five of us, my three cousins, and other random stragglers who were dragged by their parents to come to dinner—were always assigned one task for the evening: to perform the Passover play. My cousin, who was fourteen at the time, a little gawky, and not completely comfortable in her own body yet, wrote the scripts, assigned each of us roles, and diligently made us run through countless dress rehearsals, hours before the night began.
The plays recounted and mimicked the story of Passover, with much more cheekiness than the way enslaved Jews lived their lives in Egypt. With every few pages came a musical interlude, featuring popular tunes like Destiny’s Child “And the Club is Jumping.” Except instead of club, it was “And the Frogs Are Jumping, Jumping.” Or “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” as “Don’t Cry for me Slaves of Egypt.” I think the adults especially liked that one.
We all anxiously waited for my cousin to tell us which characters we were playing, hoping there would be enough time to memorize our lines before dinner started. Except without even being told, I knew what role I would be playing. Every year, without fail, I was type-casted as the “burning bush,” the character in the Passover story that tells Moses to go back to Egypt and save the Jewish people. I guess I was chosen because I had the reddest hair. I sighed as my cousin went down the line of kids, all standing patiently in place, shrieking “yes” as they compared who had more lines, knowing what fate had in store for me.
This role was forced on me. It became my overblown source of identity.
The play took place directly in front of the dining room table, right in the path heading toward the kitchen. We utilized the ground floor, covering the tile with my sister’s gymnastics mat, just in case we needed to sporadically break into a choreographed dance, and then the open staircase that led to my parents’ room, thus creating our stage. Most of the action took place downstairs, but since I was playing God (the character of the burning bush was the physical form of God), I was upstairs. I crouched down on the floor, with my head tucked into my knees, forming a tortoise-like natural shell. I draped a red blanket over my body, hoping to transform myself into a sparking fire, but ultimately resembling a big red blob, instead. I let my hair down and flipped it in front of my face. My sister stood behind me and shook my hair back and forth. In an ominous voice, I recited my one line, over and over again.
“Moses, go back to Egypt.”
At first it was fun to play the burning bush. I was guaranteed to make people laugh, because the whole thing was just ridiculous. But I didn’t mind. I liked the attention. At the time, I didn’t even question whether the attention was positive or not. I just liked being the cool kid. It gave me purpose.
But, it got repetitive after a couple of years. Every year, the same line in the same “costume,” over and over again. All I wanted to say was, “I get it. I have red hair. Now can we move on with our lives?” Already at a young age, I was being filed as the redhead. This external attribute—one that I was given at birth and had no control over—determined whom I was and how I fit into this overarching play called life. I wonder if I could have conditioned myself to embrace it? I didn’t really have a choice. My hair was the physical manifestation of me as a person, so it seemed obvious—I was the only one who could do the job, right? All of my siblings had red hair, but people always told me mine was the most “vibrant.” Mine was different, but I didn’t have a say. These roles were bestowed upon me, and I had no choice but to let it define me.
I was type-casted and the show had to go on.
In 2001, I was in the fourth grade. A little small for my size, I let my personality overcompensate. Hopeful for the future, I was one grade away from being allowed to act in the school play. It was a pretty big deal, being able to participate in the school play. The sixth grade English teacher, Mrs. Keller, who did a solid job of commanding attention, directed it. Maybe it’s because all of the students were scared of her.
This particular year, I was in luck. I didn’t have to wait a year to be in the play, because I was needed now. The stage was calling.
My school was putting on the production of “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.” Two matinees and one night show were performed, and the whole community came to see it. Performed in the social hall, twenty round tables, eight chairs around a table, and an amateur wooden stage filled the room. Mrs. Keller needed me for one particular scene. I was allowed to miss fifth period (science, which I hated) in order to go to play practice in the social hall. I went home and told my parents the good news, and pleaded until they allowed me to take the esteemed role. Then, obliged to show their unconditional support for me, they bought tickets to every performance. I felt a sudden wave of confidence every time I walked into practice, because I was the fourth grader who got to spend time with all the older kids. Most of the time, I sat at one of the tables in the front, and just watched as Mrs. Keller screamed her way through practices.
Because I was only needed for one scene, I didn’t have to do much. In this one particular scene, I played Charlie Brown’s love interest, one of his classmates. He went on and on about how he loved this “little redheaded girl” and continuously tried to get her attention. Being a “little redheaded girl” myself, it only seemed right that I acted in the play. However, it wasn’t until opening night when my parents and I realized what my role consisted of—I was to sit on stage, on a painted staircase that the art teacher, Ms. A made, with my back to the audience. As Charlie Brown fantasized over me, I was not to respond.
I just sat.
I had no lines. I wore a red skirt and red cardigan with white buttons tucked in—my favorite outfit. In the playbill, next to my name, there it was. Printed in bolded black letters: “little redheaded girl.”
Some of my parents’ friends who were at any (or all) of the performances still call me their “little redheaded girl.” I went home for a wedding at the beginning of this year, and one of my parents’ friends was re-introducing me to her son, who I had probably met briefly when I was younger. She dragged me across the dance floor toward the bar, where her son was standing. She lightly shoved me into him and said, “Ben, meet the woman I was telling you about: the little redheaded girl!”
I froze and grew timid. Standing there, I felt like I was my fourth grade self on stage again—belittled and small. I consciously made an effort to keep my jaw from dropping. I couldn’t believe what she had just said. Completely void of any other identity, I was used as a prop. An objectified thing that only had one purpose: to serve in the image of man’s desires. No lines; just my red hair.
It had been twelve years since my speechless performance, and I had liked to think I accomplished a lot in that time. She could have introduced me to her son by saying that I was the President of my high school or I had gotten into the honors program at Michigan, but she chose this. How was I supposed to look sexy and confident, as this woman was parading me around as a child? She was ultimately declaring, “Yes, I want to set my son up with a little redheaded girl.”
But I was chosen for this role. It’s what everyone wanted, but only I got. I wonder if it was worth it. I wonder if I should have let this identity completely erase everything else about me.
The characteristic seems to have attached itself to my name. “Sara Berlin, the redhead.” But it has never explained who I was, just how I look. That’s the tricky thing about identity. You may think that an identity exemplifies the way you are. But others interpret it as who you are. I have never realized that my identity shapes me, yet it also distracts others from truly seeing me.
I can’t run from it—it’s a physical manifestation of my being. Yet people just assume that this identity morphed with my personality, acting as interchangeable units. They see my hair and nothing else. It’s as if they’re cavemen, looking at a picture of an evolved human for the first time, and only have the knowledge to point and declare, “RED.” But I have so much more to offer. Why don’t people see that? I should define it; it shouldn’t define me. This woman brought all of these ideas that I had never consciously considered to my head. I always figured my hair was just an aspect of me—not the aspect of me.
This all seems so backwards.
How was I supposed to know that elementary school would only be the beginning of my super-imposed identity? I guess I can only blame myself. After all, I am the one that accepted the role. I would soon learn that my life would be revolved around this external characteristic that I had no control over.
It was Thursday, November 10, 2005. South Park had aired its 11th episode of the season: “Ginger Kids” the night before. I had woken up and gotten ready for another day of eighth grade, putting on my uniform that I had laid out the night before and eating my Eggo cinnamon toast waffle swiftly. I ran out the door.
Arriving to school a little behind schedule because my mom claimed she forgot to turn off the stove, I rushed through the front door, into my first period. Class hadn’t started yet. I looked around and saw all of the boys whispering and chuckling to each other. While trying to hold back laughter, one of them turned to me and asked, “Do you have a soul?”
Perplexed by this question David, the boy who I had a crush on since kindergarten, was asking, my eyes started to well up. I couldn’t come up with a response quickly enough. I soon realized that South Park had aired the previous night, and this time the episode targeted redheads. The show was based around the premise that “gingers,” people with red hair and freckles, had no souls because of a condition called “gingervitus” and “children who had it cannot be cured” (South Park, Episode 11). In the episode, Gingers were accused of being inhumane and unable to survive in the sunlight, and were treated as outcasts, forced to eat in the hallway instead of the cafeteria. In one scene, Kenny (the main character) was giving a presentation to the class about gingers and said, “My speech is entitled ‘Ginger Kids.’ Children with red hair, light skin, and freckles. We’ve seem them on the playgroup…they creep us out, and make us sick to our stomachs” and then added, “if you think the ginger problem is a serious one…think again” (South Park, Episode 11).
I learned this stuff quickly, as the only other redhead in my class, who had seen the episode, warned me that we were in for a rough couple of days. I just never thought that it would stick. I figured it was a fad that would pass, just like crimped hair and scrunchies. From this episode, came a Facebook phenomenon of different events pertaining to redheads. Someone had created a national Kick-a-Ginger Day event page, and it went viral. I couldn’t believe that it spread so quickly. Damn Internet. During P.E., a friend jokingly poured a little water on my head, claiming he was just trying to “put the fire out.”
I like to believe it was all in good fun. The jokes got old after a while, but that didn’t stop people from saying them. The episode garnered a lot of attention, and the term “ginger” really stuck. I became pretty used to the labels, and ultimately unfazed by the whole thing. Ginger became synonymous for redhead and eventually replaced the name Sara completely.
I try not to let it bother me, and for a while I convinced myself that it didn’t mean anything. I have lived my whole life so far, trying to stand out, fostering my individuality. And now my identity was getting national attention. This is kind of ultimately what I wanted, right?
Maybe we are all vain. In this movie of our own lives, we play the conceited, shallow, star. Maybe we think these character traits that we portray really matter. I wonder if they do, though. With something so trivial as hair color, maybe I let it shape who I am, because of how everyone responded to it. I went along with the jokes and the laughs at the expense of my wellbeing. I allowed myself to be a prop, I allowed people to label me like this. I wonder if I just stopped caring about the perceptions that my friends and peers had of me. I wonder if the joke would ever get old. For so much of my life so far, my hair color was used to set me apart. But not for the reasons I had hoped. I wanted to be labeled as individualistic and unique. But people didn’t even look that far. They saw my hair color and used it as a symbol for my personality. So I started to use it to define myself, and it made me feel safe. I sought comfort in this attribute that was an inherent part of me. I guess the joke was on me.
Two years ago for my birthday, I went to New York to celebrate with my siblings. On the night of my actual birthday, the five of us went to Cafeteria, a swanky restaurant in the heart of Chelsea, arguably the city’s trendiest neighborhood. Every waiter was strikingly handsome—dressed uniformly in a white button down and skinny brown suspenders. It’s one of those restaurants where the music gets louder as the night progresses and lights dim so low, almost to the point where every table should be equipped with a flashlight. We liked to make up stories about all of the people in the restaurant based on how they carried themselves.
While waiting for our table to be cleared, we were escorted to the bar. I leaned against the bar and tilted my head back. Next thing I knew, my brother was smacking me across the head. Everyone was yelling, and I had no idea why. The restaurant started to reek of burnt hair. I grabbed the back of my head, and felt my hair. Pulling my hand forward, I watched dead red hairs fall to the ground. I had tilted my head back into a candle.
My hair had caught on fire.
After the embarrassment subsided and I was escorted to a private bathroom to clean myself up, I went to our table, where my siblings had been waiting. I figured we’d get a free drink out of it or something! Not only did we not get anything for free, but for the rest of the night, I kept hearing waiters whisper to each other, “Oh my gosh, is that the redheaded girl who lit her hair on fire?”
My fiery hair color, my most defining identity, became all too literal. I couldn’t hide or blend in, and not because I was a red head. It was because my hair was literally on fire. For the first time, people weren’t recognizing me for the color of my hair. They were recognizing me for what my hair had done. That night, for a brief moment, I became the girl on fire.
Thinking back to it, we all can’t help but laugh at the scene we caused. We laugh because we’ve embraced the absurdity of it all. We’ve embraced the fact that we can’t change who we are, and embrace the moments that happen. We’ve embraced all of our identities that make us quirky and awkward and unique. And we’ve definitely embraced the fact that we don’t belong in fancy restaurants.
But have I truly embraced this identity, or have I just spent my life shrugging it off? I like to think I have because I don’t have a choice. My hair has defined me despite my ability to control it. But maybe it’s okay not to embrace it. Why am I not letting myself admit that? Why can’t I let it be okay? Maybe it’s because I think it means nothing. It’s just a hair color. But maybe it’s something much deeper than that. It’s not this frivolous, ambivalent thing. It has surrounded me my whole life and has illuminated my presence. I feel overwhelmed by it—a weight that lies on my shoulders. Its just hair, but it’s not. It’s a set of thick locks that forms down my back and covers my ears. It’s the ominous shadow that constantly follows me. Its there as a reminder, every time I look in the mirror—inescapable. It’s me, and that’s not frivolous.
Red hair is a biological mishap—a recessive MC1R gene that is so rare that by the year 2113, the gene will not even be in existence.
Yet, I let it control my life.
We are a mere two percent of the world’s population; out of seven billion people, there are 140 million of us.
Yet, it’s my most blatant identity.
On the first day of Hebrew class, second semester of my freshman year, I walked into a room of strangers that had all known each other. Being a Greek Life infested class, some of them knew each other socially, and some of them knew each other from the previous semester. Either way, it was incredibly cliquey. Even on the first day, they all had inside jokes, trying to poke fun at our teacher, and take advantage of her supposed leniency (she scored a 3.5 for easiness on ratemyprofessor.com).
I was the new kid and I was intimidated.
My teacher, Pauli, was an older Israeli woman who had been teaching Hebrew 102 at Michigan for six years. She had well deserved wrinkles lining the top of her eyes, probably one for every student she had encountered in her time teaching. Maybe two for every student in this class alone.
As she commanded everyone’s attention for class to start, twenty minutes late, she started to take attendance. She was calling off students, based on her roster, and then would ask them their Hebrew names. She would then scribble notes onto her paper. For all we know, she could have been writing down our responses or just doodling to pass the time. She knew most of the faces, maybe even all; she didn’t recognize mine. When she got to my name, she didn’t ask me for my Hebrew name. She didn’t say anything at all. She just looked up from her sheet and declared, “Ahh (sigh), Gingit!” which is Hebrew for redhead. From that moment on, I was only referred to as “gingy” or “gingit.” I would sign all of my emails to her with gingy, because I was nervous she wouldn’t recall who I was if I had written my actual name.
I never spoke much in class. I never really felt the need to say anything.
It was the class right after our midterm. We had to read a story and write a well-crafted response, using correct sentence structure and grammar. My teacher handed back our essays. I was the only one who didn’t get mine back. I approached her after class and told her that I never received my essay. She starred at me blankly and claimed that I never turned one in, even though she had called role the previous class, so she knew I was there. I looked at the papers piled on top of her desk, a mountain of scribbles and eraser marks. The exam on top was mine. I grabbed it and pointed to my name in the top right hand corner.
She gave me a confused look and said, “How was I supposed to know that is was yours? It doesn’t say your name anywhere.”