N has worn many different hats over the years. Despite growing up in California, he left the warmth of the West Coast for frigid winters of the Northeast to study biology. He worked with recording studio sound engineers for a time before moving back to work in biotech field for a number of years.
Growing up as a self-described “straight-passing” white male in California, N identifies early on he was given a “head start” in his personal American Dream. Or, he describes it himself: “opportunity, and the freedom to pursue that opportunity”, as well as “financial security” and “physical safety”.
This was the American Dream taught to him in school – people come to America for its opportunity, which in N’s eyes is a blatant lie. His experience is “the American Dream… excludes or ignores all the people who came here for other reasons” (i.e., the people brought to America forcibly to live as Slaves). He believes the American Dream is rooted in inequality and opportunity only for a select few within America. As N says “I’m straight-passing, but I’m not actually straight, so what does my [actual] American Dream look like?
“The American Dream has been shown to us in its sanitized form.”
N adds, when we refer to the American Dream, it’s as it relates to white suburbia of the 1950s. An environment constructed through government policies cutting off minority groups from opportunities afforded to white America. His designation as “straight passing”, and specifically his identity as a white male, afforded him the privilege to experience this opportunity.
“The American Dream has been shown to us in its sanitized form” he says. Marginalized communities, excluded or ignored by the American Dream, are not addressed for a reason – a reason easy to see if you just look around.
Despite success, he is adamant the Dream is a complete fallacy. For example, despite the “progressive bubble” of California, N had to travel to New York to legally marry his partner. When asked if he could think of any films or television that accurately depict what it’s like to be gay in America, he drew a blank.
N is…
- 41 Years-Old
- Male, Cisgender
- White
- Jewish
- Upper Middle Class
- Gay
