Claudia Fabian: Woman Develops Pride In Mexican Heritage Through Instagram Where She Embraces Ageing Naturally

Beauty content creator and aesthetician, Claudia Fabian, was born in Chicago, US, and raised in a suburban village called Bolingbrook, Illinois.

Her parents’ fathers emigrated from Guanajuato, Mexico, to Kansas in 1918 to work on the railroads and subsequently the rest of her family moved over too.

Her mother’s family spoke Spanish in their home, whilst her father’s family did not and to integrate within American society, they agreed to raise Claudia and her sister to only speak English and immersed them in American culture.

“During that time, I think a lot of them wanted to assimilate,” Ms Fabian said.

“They wanted their kids to have a chance to get ahead, and all of this goes back to colonisation in Mexico.

“We lost our true language because the Spanish conquered and we began speaking Spanish, which is not our native tongue.

“The more American you can be, perhaps the more opportunities and chances you would have to get ahead.

“One of my goals is to take Spanish lessons because I do want to learn. I can speak it brokenly but not confidently.”

Amidst the current political climate, she found a strong sense of pride in her heritage.

“My Mexican culture was in the background, whereas I think some people grow up with Mexican culture in the foreground and American second,” Ms Fabian said.

“It was mainly my grandmother who cooked a lot; we would go and visit her and have traditional Mexican foods. My mum didn’t really cook a lot of Mexican food at home.

“But what I will say, is that with the current state of American politics, the silver lining is it’s really helped me push forward in my pride of my heritage and [urged me to] rediscover it.

“With all this discourse and hate towards immigrants, it’s making me want to be in touch with it even more.

“My mum is really into genealogy, so she has traced our ancestors back to the 1400s and she shares with me a lot of that.

“It has made me more appreciative of those who came before me.”

There are stereotypes about Latinas that Claudia would like to dispel.

“Media has created a fallacy that we are all hot tempered, super sexualised and passionate or that we are fiery and that we have ‘attitudes’,” she said.

“While I think some of those characteristics can be true for anyone, I hate that it’s built into what being Latina means.

“Latinas are much more than any of that, we are individuals, and we should be seen as more than one dimensional.”

As she was one of the only Mexican or brown person in primary school, she often felt different and experienced racism.

Claudia has learnt valuable lessons as an adult from her experiences.

“What I’ve personally taken away is a sense of pride in who I am and where my family has come from,” she said.

“But I’ve also faced the reality that racism still exists.

“I’m sure you’re seeing that play out on TV with American politics with Latinos being targeted as the enemy within.

“I think that having a sense of pride in knowing who you are and feeling secure in that really can help with some of that.

“But it’s still very sad and very painful to be living through this time; that it’s still very much a thriving thought that immigrants, brown people, Black people or whoever they may be are looked at as less than.

“I think when we dehumanise any race, we can become insensitive to their plight. I’m just trying to put a face and a story and humanise Latinos.

“The dichotomy is I feel American, yet I think sometimes people don’t see us as American because we’re not white.”

While she was growing up, there were never any Latina celebrities she could look up to.

Claudia has seen a massive difference today in representation of minorities on TV and in the media.

With a following of nearly 270,000 on Instagram where she embraces her age and grey hair, Claudia, who is 57 years old, hopes that she can inspire others to let go of their insecurities and embrace every decade.

“As a minority in America, we were never the beauty standard,” she said.

“The beauty standard when I was younger was blond and blue-eyed: Fara Fawcett, Charlie’s Angels, that was what was beautiful.

“I never saw Latina celebrities; there wasn’t Salma Hayek, there wasn’t Penelope Cruz, there wasn’t J Lo when I was younger.

“When I looked in the mirror, I wasn’t the ideal beauty standard, now that’s changing.

“We see more representation, more inclusivity of Black women, Latinas, Arabs, you see more diversity and that’s uplifting.

“I’m hoping that will be true for ageing; eventually it will become normalised and not something that should be hidden and erased.

“At the end of 2020, I started documenting my grey hair transition on Instagram; showing pictures, checking in every week, showing how it was looking.

“That’s what started my following, people were curious about the grey hair transformation. Since then, it’s evolved into what it is today.”

Her social media page celebrates every decade which she describes as a new beginning.

“The meaning behind my name [Beauty Debut] is that I believe that every decade, we debut a new version of ourselves; every decade brings blessings and gems, every decade is a new opportunity,” Ms Fabian said.

“As I started embracing my grey hair, I started changing inside. It was more than hair colour, grey hair is the external, but what happens along that journey is so much more valuable.

“I started to have a deeper self-love, acceptance of ageing, it really set me on a path that I never thought I would go on; saying goodbye to Botox and all those things that I thought I needed or thought I should be doing and just embracing what is has really elevated my platform.

“I think a lot of women need a story like that because there aren’t many examples of positive ageing.”

The first women who inspired her to respect the ageing process were her mother and grandmother.

“[It’s important] for younger women to see that life doesn’t fall apart at 40 or 50,” Ms Fabian said.

“You can still be your glamorous self you were before, or you can evolve into something else.

“It’s inspiring to me also to see other women embracing age and having their platforms; there are so many wonderful accounts. I think the more we show positive images of ageing, the better for all women.

“[My grandmother] was always into beauty but she just aged naturally, as well as my mum, so I’ve always had a positive image of women.

“To me ageing was never something that was ugly, it was respected in my culture and my family. I never saw it as a negative thing, and I think I owe that to my grandmother and my mum.”

Claudia described how her Instagram journey has impacted her life and reconnecting with her heritage.

“It has connected me with a community of other Latinas,” she said.

“When I first started documenting my grey hair journey I didn’t see anyone on social media that looked like me.

“There weren’t other Latinas growing out their grey, so I think that was one of the reasons other Latinas found my page, it gave them someone that looked like them.”

In October 2024, Claudia visited Mexico for the first time since her childhood.

“I went to film a documentary about grey hair, and it happened to be in Mexico City,” she said.

“I didn’t go to my hometown but being in Mexico felt great.

“It was a beautiful place, there are so many great restaurants, and I want to come back and discover more.

“When you’re there, everyone looks like you; it’s a weird feeling, you don’t feel different and that’s cool.”