Hello! My name is Cora Patrick, and as a resident of Columbia, I must say I was taken aback by this advertisement for my nation; I discovered it during a recent professional trip I took to the United States. Columbia's lush equatorial geography, as mediated by arid and parched deserts, offers an apt metaphor for the diversity of peoples, politics, and plurality of opinions that comprises my country. The advertisement, however, reinforces narrow interpretations of Columbia and marginalizes its potential to international visitors as limited to danger and terrorism, cermonies and costumes, and is more reflective of history than contemporary society. Please know that my partner wears Prada, I drive a BMW, and neither of us belongs to a drug cartel. Might I remind you that Columbia was named after Columbus, and, like you in the United States, our history is intertwined with colonialism, suspicion, and fierce individuality. Those legacies, sadly, all too frequently translate into fear of Others. Come visit my Columbia because you yearn to see us for who we are, not who we are positioned to be by corporate media moguls.
