
Caught between two dreams: The American Dream and Hellas
It’s probably because I am a first-generation immigrant, but I feel the push and pull of two dreams, two ideals vividly in my head. The first is the one of Hellas, the ideal home that was left behind, full of images of olive trees and seas, the warm embrace of kin, the idealized Eden that was ripped from me when barely 5.
And then on the other extreme is the other dream, Ameriki, the American Dream, the visage of overflowing cupboards full of products that delight, the lure of wealth and prosperity curbed only by one’s lack of motivation, that luscious ruby fruit of potential possibility–the hope of fulfilling dreams through sweat, strategy, and work. The American dream that straightens up the spine of a once poor island boy as he struts on the sidewalk his pockets fat with wads of green. That incredible ideal that you can make what you want of your life, that you have the freedom to morph like the folds on the chiton of the goddess of the dawn as she slips on golden ankles through your imagination blessing you with visions of the grand house you can live in and the wonderful world that can open up, if you just take that huge step, that plunge, that plane that boat that crosses that watery divide that separates two distinct worlds.
The visions of these worlds mingle/wrestle in my consciousness like two antipodes. Yet they are both illusory. One Hellas is hinged on the past, the topos that no longer exists in reality but is purely tied up with nostos and memory. The other, Ameriki, the American Dream, is conformed to the future and smells of warm hope; it is tinged with the glitter that dreams of made of. But where am I? I am just a stick figure balancing on the thin line between one and the other. The present is precarious; it is the reality of the immigrant struggle, not to fall into the abyss of delusion by focusing too much on the past or the future. Right now, as a member of an ethnic immigrant group that straddles two worlds, I am trying to survive, one step at a time. (That is the spirit I have tried to capture in this photo collage, Between Two Worlds.)
This is the same spirit in a poem I have penned titled “Captive of the American Dream.” It speaks to the realities and disillusionments that are exposed once the dream of Ameriki, the American Dream, starts getting frayed.
I am a captive of the American dream
in someone else’s head
I am the product of someone else’s choice
keeping silent slumber
In the hull that held the hopes of my mother,
Smelling street corners of piss
Reading signs behind shop windows, “No Greeks, No Rats”
Falling through the sidewalk cracks of neither White nor Black
“Ameriki Ameriki,” she kept repeating
“I am going to go to Ameriki”
She had wanted this self-fulfilling prophecy
from behind the white burlap sack of rice
compliments of Mr. Marshall
Ameriki, bubbled halos around the heads of kin
They packed quilts of her future life into a plaid suitcase
Topped the baulo in two wide leather buckles
To the rim with hand-embroidered dollies and photos
She resurfaced after a Pan Am night flight at JFK
It was the warm air of promise that inflated
the bouquet of their dreams
that lifted them right up into the friendly skies
Like a kind of birthday party inflatable
Yes, yes we are going to live in a three bedroom house
Yes, we will never go hungry again
Yes, our children will rise higher than us
Tomorrow it will be better
Railroad apartments running roaches
Be patient. Things will improve
50 cent per hour garment work hunched over till wee hours
the metal Singer drumming lullabies
Temporary, you’ll see. Make patience daughter.
All that hot air fissing fussing fighting
She was fed and fed penny by penny,
one garment stitch in time
Piece by piece, the American dream
The fabric puzzle piled under paper outlines like loose leaf reams
Fed the one-toothed industrial machine
those cut up body parts—
a shoulder, a sleeve, a hip halter, a neck, a leg—
to complete a Frankenstein garment of dreams.
$1.25 for each assembled whole
Lastly, the shaky penciled script of “028”
Her worker number
To trace back any irregularities
(By chance she found her ID
Beneath the tag with a purple swan
On the rack in Macy’s
$398 suggested retail price)
The price she paid for the transatlantic journey took more than 35 years
They cut one by one the chords that kept them bound to the possibility of return
Just like the balloons of Oz
pappou’s gold rimmed tooth
sunshine on hard boiled eggs
branches of olive trees and votsalakia
the tissue tablecloth clothes pinned near the sea
The mother looked to what she could gain in the glimmer ride of America
The daughter looked to what she had lost
The hot air of the dream fueled the drum of the driver of the machine
No matter that it mangled Baba’s mind, wore mama’s spinal column
(And still they come– by the boatloads bloated and bursting onto shores and factories
Like rats.)
The hot air escaped subtly -fissssss
Now she is stuck.
Noosed to an empty balloon
Holding taut a wimpy line
Deflated.
In a place no one can pronounce her name
Squinting her eyes shut
Clicking her heels in a zembekiko strut
Repeating under her breath,
“There’s no place like home
There’s no place like home.”