Julián Is a Mermaid

Jessica Love, a white, cis-gendered, straight woman, did an amazing job representing acceptance and love within family. Jessica Love does a great job of masking the gender identity within the mermaids in the book. The reader becomes focused on the freedom of expression and acceptance radiated from each character. Yes, some could argue that Love is not representing every aspect of the LGBTQ+ community but we believe she is trying her best to not focus on the labels of gender and sexuality and rather on allowing others to express their creativity however they feel without judgment. As for the topic of race, I believe Jessica Love chose to represent the afro-latino community specifically because they genuinely receive less representation, especially within the queer community.

Julian, the main character of the book, shares his freedom of expression by dressing up and decorating himself in plants as a headdress and curtains as a cape/dress, his grandma storms away almost angrily, or so the reader thinks. The reader believes that the grandma has left to go display some sort of penalty or judgment when in reality she returns with a layered necklace in her hand, to give to Julian to help complete his look. The reader believes that Julian is the active role and this grandma is the passive role when in the end the grandma was there with open arms of acceptance and love.

The book does a great job of portraying both adults (the mermaids and the grandma) and children (Julian and other children who attended the parade) expressing themselves without focusing on gender identity. At the end of the book, there is an illustration of a huge group of children and adults representing non-gender identity and their ability to have love and acceptance within themselves regarding their identity. That illustration includes no portrayals of exclusion, gender norms, or self insecurities. It also shows the older generation, Julian’s grandma, which is usually known as being biased towards the gender norms in which they grew up with, but now being able to ignore social construct and accept the concept of gender binary.

In conclusion, Jessica did an exceptional job in writing her book by representing two communities that do not receive as much portrayal in children’s books as other more normalized communities and stereotypes. The only complaint against Love was her choice to represent communities of which she is not a member, although I still think she did a great job and was careful to not play into many stereotypes.