But the truth is that I had a very happy childhood, full of laughter and love, in a very close-knit family.
But I also had grandfathers who died in refugee camps.
My cousin Polle died because he could not get adequate healthcare.
One of my closest friends, Okoloma, died in a plane crash because our fire trucks did not have water.
I grew up under repressive military governments that devalued education, so that sometimes, my parents were not paid their salaries.
And so, as a child, I saw jam disappear from the breakfast table, then margarine disappeared, then bread became too expensive, then milk became rationed.
And most of all, a kind of normalized political fear invaded our lives.
All of these stories make me who I am.
But to insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience and to overlook the many other stories that formed me.
The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.