Goodbye to my American Dream

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/goodbye-my-american-dream



On the day of college graduation, I told my friends and family the news: I was leaving the country I had lived in since childhood.

“I just need a change,” I told them, but they knew there was more. Was it some romance gone awry, they wondered? Some impulsive response to a broken heart? And I was running from heartbreak. My relationship with the United States of America is the most tumultuous relationship I have ever had, and it ended with the heart-rending realization that a country I loved and believed in did not love me back.

Back in the ’90s, my mother brought me from our home in the Caribbean islands to the U.S., along with my brother and sister. I was 4 years old. She worked as a live-in nanny for two years, playing mommy for white kids whose parents had better things to do. She took trips to the Hamptons and even flew on a private jet to California as “the help.” My mom didn’t believe that nanny meant maid, but she did whatever was asked of her, because she was thirsty. She had a thirst that could only be quenched by the American dream. One day, she thought, her children would be educated. One day, they might have nannies of their own.

That was our path. Get a “good education.” When the neighborhoods with quality schools became too expensive for my mom to afford as a single parent with three kids, we traversed the United States with GreatSchools.net as our compass. New Jersey, elementary school: decent, mostly Hispanic school, even though my gifted and talented program was predominantly Indian. Texas, middle school: “Found a great school for you guys,” my mom said while rain poured into our car through the open windows where the straps of our mattresses were tied down. It had an “A” grade and was 70 percent white. Florida, high school: “Hey, Tiffanie, you should have this egg. It’s the only brown one like you!” my classmate told me during AP biology. Philadelphia, Hawaii, North, South, East, West. Car, U-Haul, Greyhound, plane, train. New York City, private university: “I really want to write an essay on being the gentrifier,” one courageous young man pitched in a journalism class. I was one of only two people who were disturbed.

[aikoaiko]

1. Well, leaving is a freedom.

I hope all goes well for her.

[hobbit709]

2. for all too many the American Dream has become the American Nightmare.

[stillwaiting]

3. Agreed. But even IF one has obtained all of the components of the American Dream and is...

... living with a personal sense of security and peace of mind, it can still be an American Nightmare to see the state of the Nation as it is today. The decimation of the middle class, working class, and poor should be an American Nightmare even to those who have "made it".

The "American Dream" currently exists for Ayn Rand lovin' psychotic assholes who enjoy feeding on the middle class, working class, and poor. They know they do it, and they relish in doing it. They are singularly focused on their own self even as the country collapses around them. They are truly vampires.