How Teen Author Symphorosa Gabriel is Helping Young Girls Find Hair Happiness
/
During Black History Month, we celebrate the many achievements and contributions of Black people and their communities who, throughout history, have done so much to inspire change towards a more culturally diverse, compassionate, and prosperous world.
FriesenPress is honoured to have assisted many writers of colour with sharing their stories over the years. In celebration of Black History Month, we’re amplifying the voices of some incredible Black FriesenPress authors.
In some peoples’ eyes, Symphorosa Gabriel is still a kid. But the reality is that this impressive 19-year old woman has already done much to empower the next generation of Black girls to embrace and celebrate the beauty of their natural hair.
Though, even for Symphorosa, the road to self-empowerment hasn’t been easy. After immigrating to Canada from Tanzania at age nine, she began to feel “embarrassed about [my hair] because nobody in my school had the same hairstyles I did.” It wasn’t until in-person school was interrupted in March 2020 that Symphorosa began paying closer attention to her hair. “I was taking care of my hair more. Before that point, I would usually cut it, but I [grew] really proud of my natural hair.”
Around that time, an interaction with her nieces (who themselves had just immigrated to Canada) spurred Symphorosa into action. Determined to help future generations have greater self-esteem about their natural hair, she set to work on what would become Hair Happiness — her first children’s book, published with FriesenPress.
We recently spoke with Symphorosa between health science classes to learn about the inspiring origin of Hair Happiness, how The Alchemist prompted her to start writing, and the powerful lesson she hopes readers will take away from the book.
What inspired you to write Hair Happiness?
The inspiration for this book was actually my little nieces. At the time I wrote it, the three of them were between five and 15 years old — relatively young. I thought that the issue of self-esteem when it comes to Black children was different from when I was growing up, because there’s more representation than in my time. But I was surprised to learn that it was exactly the same. There was nothing different. The stereotypes that were prevalent [in the media] were still the same. The way people viewed natural hair was still the same. The only thing that was different was [the success of] Black Panther.
After learning that, I noticed something in one of my nieces. I usually tend to do their hair whenever I visit them, and I’ll say all different types of kind and positive things about them — whether it’s their skin, their features, or their hair. One day, when I called my 11-year-old niece a princess, she said, “How can I be a princess if I’ve never seen a princess that looks like me or has my type of hair?”
It just hit so hard. I was so hurt from it because nothing had changed. When I was her age, I felt the exact same way. Thinking, “There’s no way I could be this beautiful person or be a princess, or be like this cartoon and these other people that I adore.” In a child’s mind, cartoons and the people they see in the media are their friends. That’s their life.
At that time, I was still dealing with the same insecurity from my youth — even though I now had so much more pride in my heritage and my culture and my hair.
I just figured I had to do something for them. I love them so much. That’s how the book started. And one afternoon, I was reading The Alchemist and it inspired me to write a little poem. And then I drew a little character, and I thought it was good enough to start writing a book for [my nieces].
How did your nieces react after Hair Happiness was published?
Oh, they love it. They love it so much that they reread it whenever they can. Just even giving [the book] to them — it felt like my purpose for writing the book was realized.
To see a little Black girl reading these positive things about herself and her hair and gaining more self-esteem of features that are deemed negative or different. And just gaining more resilience because, eventually, they will experience racism and featurism and sexism. And that’s unfortunate. But it’s inevitable. It will happen.
In those times when it does, they have this book to come back to and say, “You know what? I remember I read this book and it made me feel this certain type of way. And whenever I feel negative things about myself or when somebody says negative things about me, I know that my hair is good as it is.”
What was feeding the fire in you to meet the challenge of writing and publishing a book at such a young age? It’s not something the average teenager does — why now?
There was a student in my grade that I went to school with. I’ve known her for a few years and she wrote a book. We were about 16 at the time. I felt like, “Oh, if she could write a book about something that she’s passionate about (which is changing the world), then I can write a book, too!” That’s the main thing that made me feel confident that, as a teenager, I could write something that could come to fruition as a book.
That was the first part. That, and: I’m a bookworm. All my life, I’ve been reading books. I love it. As I mentioned, I was reading The Alchemist, which was a book that was recommended to me by my brother. It’s about a boy who is journeying around the world to find his treasure. And eventually, he realizes his treasure was at home. I felt that he was able to make his journey just from having a dream about something. So, that also made me believe that I have a dream about doing something for little Black girls. That was something I wanted to do, and I turned to writing to achieve it.
The illustrations in this book are very sweet. Where and how did you connect with Yograj Saini, your illustrator on this project?
I connected with him online, actually, through a program where people from different places showcase their skills and people hire them. I saw his illustrations from other projects and all I could think was, “This is so cute.” It was closest to what I had drawn for the little character I had sketched out when I was writing. I contacted him and we worked on the illustrations for about two months all together. And he was just amazing to work with.
Seeing the final versions for the first time – it was surreal. It’s like when you read a character in a book, it can feel like they’re coming out off the page. Like they’re a real-life character. It felt surreal.
The illustration process was smooth. [Yograj was] very responsive and he was able to put what I had imagined on digital paper. I think I felt a bit shy to provide a little bit more [direction]. Part of me wishes I had invited more creativity from the illustrator — although I love how the finished images turned out. That’s a lesson I’ll keep in mind for my next book.
Are there any other lessons you learned from this first book that you’ll bring to your next project?
The lesson I learned from the first book is that I can do it. That’s the main lesson to learn: it’s done, I’ve done it before, and I could do it again. And next time, I could do it with a little bit more openness and creativity, because there’s a little less restriction, less nerves, and fewer feelings of doubt. You feel you can allow yourself more space to experiment with new and different ideas when it comes to illustrations.
Are you working on any other book projects at the moment?
I love writing. It’s the way that I process life in general. I like to make little stories about certain feelings or things that I experience. When you write a story and simplify it, whatever struggle you’re experiencing, it makes it more simple. It doesn’t feel as overwhelming and complex as it was before.
I’m working on four little stories right now — one of them is about a boy who likes to colour in pink. So maybe that will turn into something for my next book.
What are you most proud of with regards to being a published author?
I am now part of a group of many accomplished Black authors. I can fully say that. Just even saying I’m an author is enough, but also being a Black woman in the book space is a really unique experience. Even though there have been so many, many Black female authors out there. I feel proud to say that I am a Black female author.
Just being a part of the clique — it’s me, Oprah, Michelle Obama. We get together. We talk about children’s books and writing. [Laughs]
What’s one thing you hope folks reading Hair Happiness take away from the book?
Hair Happiness incorporates a lot of things that we as Black women mainly see as bad about our hair. In one of the pages, it says, “I like my hair. It’s like magic because it shrinks.” And I think as a collective of women in general, we place a lot of value in the length of our hair. It’s something that matters to us. As Black women — at least for me — when my hair is shrinking and it looks shorter than it is, at times I feel like I don’t like it in that state. But in the book I showed it in a sense where it’s something that’s good. It’s good for my hair to shrink and be versatile and look like so many different lengths. And one day I can want short hair and the next day I can want long hair. Whatever length my hair is that day. So, it’s something [positive] I think.
The last page states, “my hair is everything, more than enough.” And connecting those two particular phrases, it’s like, I’m embracing everything about my hair. I’m embracing the good and what’s perceived as “bad” about my hair. I love it completely. And it’s not just enough — it’s better than that. I think that’s the message I want for people to really keep after reading the book. I love everything about my hair and then some.
Hair Happiness is available now.
You can follow Symphorosa on Instagram at @symphorosa_ and @hairhappiness.
