We need to think very carefully about what we mean when we use the term American dream.
And this has been the subject of several recent books that have come out, including Ta-Nehisi
Coates' Between the World and Me, in which Coates really pushes back against the dream
as a concept.
I'm interested in work that asks us to consider what is at stake when we imagine someone who
has met or checked off the boxes that we associate with the American dream.
So on the one hand I went to all of these institutions that are viewed as markers of
a certain kind of success.
At the same time though it's imperative that we think about ways of succeeding in American
society that go beyond some of the traditional attributes of the American dream.
And this now brings me back to undocumented migrants.
So on the one hand many undocumented migrants are not in my position.
They for many reasons are hinder or have been hindered in obtaining their dreams.
But one of the reasons that we think of dreamers and one of the reasons why the undocumented
youth movement has taken up that label enthusiastically is because we believe that it is even at the
margins of American society, these margins that are created by U.S. immigration policy,
that so much amazing work is being done by families, by communities to commit wholeheartedly
to the pursuit of this thing we call the American dream.
These are migrants who have contributed to their communities, who have worked hard and
with persistence to ensure the very best for their children.
In a word they exemplify everything that we conventionally associate with the American
dream.
And for those migrants to be labeled as un-American almost beggars the mind.
It calls into question why in fact we have this designation the American dream in the
first place if we're not willing to extend it to anyone and everyone who works hard to
make this country a better place.