Juana Albarracín

Critical Review
The story of my body
the story of my body is an essay that describes the adolescent life of a Puerto Rican girl, who had to go
through various situations to accept and love herself as she was physically. This essay shows us how
racism and xenophobia are things that have happened for a long time and still have not been completely
eradicated and besides this is an issue that continues to affect children around the world leading them to
have traumas and increase the likelihood of mental problems.
In my opinion, this type of essay should be shown to children so that they can understand that if they are
mistreated or discriminated against it is not something normal and should be punished. Discrimination
because of skin color or because they belong to a different ethnic group is not something that should be
accepted; these types of acts come from the upbringing at home, so even parents should be taught to
respect people who look, speak, think or dress differently. Racism and xenophobia should be eradicated
in schools from a young age, explaining things like skin color is not only the peach color that comes in
the color box, teach them that skin color is any of the colors there are. The same happens when children
are told to paint their hair in a drawing and only choose brown or yellow, they should be taught that there
are redheads and albinos and that it is normal and not wrong.

One of the big problems of why racism still exists is the lack of education in most families, from my
personal experience my family has always used derogatory words to address people of different skin tone,
since I was little, I felt that this was not right, but I laughed just to fit in a family that did not tolerate or
accept differences. With this experience we can see how many times people do not tolerate or accept just
because of social pressure even if they know it is not right. According to the UNICEF article on how to
talk to your children about racism, it tells how babies can see the difference in skin color from the age of
six months but do not show intolerant attitudes towards others this as mentioned above is due to lack of
inclusive parenting and tolerance.

To eradicate the problem of racism in children, the ideal is to explain to them from an early age, that is,
from birth, that there are different and that it is not wrong, in fact, they should be accepted and helped to
feel good and proud of being different. According to healthychildren.org it tells us that children learn
racial differences from 6 months of age, between 2 and 4 years they internalize what a racial difference is
and at 12 many children settle their beliefs, which gives their parents a few years to shape the learning
process to decrease racial prejudice and improve cultural understanding.
Thanks to the healthychildren.org article, there are also some tips to start educating in tolerance and
acceptance such as: talking to children and recognizing that differences exist, confronting as parents their
own prejudices and thus teaching them to act with others as they want them to act with them, and
encouraging children to question stereotypes and discriminatory attitudes.

As previously mentioned, most racist teachings come from the upbringing of parents as we saw in the
story of my body, her parents were not aware of the emotional damage caused to their daughter by being
with people who made fun of her or simply did not accept her as she was, something positive is that when
her parents understood what she was going through they decided to do something to prevent further
damage, this attitude taken by parents teaches us that it is never too late to change the situation and to be
both better people and treat others better. As parents we should be educated to accept but also not to be
treated badly for being different, racism has a gray part where if you do not let yourself be treated badly
you become a rude person, but it should not be like that, we should raise children with strong
temperament that can develop a successful and courageous personality.

to conclude the problems of racism and intolerance come from the upbringing in the family but as we
could see on the internet there are too many articles and tips to educate a child in inclusion and also if
your child can be a victim of intolerance teach them how to deal with such problems without affecting
their development or stability when they are older.
Racism is something that we must eradicate thanks to my body history essay we can see the traumas and
problems that discrimination can create in a child and if we can eradicate this problem, we will surely
have a healthier, tolerant, inclusive and respectful generation.

REFERENCES:

 Cómo hablar con los niños sobre los prejuicios raciales. (s. f.). HealthyChildren.org. Recuperado

16 de agosto de 2021, de https://www.healthychildren.org/Spanish/healthy-living/emotional-

wellness/Building-Resilience/Paginas/talking-to-children-about-racial-bias.aspx

 Cómo hablar con los hijos sobre el racismo. (s. f.). UNICEF. Recuperado 16 de agosto de 2021,

de https://www.unicef.org/es/historias/como-hablar-con-los-hijos-sobre-el-racismo

 faros. (2020, 3 junio). Claves para una educación contra el racismo. Faros HSJBCN.

https://faros.hsjdbcn.org/es/articulo/claves-educacion-contra-racismo

 urna de cristal. (s. f.). ¿Qué ideas tienes para acabar con el racismo y la discriminación?

Recuperado 16 de agosto de 2021, de https://urnadecristal.gov.co/qu-ideas-tienes-acabar-con-

racismo-y-discriminaci-n-qu-acciones-propones-visibilizar-importancia-de