Alliah Bolanos

Professor Morgan

ENGL 101

October 2, 2022

World Of Wonders Journal #2

“If a white girl tires to tell you what your brown skin can and cannot wear for makeup,

just remember to smile of an axolotl” - Aimee Nezhukumatathil p.43. In the chapter “Axolotl”

which is where the quote is from, she talks about her experience on how she is her friend’s only

brown friend. She tells her this and that on what does and does not look good with her skin tone.

She goes on in the first paragraph of the chapter saying “the best thing to do in that moment is to

just smile and smile, even if your smile is thin. The tighter your smile, the tougher you become.”

I liked what she said here because to me it looks like she’s saying that you need to sometimes

fake a smile around people who try to bring their opinion in an area that is not needed. When I

read this chapter, it really moved me because the way she describes every part of the experiences

she has been through is just amazing. And I feel like I have a good visual of how it was first hand

based off the descriptions she made. She later goes into a more define approach when she starts

to talk about the axolotl also known as the Mexican Walking Fish, which is a pink salamander

with a smile. The way she describes the axolotl is very detailed because she states that the

creature has a seemingly harmless image which hides its strength and enthusiasm. “And when it

eats-what a wild mess-when it gathers a tangle of bloodworms into its mouth, you will

understand how a galaxy first learns to spin in the dark, and how it begins to grow and grow.” As

she states in the book and I like this because not just by this one chapter but from the beginning

of the book to this current chapter I can see a change in her character and how strong she is more
than ever. I especially like how she captures the world’s failures and lack of insight and how she

dealt with racist terms when she was a child and in junior high to now being an adult and dealing

with the same situation with her colleagues.

This quote resonates to me because I have been dealt with someone telling me what to do

and how I should look or sound since I was a little girl. Even though I grew up in the U.S my

first language wasn’t English it was Spanish and when I was in school it was very difficult for

me to communicate with other kids and my teachers. Until I was in kinder and I started to go to

ELA classes which for me was really hard because I thought it sounded funny to me. But I

needed to learn it because my teacher was frustrated that she couldn’t understand me and told me

that I need to learn English because we live in America and we speak English here. I

remembered how this made me feel as a child because you never forget how a person made you

feel and that does carry with you for a long time. As I grew up my English got a lot better and I

started to make friends and that made me feel very happy because I can finally talk to kids my

own age, or so I thought. I got bullied a lot from the way I looked because being a

Hispanic/Black little girl you do attend to get a little darker and have thick hair which is what I

had. From 3rd grade- 8th grade I’ve been told that my curly hair was not cute and I should have

straight hair because it’s better and boys will like it. And having darker skin makes you look

dirty and I need to bleach my skin so I can be “beautiful” which I never got and this made me

very depressed. Also, for as long as I can remember my teeth weren’t the best. I say this because

they were spaced and I had a gap and I’ve been told by a lot of kids, family members, and dentist

that I should get braces to fix my teeth because it wouldn’t make me look “weird.” When I

started middle school, I had friends but the bullying didn’t stop because my so-called friends

would bully me a lot and I'm not talking about the type of bullying in the movies, but every time
I would wear a pop of color in my outfits, they would make fun of me and say how I’m too dark

for that specific color and to never wear it again and after say they’re only doing it to protect me

so I don’t get made fun of. This was around the same time I would start wearing makeup but not

too much just very little and same thing happened I was told I looked like a clown and I should

never wear makeup again. The bullying from other kids stopped but the “friends” I would pick

didn’t until I turned 18 years old and continued too finally be myself. This is why I love the

quote she said in the chapter because I felt I was in her shoes in a similar way especially when

she said that she was scared to be alone without friends.

The quote itself is applicable to society because racism has been around for a very long

time and now it’s not as big as it was before but the serotypes are still around. Also, how society

portrays women a certain way from movies, magazines, commercials and ads for any company

that have a lot of women clienteles. What I mean by this is skinny women with straight hair and

“perfect” straight teeth. This is horrible to portray women especially when there is a lot of little

girls who can see this anywhere when electronics are around and not just girls but little boys can

see this and see how men are shown as “hot” or “attractive” to society and it makes the children

confused and question their appearances. Yes, now society has changed some ads not where they

show diversity but it’s not enough. Most likely those children are being bullied not by others but

towards themselves because they don’t think they’re enough in society’s eye. Also, plastic

surgery is so normalized now everywhere and there's so many for literally anything. It’s sad

because just like the axolotl we just have to smile and be strong. But you can only hide behind a

smile for little bit of time until you crack. What I mean by this is that once a child is a teenager

and still feel they’re not enough that can take a huge toll on them and they will become

depressed and maybe commit suicide because all this stuff they see on social media was too
much for them and they became their own bully. Social media is very huge in today’s society but

also the environment you're in and what I mean by this is being told this and that on certain

things that don’t look good on you is really normalized in so many cultures. Now I don’t know

how it is in other cultures but I know for sure in Hispanic/Latino culture we get told how we look

fat, skinny and how some makeup can make us look like a “el payaso” which mean clown in

Spanish. This is very normal to us because we grow up around it for generations and where you

get horrible nicknames that “represents” you in a way, I guess. I just think that from anything on

social media and different cultures normalizing stuff that horrible and can affect children in any

way should be stopped big time.