STEREOTYPING

Living my whole life in a situation where Colombia was thought to be a country less important than others like the US, I can completely relate to what Chimamanda claims in her story. Of course in a lower degree to what happened to her, I can see how when other people think of Colombia, they look at Hollywood’s version of it; being bombed, drowned in poverty and a lot of drugs. And the thing that impacted me about Chimamanda´s story is when she says that stereotypes are not a fake image of a society, they´re just very incomplete stories of what that society is really like. And that the sad part of it all is that after a stereotype is introduced and repeated a couple of time, it becomes the identity of a society. Like for example the image of a society like Mexico seen as a dry country filled with rebels, bad insurance and a large border dividing it to the United States. But when someone like Chimamanda visits Mexico for the first time, she feels shame in what image she thought she would have to encounter, because the fact is Mexico is a very beautiful country with amazing people and experiences. It´s just that the stereotype has completely drowned it into being what it is in a large part of society’s minds.