Every Woman Keeps a Flame Against the Wind

Millares Young examines multiple occasions when she was mistaken for a prostitute, a designation that does not imply an insult to the author, but clearly implies an insult from the folks who mistake her for one. She has taken in comments to this effect when on vacation, in the workplace, and simply having dinner on her own. The analysis of these moments paints a picture that communicates that Latinas are hypersexualized even when they are in professional or academic settings, and this practice erases, in effect, the complete picture of the woman who is painted in this fashion. In other words, even if a Latina has taken the “insider” route of educating herself and becoming a worldly person, she is relegated to “outsider” status via assumptions. Furthemore, Millares Young wonders why sex workers are the ultimate idea of an “outsider”, when they are simply hard-working women, and why Latinas are equated with this concept of an outsider. The author wonders what these assumptions say about the people who make them.