Five years ago, I came to the United States for educational purposes. Ever since then, I have been immediately given multiple identities by people that I have met. These identities include: African, Black American and Tutsi. The only identity I claim and will continue to claim is Rwandese because I possess enough knowledge of what it means to be a “Rwandese.” I am from the beautiful land of a thousand hills, Rwanda, and should be identified as such.

When I was in Rwanda, I used to hate the endless lessons about the geographies and histories of countries all over the world. But now, I realize that these lessons have prevented me from being uninformed like many people in the United States. I first noticed this when I was still in Rwanda, attending an American school. To my family and me, it was the best decision ever. Months later when I was at school, I read in the newspaper that was published in the United States that we were called students who were born “unlucky” and were given a chance to go to such an amazing school. This angered me not because I knew that I was not born unlucky, but because it was an insult to many parents. Parents who had tirelessly worked in order to pay for our school fees. I began to see that the media portrayed us as people who needed help and saving.

This continued even when I came to the United States for high school. Many people did not want to believe that my own parents paid for my education and my brother who was also in the US. People that I met categorized me as African and called me African. I soon realized that there are so many stereotypes attached to being an African. From being asked to explain the meaning of the beginning of "The Lion King"’s "Circle of Life" lyrics to being asked how I survived living with many wild animals at home. At first, I did not want to believe that people actually thought of Africa as one big “country” with animals running around. I internalized my anger every time I heard Africa and country in the same sentence or when people pitied me when I mentioned where I was from.

I now realize that being angry does not solve anything. This is why I am writing this, in hopes of educating people like a staff member at my current school who recently called me a “student with very limited funds” just because I mentioned that I was from Rwanda. People like my coworker who asked me if Africa had cities and when I told her I had never seen wild animals and that they were kept in parks and zoos just like here, she had a hard time believing it. Lastly to people like the old man who stood up during a fundraising event for another American school that I attended in Rwanda, to ask how it felt not having rights as a woman in “Africa”. As if the first question was not enough, he asked what my future would have looked like if I had not been able to attend the great American school he funded. I took a minute to digest what he just said and my response was plain and simple: My rights as a woman are more represented in Rwanda than they are here. Rwanda has more women in the parliament than men which is not the case in the US or other western countries. To his second question, I told him that Rwanda had many schools that could have offered me the same education I got at the school. And also, my hard work and my parents’ hard work got me where I am and not the schools I attended.

Below are some facts that could prevent you from sounding like the people mentioned above. Rwanda to begin with, is very different from many African countries. Unlike so many African countries, our country is comprised of only one tribe that speaks one language. So no, I cannot speak African because there is no such a thing as a language spoken by all Africans except for International languages such as French, English etc and no, my culture is not African, it is Rwandese. There is even a huge difference between my country’s culture and our neighboring countries. All the 54 COUNTRIES in Africa, have their own traditions, values and customs. When you call me “African” as my identity, there is an assumption that I know all these traditions, and speak all the languages. How could one person speak over 3,000 languages that are spoken in Africa and know about the traditions of over 3,000 tribes in Africa? I have only traveled to one other African country and until I have travelled to every single country and possess enough knowledge about them, identify me as Rwandese. I do not possess the right to represent every single country in Africa when I do not even know what they look like.

Africa should never be minimized to a country, it should be given the respect it deserves as a continent. Let us start step by step by doing small things such as introducing people from the country they are from and not introduce them as African. Just like when you introduce a French person, you say French and not European, do the same for every one whose country is in Africa. Oh and also, when you say you went to Africa, do me a favor and say which country because I am pretty sure you did not visit every single country. Lastly, this educational journey does not end here, take time and google “The Africa they never show you” and hopefully after this, I will not have to defend an entire continent over and over again.