American Dream

Some of the most painful moments in life are when your good image of some person situation or  place is destroyed. Choosing Obama in the country that just some decades ago enslaved a group of human beings simply because of their skin color was one of those good images for me. I always admired Americans for making such a huge change until I came to US for a visit.

A city that I was so curious to see was New York. I had just arrived in New York when one of my friends texted me and asked what my first impression was. “It seems like Sex and The City :D” I replied. when visiting  cities, instead of going to touristic places, I roam through neighborhoods all day and try chatting with strangers. I was there just for three days. I spent one day with Iranian friends and chose Manhattan and Harlem to discover for the rest of my visit. I don't remember  which station I got off the train at and started to discover Manhattan from but after a while I noticed that all the doormens were black and all the passengers that got out of cars the doors held open by people of color were white. During the first mile I said to my self that it was just by chance that positions were divided according to race , but unfortunately I did not find a counterexample. Manhattan violently shows that segregation is still part of the real world here. Bitterer than the obviously and easily visible economic inequity was the coincidence of class with racial sepration. On the last day when I roamed towards Harlem I also noticed that separation between neighborhoods on the basis of  race  was still a  real part of life. 

Photo by Hamzeh Ghalebi

The battery charge on my cell phone was finished so I went to a McDonald’s near the bus station from which my bus back to Boston would be leaving. I got a coffee and sat near the table that had an power outlet. There was an AmericansAfrican-American guy behind that table who was charging his iPhone. I looked at him and tried to find an excuse to start talking with him, when suddenly he loudly asked why i was looking at him. “Nothing i just wanna…” I tried to answer but paying no attention he asked if i wanted to steal his iPhone. He started to shout and talk so fast that with my English I could not understand what he wanted to say and had no idea what had happened. “HOLD ON… HOLD ON when you talk so fast I don't understand what you say” I interrupted him with this phrase. He stopped. “I am here as a visitor, I am Iranian. I live in France and now I’m trying to talk with people to improve my English,” I said. He became calm, and said “Cool”. I explained that I was waiting for the bus to go to Boston. “You are very welcome to the USA, land of opportunity.” he added. As  he started to tell me about the American Dream all the images of discrimination and segregation that I had seen in the city paraded through my head. I just listened. He stood up to leave and said, “This is the land of opportunity.” I asked, “Really?” He approached me and said, “Look at me. I work in a strip club and make two hundred dollars every night. You see?” I said nothing and just smiled!