The Danger of a Single Story:
Plenty of times have I realized that people only receive
through media a single story of the beautiful country in which I have the
privilege to live in. Two of this have engraved themselves in my mind.
The first happened the first time I traveled to Europe. I
had the priviledge to go to France with the Colombian Ambassador in France, and
he took us to an amusement park. His son was probably my age (I was 10 at the
time) and we where in line for a roller coaster. We where talking in Spanish
and two older men asked us where were we from, I proudly raised my head and
answered “Colombia” this men, who where probably 20 years old
each gave us the finger and said that ours was a country plagued with “terrible
deaths and a thousand drug dealers”. My dad told them to
shut up and leave us kids alone, but I will never forget the hate in the men’s
voice.
The second time happened when I moved to Italy, my English
had refined before that and I could fluently speak it with confidence and
almost seem American. My first day at ISF, several teachers asked me to
introduce myself: “what is your name? how old are
you? Where are you from?” I answered them without trouble
in the first couple of classes, but then when I got to my Math class and I
answered them I heard the boy behind me ask, “ And where did you leave
the Cocaine?” I was furious and wanted to yell
at him but instead I answered in a serious voice “In your Mom’s
drawer.” Soon enough people stopped talking about things they didn’t
understand and I learned a lot about different cultures.
Like the old saying “Don’t
Judge a book by it’s cover”
, today we should encourage people to
not only see the “Media”
side of the story
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