My name is Kelechi Ajawara. I live in San Jose, California with my lawyer mother, my dad who’s a nurse, and my two siblings. I am officially an 18-year-old girl as of March 31 this year, and ethnically I’m Nigerian and Grenadian. I went into Xavier a nursing major, but now I’m exploring different major options. Growing up in the Silicon Valley was definitely an experience. And for most of my life, I was the only black girl in all my classes. Due to this and many other factors of course, I started getting into reading and found out that’s something I really enjoy doing.

I immediately clung to these books, finding my love for fantasy, and relating to Percy. Before he realized he was a demigod, he felt different and misunderstood. As for me, I’ve always been shy, and I have a hard time making friends even now. But in elementary school, it kind of felt like there was a disconnect between me and my classmates.

I remember one instance where a kid commented on my lips being bigger than everyone else’s, as if it were so unusual. This wasn’t racist or meant to be a dig, but I know that it never would’ve come up with another black kid. But just as Percy discovered his heritage and grew in confidence, so did I. As I grew older, I found myself naturally gravitating towards black and Nigerian culture and wanting to learn more. It definitely took a while before that happened. A few years of constant relaxer and blue-eye subliminal YouTube videos before I came to love every bit of my African features. And all the while, I read the series after Percy Jackson series. Even when I advanced to a higher reading level, they remained my comfort books and saw me through a pivotal point of my childhood

            This 2011 hit from the Nigerian band P-Square holds a special place in my heart. It one hundred percent embodies that nostalgia you get from the Nigerian parties that made my childhood. I’ll set the scene for those who haven’t experienced an African party before.

It’s a random summer in the 2010’s and once again you’ve been forced to go to one of the Nigerian events that happen basically every weekend. The only thing saving this event is the party jollof and your favorite cousins that are also there against their will. Once you get there, the music is already blasting and there are about 40 aunties and uncles you MUST greet and pretend you remember. And just to be clear, every adult 25 and over is your aunty/uncle. After all that you get to leave the table you parents picked and make your way to the kids’ corner.

This is one of the best parts of the night. You and your cousins catch up, complain about how “stressed” you are and how much you did not want to come. After the MC (a very enthusiastic and very drunk uncle) completes his speech it’s time to for the food! Always top tier, always 2^nd and 3^rd plate worthy. It’s now after the food that the aunties (and liquor happy uncles) are satisfied and ready to dance the night away. Once you successfully avoid being coerced to join about 3 times, you and your cousins get to observe the very amusing dance floor.

In African culture, shower each other in money when we dance, especially when someone is killing it. The money is picked up gradually throughout the dancing to be sorted, by the children. If you get lucky you might be able to get away with a dollar, but usually there’s an aunty waiting to catch you in the act. And this process gets you on the floor for one thing, and usually ends with you being tricked into dancing when you thought you were safe. One thing about Africans, is that we sure can keep a party going for hours and hours. But near the end, the best of the best songs start to play. This is where this gem of a song comes in.

A lot of Nigerian kids learn the language young, but not all, and not me. At these parties, the songs tend to stay Nigerian or at least solely African, apart from a few American hits from back in the day. After a lot of grooving without understanding the words, there’s finally a song you can sing to that everyone loves. Many things change over the years, for one, I happily join the adults when the dancing starts. But this classic will always remind me of these times, and the end of the night when I would feel so loved and grateful that I was forced to go the parties.

With all that we’ve read about the importance of mirrors in media, I would like to give an honorable mention to one of my favorite childhood shows. Sadly, growing up my parents were very paranoid about what we watched on tv. I wasn’t allowed to watch anything but Disney junior until 5^th or 6^th grade. While this sucked and forced me to watch what I felt was too young for me, the one show that I really enjoyed was Doc McStuffins.

The show follows a black 6-year-old girl whose stethoscope brings her stuffed animals and toys to life and allows her to treat and heal and play doctor. This was one of the first tv shows I watched that starred a young black girl and I was completely hooked. It showcased a young black girl that could do anything she put her mind to. It put healthcare in my mind from a young age. It’s shows like this that everyone needs to have as a kid. Just one that let’s our impressionable minds believe that anything is possible.

That was the most stressed I had ever been in life up till then. My senior year was characterized by friends, prom, and college. It’s like all those big events that are hyped up in every high school tv show seemed to be coming at me faster and faster. It just gave me such a relief to see Zoey, a character I’ve seen from a show I previously loved in a real, more human light. She was first portrayed as the smart, popular, stylish older sister that I wished I could be. To see her go to college and have her go through both physical challenges and also within herself, it was refreshing. It served as a reminder that I wasn’t the only one thinking like this, and that were all finding ourselves.

This show didn’t really have an impact on me. I mean, I find it absolutely hilarious, and I will stop to watch an episode every time I catch it on tv, but that’s not why I added it into my scrapbook.

My brother is three years younger than me, he’s 15. We’ve always had a little bit of a rocky relationship as a young kid he would always attack me and scratch me, and he’s always gotten on my nerves (as little brother do), but I of course love him. As he’s grown up, it’s getting harder and harder to connect with him because he’s a teenage boy who thinks he’s too cool to hang with me. Although I’m much cooler than him, of course, but the one thing we always connected on is the TV shows we watch together. This consisted of Teen Titans Go, SpongeBob, Power Rangers, Transformers, and most of all The Amazing World of Gumball. I also want to give an honorable mention to Bratz, and the Winx club, which are particularly girly shows that I forced my brother to watch with me all the time. It’s to the point where he still remembers a lot of what went on in the shows.

But watching The Amazing World of Gumball still make me smile to this day. We would forget all about our stupid fights and sit down to watch it together. Even now as he pretends to hate (while he secretly loves me so much), I look forward to dragging him to the couch with me to enjoy our favorite show.

I have never read or even heard of the book before hearing about the show adaptation that came out on Netflix, but once I watched it, there was just something about it that drew me to it. Anne has lived in an abusive orphanage, all 13 years of her life, until she was mistakenly sent to live with an old pair of siblings, who ended up taking her in and truly showing her the love that she was missing. What was the time in the beginning where I really did not like, and she shows up to be a very loud character that just speaks her mind completely. But also, very quickly. I came to love her character. She sort of reminds me of me.

Yes, character is slowly learning to how to articulate herself in a new community with a whole bunch of rules and social cues that she’s not used to, all while refusing to change herself and the qualities that make her, her. I can 100% relate to this, all my life I’ve definitely had a problem with expressing myself there were times where I felt like I shouldn’t so I could fit in, and times where I did and thought maybe I should have real debt back. But looking back on all my growth and all the growth I still have to do, I just realize that I really do appreciate myself. I tend to get into a lot of trouble like Anne, because I talk too much when I probably shouldn’t.

But like Anne, I’ve aged and learned to remain true to myself, while growing out of the parts that are aggressive and that did need some adjusting. Just watching her blossom and grow into herself I felt like me. Truly my comfort show, and one that I will always go back to when I need a little reminder to stay true to myself