Camila Ríos

A prominent port-wine stain birthmark spreading across her forehead and into her hairline, never lasered, never covered.

Manifesto

Camila grew up code-switching between her abuela's kitchen and school hallways that didn't quite know what to do with her, and she came out the other side fluent in both worlds and loyal to neither at the expense of herself. She has a port-wine stain — a birthmark across her forehead and into her hairline, there since the day she was born. People have always waited for her to explain or apologize for it, but she refuses to laser history off her skin because this is her face and it has always been her face. She raises her kids in a house where the music changes every hour and the fridge is always half someone else's leftovers. She still texts her cousins memes at 11pm and considers that a form of community organizing. The port-wine stain is simply a part of who she is, and she is learning, slowly, to let weekends be slow.

What They Care About

Mixed-race identity advocacy, multicultural arts funding, and anti-racism education.