Passing in variables on mapped components? (React Native)

I have this code:

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import { Text, View, StyleSheet } from 'react-native';
import Constants from 'expo-constants';

export default function App() {
  let str = "Hello ^world text '^Some^' '^Random^' '^Example^' '^Text^' '^Some^' '^more^' '^random^' '^example^' '^text^'!"
  let arr = str.split(/\s/g)
  let wordBits
  const [highlightedWords, setHighlightedWords] = useState(["world", "example", "random"])

  function highlighter(word) {
    setHighlightedWords((prevState) => {
      return(
        [word, ...prevState]
      )
    })
  }


  return (
    <View style={styles.container}>
      <Text>
        {arr.map((el) => {
          wordBits = el.split("^")
          token = wordBits[1]
          return (
            <Text>
              {wordBits[0]}
            <View style={
              highlightedWords.includes(wordBits[1]) ?
              styles.highlighted :
              styles.regular
              }>
            <Text onPress={() => {highlighter(wordBits[1])}}>
              {wordBits[1]}
            </Text>
            </View>
              {wordBits[2]}{" "}
            </Text>
          )
        })}
      </Text>
    </View>
  );
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    justifyContent: 'center',
    paddingTop: Constants.statusBarHeight,
    backgroundColor: '#ecf0f1',
    padding: 8,
  },
  highlighted: {
    backgroundColor: "yellow"
  },
  regular: {
    color: "black"
  }
});

I extract the word from surrounding characters and try to pass it in as a function on each component. But instead, it gets set to the final word that got mapped.

Is there a way to pass the words themselves, and not change as the variable changes?