Eighty presents of the book are narrated by Ifemelu sitting in an African hair braiding shop, having her hair braided for six hours. As she sat in the chair, she had flashbacks of her life in Nigeria and America. One of the very first flashbacks she has regarding her hair is of her mother. She talks about how much she admires her mother's hair. When strangers saw her mother's hair, they would say, "Are you from Jamaica?" As if there were only foreign blood… thin at the temples” (49). This suggests that people have stereotypes about African American hair. Black women who have long hair should be mixed with another race because if not, their hair should be short or braided. As time goes by, we see that Ifemelu didn't really care about her hair before. Before coming to America, she simply accepted box braids. Before leaving for America, her aunt Uja told her to "make little braids that will last a long time, it's very expensive to do hair here" (122). This is an example of why hair wasn't really a problem in his eyes before. She liked her hair just the way it was. Box braids were used to empower women. It allows women to wear their hair in different ways without damaging it using heat or other products. Empowered Box Braids