*This dream is a post-project artifact, courtesy of Emily Steinberger.
“I’ve been coming here since I moved to Syracuse. It’s sort of a place where both I feel and I’m reminded of feelings of optimism, peace, and a kind of, a lifting of pressure. And that’s what I associate with my American Dream: just it’s infused with pressure to fit in, to achieve certain things that are kind of defined by others, not by myself. And also the pressure to also express myself authentically, find an authentic expression of myself in my life. So it’s just kind of dual pressures that are often at odds, often exhaustingly at odds.
It always seemed like a bit of a cliche, that I personally never associated with a connection to reality. It seemed like one of those cliches that was maybe a little bit more oppressive than it was realistic, you know, an idea that served those who have not had to fight for an American dream better than those who are not achieving whatever their needs might be.
So yeah, I don’t think it’s a term that I would ever normally use; I see it used by people who have worked hard and achieved…. I think of it as in reference to not exactly an illusion but a hope. It’s like almost like winning the lottery equals the American dream.
I’m really uncomfortable in a homogenous environment. … On the outside, I look similar in a lot of ways to all these other people around me who are, you know, 99% white. And I find that really uncomfortable, and makes me very uneasy. I’m very uneasy about my kids growing up there.
So that’s been an interesting thing, and it’s pushed me to think about how I need to do the work. I’ve always sort of tried to put myself in environments that that work was happening, other people were doing the work, and I could just kind of, like, be a good white person, you know.
Now I’m pushed to speak up, to actively try to educate my children in ways that I don’t think they’re just passively picking it up from a world of diversity around them.”