Latino Trailblazers: Henna Sharee on finding her calling in cooking
Latino Trailblazers is a new series by COCINA, where we celebrate and amplify Latino voices all year long, giving the mic to groundbreaking names who are changing the world for the better. It’s a forum to celebrate the love of community, the wins of today and share the wisdom we’ve learned.
Henna Sharee is an online content creator focused on food and lifestyle. With Dominican and Nicaraguan ancestry, she regularly shares her take on traditional dishes from around the world with her audience of over 800K followers across social media.
Dear Henna,
You’re not going to believe this, but when you grow up, you’re kind of going to become an online chef. You’re twelve now, and you want to be a lawyer, so I know this doesn’t make sense to you, but just trust the process. Anyway, let me tell you how we got here because it’s a wild ride.
Well, you got through middle school unscathed, and you got into that legal studies program you applied for in high school, so congrats on that. You also managed to get through only two major heartbreaks and believe me when I say they’re going to hurt and be difficult, but you’ll get through them and come out even stronger.
You get through highschool on the lawyer track and apply to University as a political science major. Still, when you discovered social media and spent countless hours watching YouTube, you decided you wanted to be the next Desi Perkins or BeautyyBird. There weren’t a lot of Latinas being represented in the beauty industry, but you wanted to leave your mark. And girl, you were dedicated! In your dorm room, filming and editing two YouTube videos a week, all while being a full-time student and working a full-time job.
That dedication and will to succeed served you well,
Because even though you had to drop out of college due to money issues, you never let that stop you from achieving your goals. As you got older, the beauty industry started to fade as a passion, but creating content for social media didn’t. You tried so many niches, from beauty to fitness to travel to sharing Latino culture. Suddenly, you decided to start sharing your favorite childhood recipes your mom used to make as a kid like Pollo Guisado and Ropa Vieja. That’s when you found your calling. It’s kind of crazy when you think about it because you HATED cooking. You always knew how to do it though because your mom wanted you to be independent and learn to take care of yourself, but you despised the societal expectation of cooking. Of course, you didn’t realize this until you were older. But you realized that being demanded to have dinner cooked by your dad made you dislike it because of the societal expectation of women having to be the cooks and cleaners in the household. It wasn’t until you moved out and started cooking for yourself that you saw how therapeutic and fun developing new recipes can be.
You also love to challenge yourself
If something is too easy, you get bored, and you’re onto the next hyper-fixation. Remember when you said you wanted to be a fashion designer, and then an interior designer, and then settled on being a lawyer? Well, you stuck with cooking because it allows you to be creative and learn new techniques, but there’s also this analytical bit you love about looking at numbers and strategizing from the content creation side. You also get to let your Nicaraguan and Dominican heritage shine through your recipes while deep-diving into other cultures. It really is a combination of all your passions in one.
Not to mention all of the amazing opportunities you’ve been given through this career. You get to work with some pretty cool brands! And then you have two of the Top Chefs in the world, Gordon Ramsay and Aarón Sánchez, comment on your culinary skills. All those years of watching Chopped paid off. You get to be a judge for a cooking show that works to empower and uplift immigrant voices. But most importantly, you get to be confident in yourself.
Right now, you feel a bit misunderstood. A quiet outcast who moves from school to school every year, never really finding their tribe of peers, but that feeling will soon start to fade. You are smart, you are capable, and by twenty-six, you will be astonished with what you have achieved. So keep turning in your assignments on time, and just keep being you. And the things troubling you throughout this thing we call life, will fall into place.
Peace out,
Henna
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