A first generation U.S. citizen born to Mexican immigrants, O lives into his family’s pursuit of economic and family opportunity — but his Dream hasn’t come without strings attached.
“My parents, they came up to America to have that freedom to make more money. So even though they’d much more prefer to live in Mexico this is where they’ve built their home. They’ve lived in America now for longer than they have in Mexico.”
O turned 20 years old in September. 20 years and 6 months ago, his parents moved from Mexico to the Northeast USA. O’s aunts and uncles had already established themselves in another city of the USA, and his parents immigrated in pursuit of jobs that would pay well enough to support a family.
The threat and presence of instability in facets of his life has in turn centered his Dream around the American promises of stability, comfort, and fulfillment.
Stability, both economic and family. This is the principle at the core of O’s American Dream. Stability propelled his parents to make a life in the United States. Instability has loomed throughout O’s own life: money was tight when he was younger; since childhood, he’s had to serve as a translator for his parents, even at the expense of his social life; he experiences bouts of anxiety and depression, stemming in part from living in a culture where “you’re meant to tough things out and work things out by yourself”; and his father has been embroiled in a deportation court case for the past eight years. The threat and presence of instability in facets of his life has in turn centered his Dream around the American promises of stability, comfort, and fulfillment.
For the first decade of his life, O, his parents, his brother, and his sister lived in a house with his aunt, uncle, and his six cousins. Between his household and what he saw on TV, O recognized abundant examples of toxic masculinity around him as he grew up. He was bullied a bit by a few of his male cousins, he said, because of his unconventional relationship with masculinity. He has often felt he related more with women, and though he enjoys ‘guy things’ it has always been in a different way from the norm.
The intense and heteronormative characterization of masculinity and the gender binary in both American media and Hispanic culture has led him to a fair deal of questioning over the years, he said. But he continues to identify as straight, and has in recent years become more comfortable in understanding his likes and dislikes outside of the confines of normative narratives and stereotyped identities.
As a kid, O never questioned his American identity. He recited the pledge of allegiance at school and cherished his public schooling experience, he grew up on Disney and TMNT, he romanticized the Dream of the nuclear family and living in a “good neighborhood,” he was elected class president his senior year of high school… But coming into adulthood, burdens like his family’s court case with the U.S. government have cut into his experience.
“The way that that’s affected my American Dream, it’s definitely soured it a bit,” he said. “I always felt like I was an American. I felt like I was also Mexican, but America took up a large part of my identity. Growing up, it feels like I’m getting farther and farther away from that identity.”
O is…
- 19 Years-Old
- Male, Cisgender
- Indigenous
- Mexican American
- Straight
