Storyteller Adichie who lived in Nigeria tells us her experience with single stories. In her childhood she would read British and Americans children’s books. As she grew up she would write her own stories with the characters being blue eyed white people since that’s all she ever knew about when reading. She never had a personal connection with anything she read, until she decided to start reading African books. Adichie would’ve never thought that people with different skin color, like hers, had any knowledge of literature. A story she remembers from her childhood is the one her mother had told her about their house boy, Fide. Her mother had said Fide and his family were very poor, she would often sentd them food and their old clothes. Adichie began to have a lot of pity for them, she later found out the talents the people in Fide’s family had. She believed that she would’ve had a different perspective about them if her mother would’ve told her that yes they were poor but also harworking. When she moved to America to start her path as a university student, she encountered people having a single story about her and Africa, like her roommate, professor, etc. Adichie questions herself about what her life could’ve been like if she would’ve saw or heard both sides of the things she herself had judged without knowing it completely.
I completely agree with Adichie’s main argument because you really can’t understand a topic or a person completely if you’ve only listened to part of what others have said. Relying in a single story will make you blind of the good/bad things left behind when being told. I can relate to Adicihie’s argument because when I lived in Ecuador I heard from many people that life is much easier in America and how easy it is to get money. I realized that those people were told these things by someone who knew nothing about America. After living here for almost 12 years, I can say that people who have never been to America will never know the sacrifices that have to be made to get to where your life is at right now. I think Professor Barnes assigned this reading for us to always hear out both sides before making a decision on who or what to believe in.
