Dreaming American

Today when I sat down with a guest, he began explaining to me his process to make a life for himself in the US. He said it is all about, “waking up each day one step further than you were the day before.” He explained that, “everyday I try to improve. I try to be a better person. I also try to get closer to my working permit, closer to a state ID. I try to get closer to the day that they will take this tracking monitor off of my ankle. Everyday, I think, I am getting closer to being successful,” he continued confidently, “right now, things are hard, but you have to squeeze the fruit to get the juice, and one day, I will have the juice.” All of this is intensely hopeful and positive, and it does indeed seem like he is taking steps forward each day. But a grave question was echoing in my mind as he spoke these words. How long can this productive pattern continue for a black man in America with deportation orders, no money, no family, and limited English? Will there eventually be a wall that he hits, where the opportunity he came for in America is no longer available? Can he achieve the potentially fabled American Dream? I simply don’t know.

The American Dream is one idea that many people in this country appreciate. Our culture seems to hold its notion close to our hearts and carry it high with pride. It is the American Dream, that hastened—if not caused—the white settlement of America, and it is that same American Dream that inspires people from all over the world to uproot from there home and seek a better life today. The American Dream manifests ideas of opportunity, freedom, and to some, relief from suffering. Whether this manifestation is accurate, I simply don’t know.


What is it about our nation that allows for the American Dream to occur, if it does indeed? What structures exist to ensure its possibility? What actions do we need to take to maintain or improve these structures? It seems to me that the idea of the American Dream is dependent upon a scenario in which race, class, and family connections are not of central importance to ‘success.’ Meaning that someone of a minority race, from a poor family, and with little connections can find ‘success.’ To what extent does that scenario actually exist? To me, the American Dream is all about acceptance. More than just the acceptance of people that are different from ourselves, but also the acceptance that people with ‘less’ have a right to ‘more,’ that people who suffer have a right pursue happiness, that people who are starving, have a right to find food, that people who are dying to live, deserve a fair chance. The idea of the American Dream is what could provide that chance.

But there is a sobering catch, a contradiction, and an assumption built into the American Dream that has become rooted deeply in my views during my life as a citizen. The notion of the American Dream includes projected views of the poor and of poverty. If we say that, “In this country anybody, if they try hard enough, can create a better, richer, and happier life,” what then are we inherently saying about those who are not making it, those who live in shelters, those who can’t make their lives better, happier, or richer? Through the prism of the American Dream, we are spinning blame on those in society that aren’t making it, because after all, anybody can make it if they really try, so those that don’t, must not be trying. Right? I feel strong traces of these thoughts engrained in my mind, and I am constantly trying to understand them and move away from them. Just because the opportunity to rise from poverty may exist in some small way, does not mean that those who do not find that some small way are failures or have anything less than the dignity of all people. For most people it seems, and to no fault of their own, the American dream will remain that way, just a dream.

If we as a nation were committed to the American Dream, the idea that anybody can make it, then we would not accept the idea of homelessness and poverty in our country. But we explicitly do accept homelessness and poverty as OK and as a seemingly eternal part of our system. By including money for shelters, food stamps, etc. in our federal budget, we are thereby admitting that we don’t have a system that works, or a system that can keep people out of poverty and away from hunger. It is in fact being complacent, and accepting of the fact that our system cannot support our people.

Above, three guests pose on a couch in the sala on the first day of school.

Immigrants don’t come to the US asking for food, a better job, housing, or anything else, they come asking for a chance to find these things within our system. I think they deserve the chance. We as citizens must not forget our roots in this country, and what allowed us to be here, we must not deny the very notion of the American Dream that brought us here, for those that are seeking it today. If we can’t know that the guest that I sat down with today can find a good life, and get the juice he dreams of from the US if he continues to take steps ahead each day, then I think we have lost the spirit of that idea which we keep close to our hearts, and boast high in the air; the fabled American Dream.

I am one American, one of many, that is dreaming of an American Dream that can become an American reality. Am I being unrealistic in this hope? I simply don’t know.