Member-only story
I Don’t Believe in the American Dream
And I don’t feel bad about it.
I am the daughter of South Asian immigrants. My father was given the opportunity to immigrate to the United States in 1969 for his master’s degree in engineering. A few years later, he married my mom in India and they returned to the United States. They bought a home, had kids they sent off to college and graduate school, and successfully retired with pensions. Did they achieve the American Dream?
The “American Dream” was coined by James Truslow in The Epic of America as a “dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”
Yes, my parents sacrificed everything for their family. They left their parents, friends, and culture with no money. As a family, we rarely ate out or bought anything at regular price and vacations were spent in cheap motel rooms. I never understood how my white friends always had new toys and all of the Nintendo video games. My brother and I begged my parents for cable TV on multiple occasions and each time they said no, I resented their immigrant frugality more and more.
My parents succeeded in America through a policy that encouraged their education while they pinched pennies and gritted their teeth through racism. They couldn’t afford to be mediocre and still get by like their white counterparts. For them, mediocrity would result in failure — they couldn't take that risk. Through thick and thin, they achieved the idea of the American Dream, but at whose expense?
The past and present slavery of African-Americans set the stage for Asian immigrant success stories.
The civil rights movement highlighted the inequalities of the nation’s immigrant quota system, leading to the enactment of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. The act provided preferences for people with technical skills and knowledge. While other black and brown people continued to be exploited for their labor, my father received a graduate degree in engineering. This targeted wave of immigration essentially created a classist model minority, and I was just born into it. Why couldn’t American policies promote the skills and knowledge…
