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cynthetiq:
i know the definition of this "american dream" thing.
what i cannot figure out is why it is compelling.
if you are framing this as a first generation in the states thing, then fine, maybe for you the story is important: for me, it is not.
this is not because i have any opinion about the difficulties that are built into your story, and the stories of other folk from parallel family pasts that have posted echoes of your statement at the start of the thread--it is good that you have worked things out for yourself. my interests lie elsewhere: i have a very different experience than you do, i expect.
one result of this experience is that i do not see what possible linkage there is between who a person is, what they do, what they care about, and the commodities they surround themselves with. are you a different person with a swank car than you are without one? does having a swank car shift your interests? do you become your swank car? do you become a better person because you have a swank car? better than you were before? better than those who cannot afford such a car?
if this american dream thing is, underneath it, about hollowing yourself out to such an extent that you see yourself entirely in the objects that you purchase, then i do not understand how the price of playing the game--asking whether you are or are not living this dream--is worth it. why would you do it? why would you see commodities---which any nitwit can accumulate given adequate cash/credit--as in themselves validation of who you are, of your family and their struggles to situate themselves?
seems to me like the struggles are worth more than that.
and that it is kind of a problem to reduce their meaning to having a gas grill or a huge refrigerator.
maybe the problem with this american dream thing is that it is primarily a marketing device. maybe the problem with thinking that you are living it is that you are living a marketing device.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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