I wanted to talk about thin eyes, as shown on the right eye of this beautiful character, but I didn’t know how to describe them both because of the language barrier and my intention not to use any term that could be offensive. I did some research and came across this descriptor which seemed the most appropriate 🙂 (please let me know if it’s not!!)
Now that that’s done, let’s talk about this gorgeous eye shape!
We have a very large east-asian population in Spain, so there is plenty of exposure to narrow and thin eye shapes, but the only memories I have of white people commenting on them are negative.
I remember a lot of racist jokes in which kids would stretch their eyes with their fingers and make a ridiculously offensive accent, mocking (mostly) Chinese people.
I’m not sure as kids we knew what we were doing, but it worries me that that was seen in full grown adults up until not too long ago.
There was a lot of racism towards Asian people in Spain, I remember I would hear very nasty comments about their culture, lifestyle and appearance.
The discrimination this peaceful and hardworking community faced was appalling, and that obviously translated into aesthetic violence. It was common to hear comments such as “you’re not that ugly for an Asian” or “can you even see”.
This beautiful character has a beautiful eye shape, and although I am aware that recently it has become “trendy” therefore more accepted, there is still a long way to go in representing beauty that’s not Eurocentric.