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How Does Elizabeth Acevedo Use Repetition And Figurative Language In Hair

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“My mother tells me to fix my hair. / And by “fix”, she means straighten. / She means whiten” (Acevedo 1-3). The poem, “Hair” by Elizabeth Acevedo, is about how she was made to be ashamed of her curly hair and culture all her life because it was too “wild”, or different. In the poem, the author uses repetition and figurative language to show how she was raised to hate her culture, and want to hide it, and how she wants to break free of that by raising her children differently to love themselves.
First, the author uses repetition to explain how she, and people like her, are taught to hide their culture. For example, in stanza four, she says, “They say Dominicans could do the best hair. / I mean, they wash, set, flatten the spring in any lock!

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