"Chonga" came to mind immediately. Growing up in Miami, the Latin American capital of the world, I remember hearing of such girls. Once again, I googled this term and this time the results were composed of highly exaggerated personalities with large breasts, tight clothing, heavy makeup, large hoop earrings, dark gelled back hair, and pencil thin eyebrows. I also found a definition, "A chonga is best known for her cheap form of dress, a combination of the so-called gangsta look and that of a prostitute. They are primarily found in Miami, most famously in Hialeah." The definitions were helpful in recreating this character. I also looked up celebrities that embodied these qualities; people like Jennifer Lopez and the rapper Pitbull. His song, "I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)" served as the best form of imitation for body language, attitude, makeup, etc.
As I mentioned earlier, collaging the "American woman" was another story. The search results had iconic images of Marilyn Monroe all over them. It would have been an easy step to take next, and call it done! But I thought it was unfair to base my creations on unbalanced stereotypes (a chonga versus Marilyn). So I made the search more contemporary and thought about what qualities I considered American. The beach blonde bombshell popped into my mind. I googled celebrities that portrayed such roles, like Britney Spears and Heidi Montag. Eventually, I came to someone who I thought I could transform with ease: Jamie Lin Spears, Britney's little sister. Like me, she has a round face, similar skin tone, and eye and brow color. I studied her clothing closely. I also kept the coyness of Marilyn to convey a specific American attitude.
A few hours later, I agreed to an extreme makeover. I had never colored my hair, but in order to go blonde, there was no choice. I set up a mini photo studio in my living room, and there I morphed, like a chameleon, into multiple personalities. First, I shot the "regular" me, then I did the "chonga". I bought a large bottle of gel, giant gold hoops, and stuck an image on the mirror of this Hialeah girl that stared at me as I did my makeup. During the photo shoot, I played music that best represented each of the two extremes, so in this case it was Pitbull time. Early the next morning, I went to Modern Day Spa where I was to become blonde. It took sometime for the hairstylist to understand why I wanted to go this far, but at the end she highly advised me to stay away from going totally blonde. "Your hair is going to break off" she said. And although I had dragged my husband in hopes that we both could convince her, at the end she convinced us. I agreed to the next best alternative — extreme highlighting. Two and a half hours of getting my hair pulled through a polka-dotted cap and $145 later, I was as blonde as I could get. I left promising the stylist I would come back the next day to return to my natural hair color, and when I got home, I hooked up my iPhone to the boombox and blasted some Britney.
The photos were crafted similar to a 3-D image reconstruction procedure. I would revolve around a center point, and snap a photo every 30 degrees. This way, when I placed all the images into a stop-motion video, it was a clear transition. I also chose certain colors for my outfits. They matched certain qualities of each character, which in turn match the palette of my website and the thesis book. Pink was me, a color I relate to since a young age. Yellow was for the blondeness of the American woman. Black was for the confrontational and tough look of a chonga. At the end of my photo session and $50 later, I collected close to 500 photos and was back to being a brunette.
Once I had all the photos in front of me, I selected six that best personified the three characters. Meticulously, I cleaned them up in Photoshop but left most of the realness intact.
