By: Folakemi Oloritun '26
Amid the fiery, volcanic Pacific archipelago, a unique penguin species thrives under the tropical sun—a very different experience from the icy world their kindred call home. These penguins have adapted to their home among the warmth and abundance of their island paradise. Penguins are more akin to flourishing in colder regions, as the chillier climate gives them better access to the food they need to survive. But the Galapagos penguins have rewritten adaptation rules. Their diet is supported by two cold-water nutrient-rich currents that run through the Galapagos Islands—the Humboldt, and Cromwell—to supply them with a buffet of prey throughout the year. These currents support one of the world’s largest ecosystems, with high levels of fish and marine mammal species, mainly consisting of sardines, anchovies, and mullets.
While penguins have used these currents since they arrived on the Galapagos Islands four million years ago, global warming has recently threatened the stability of these penguins' lives. The climate phenomenon, El Niño, has been warming the temperature of the sea surface in the Pacific Ocean. This phenomenon has been affecting the penguins' breeding season, which has led to a decline in their population numbers.
This doesn’t mean the end of these penguins is coming; Galapagos penguins have found ways to adapt to these changing times. They have engineered their nests to protect their eggs from the sun and have even evolved physical features such as developing bare patches of skin around the bills and eyes, and extending their flippers and panting to release heat. They have adapted their diets, too, as getting what they need is more complicated now because the Cromwell and Humboldt currents are affected by El Niño and don’t as reliably supply the small fish, squid, and crustaceans these penguins need to survive. The Galapagos penguin now prioritizes molting to replace sun-damaged feathers over breeding. The population is smaller out of necessity.
Like the Galapagos penguins adjusting to changing waters, I have had to learn how to adapt since the day I realized the weight of being perceived as black. Navigating the world of being black in America and being black in Nigeria left me having to adapt to a new home regardless of whether I wanted to be there or not. I never received odd looks or snide comments about my skin color in Nigeria, but being looked at like I should be on display in a museum, or having unwanted fingers on my hair showed me what it means to be black in America. In Nigeria, it was easier for me to be comfortable and flourish in a place where I was not the prey but the predator. It’s easier to think you're safe in a community that looks like you rather than those who don’t.
I didn’t reason with the notion that I was black until second grade.
I have no qualms about how the American elementary school system works; it’s the foundation of human perceptions and where I found the difference in myself. It was second grade when I began suffering from rampant nightmares. I don't remember that polluted my interactions with others. The neverending chaos of the classroom contributed to my anxiety taking over one day, and before I knew it, I had thrown a desk out the window. The class fell silent at once, but a wave of nausea washed over me as I felt panic rise in my body. I felt the dread clinging onto me as my teacher pulled me out of the class and straight to the principal’s office. I stood in the hallway, feeling like I was going to puke when I heard her revolting words, “I can’t have a good conscience teaching them blacks anymore if all their futures end up in the same place: dead or in jail.”
The words fell numb on my ears as my senses switched off. It was as if my mind was on autopilot; the ten-minute journey home went by in a blur as questions my mother and father asked in the car entered one ear and out the other.
The gray matter I felt dissipated as I found myself in the familiar room I had grown up in. The room filled with naive pictures of Hello Kitty and LEGO sets seemed all that far away from me as it felt like the walls were closing in on me; the air felt thick, tightening the words I felt lodged in my throat. Exhaustion pulled at my eyelids, but the fear of a new night terror lurking beneath them left me petrified. As I stood frozen in front of my mirror, I saw myself—truly saw myself —for the first time.
It was as if at that moment I began molting the ignorant and naive self that was there just this morning, leaving me feeling foreign in my own body. I felt like a Galapagos penguin, trying to thrive through an uncomfortably hot season. This agonizing but necessary change made me discover my place in the world. This discovery, which was cemented in a disgusting string of words degrading my sense of self, was a heartbreaking lesson that was forced upon me. A dark lesson, which was in contrast to the innocence of my childhood bedroom, was that I had to force society to show them that stereotypes that have been placed on people who look like me are hurtful and distasteful.
The discovery of feeling like I had been given the short end of the stick in life was a bitter pill to swallow. Like how a Galapagos penguin may question why they had to deal with the sticky heat, I had to ask why I had to be born wrong. Being born wrong was a question that followed me even to my teenage years until I started to molt regularly. Molting away those questions of feeling wrong left me feeling like my being alive was right. If it wasn’t for my becoming like the Galapagos penguin, I wouldn’t have learned how to deal with the underlying facade of racism that still exists in society or being left with the question of how it feels to be born with the wrong skin color. After years of laughing off being called slurs or feeling the uncomfortable silence when someone calls me the wrong name, I have come to realize that I was not born wrong. I have spent years developing my identity in being black, which includes having to thrive in my own hot and sticky world. Similarly to the Galapagos penguin, the choice of where or how I was placed in this world wasn’t up to me. My only option is how I adapt to this world, not just trying to survive but to thrive in a world that wasn’t designed for me.
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