What We Did to Each Other

Por/by JOSUEE HERNÁNDEZ

WHAT WE DID TO EACH OTHER is a dual-POV #ownvoices YA psychological thriller about the intoxicating, all-consuming power of whiteness and how far one brown Mexican American girl is willing to go to fall into its orbit. Set in the early 2010s-a time before the concept of self-love flooded social media, before the Kardashians darkened their skin to appear BIPOC-adjacent, before “Instagram face -WHAT WE DID TO EACH OTHER is at once a disturbing yet thought-provoking indictment of the effects of colorism in Latinx communities.

Two Latinx teens-one who strives to pass as white at her new school to earn the popularity she's always desired, and one who settles into a stereotyped version of himself in exchange for being needed by his white peers-grapple with the power and privilege of whiteness until the costs of their actions put them on a dangerous collision course.

It's the early 2010s, and seventeen-year-old Yesenia Rivera hates everything about herself: her brown skin and wide nose, her curly hair and hand-me-down clothing, and her inability to fit in with either the Mexican girls or the white girls at her school. So when her mother's new job requires them to uproot their lives and move to the Pacific Northwest, Yesenia devises a plan to remake herself completely. Cloaked in skin lightening cream, blue contact lenses, dyed-blonde hair, and a whiter name, Yesenia's aka Jessie's newfound ability to pass as white in her new school gets her the popularity she's always dreamed of. Yet as her brazen confidence morphs into hubris, all it takes is a couple of slip-ups for someone to take notice.

Guillermo Rivera-aka Willy, an easier-to-pronounce nickname bestowed upon him by his classmates-is no stranger to sticking out at their predominantly white high school, right down to his too-small wrestling shoes. Bothered by how little he's able to help his low-income mother and seduced by the prospect of financial stability, he reluctantly settles into a flattened, stereotyped version of himself in exchange for being needed by his white peers. But when selling to Jessie's new friends pushes him farther out of his comfort zone and, dangerously, into theirs, both he and Jessie begin to suffer the mounting cost of what whiteness demands of them.

 The more they're forced together, the more their tenuously crafted double lives threaten to crumble. Until one day, when those lives collide...

AGES: 14 to 18

Josuee Hernández lives in Portland, Oregon. He studied at the University of Oregon and Portland State University, though he ultimately considers the Marine Corps his alma mater. A proud union educator, he teaches when he's not reading or writing. Find him online; just Google him.