My family was sold on the American Dream before they even immigrated here. Back in Lebanon, they were told about how amazing this country was, how they would have the limitless opportunities here to grow financially and professionally. They were told about the houses made from red brick, the wire fences that enclosed the yards. They were told that no military or militia men ever patrolled the neighborhood or murdered innocent little girls and boys. My grandma, having lost her father and many siblings from a very young age due to war and being forced to get married and start a family at the sad young age of 14, was infatuated by this dream.
The thought of being able to keep her family safe, possibly go to school or work and earn her own money, and feed her 5 children three times a day engulfed her. She was set on coming to America after she heard everything it had to offer. She was set on giving her children everything she never had and enabling them to opportunities she was never allowed to take. She wanted to see them go to school past the third grade, something she always wanted, but never got to do. Her and my grandpa started making arrangements. They decided that he would apply for a work Visa and come to Michigan to work in the Henry Ford Factory Line, while my grandpa would get every document and dollar they needed to come here organized and sorted out from Tebnin, their village.
When my grandpa got his work visa and moved to the U.S. he encountered many firsts. He rode a plane for the first time, he traveled out of Lebanon, a 4000 sq mile country, for the first time, he spoke English for the first time. From he told me, it was extremely physically and emotionally challenging to transition into life here- but my grandpa endured, and after working day and night for 2 years, he was able to afford to bring my grandma and their 5 children here to the states.
After my grandmother arrived here, she didn’t feel the safety and security that she originally left her native country to find. She was met with blunt Anti-Arab racism, Islamophobia, forceful assimilative practices, and a general feeling of unacceptance from the predominantly white community she lived in. For example, she was told by every one of her kids’ elementary teachers that if she didn’t only speak English to them, they would never go to college. She was also kicked out of a grocery store for asking one of the workers to read a label on a food item to her. She was also paid significantly less at every job she ever worked in the U.S. for being unable to read and write English. These are just some instances of the extreme discrimination she faced presenting as a Muslim Lebanese woman.
I believe this caused a lot of pent up anger, which eventually turned into regret and institutional betrayal. She regretted searching for a new home in a country that lied about their promised dreams. She felt betrayed by the systems that she was told were set up for them to succeed when she discovered it was, in fact, the opposite. So, what is the American Dream to me? Bullshit. Bullshit for people like her and my family who had to work twice as hard for everything they have. It makes me recognize the privilege I sit in every day to be able to eat nutritious meals every day, attend a 4-year college and not have to worry about working at the same time, and have much lighter stressors compared to them facing literal survival and starvation in Lebanon and then again in the U.S.
What are we going to do to change this for the other immigrant children and families?
