Like many immigrants, my family and I always held onto the hope and promise of the “American Dream.” We believed in building a better life in the United States, trusting that the country could keep its citizens safe. Rising housing costs and inflation have led many of us to discuss whether the American Dream is dead, but I held onto hope because the U.S. has given me many opportunities. Every country has its ups and downs.
But as I witness American leaders, institutions and citizens make decisions that damage the country, the “American Dream” feels like an illusion I can no longer believe in.
I grew up watching Mexican news with my family on late nights. I heard stories of crime, corruption, violence and the blind eye that the Mexican government took toward injustice in their own nation. My mom and brother tried assuaging my concerns about the country that I care so much about, where most of my family still lives. My family would remind me why we instead lived in the U.S.: the country cares for their citizens because the people hold the government accountable.
In some ways, they weren’t wrong. The U.S. has less violent crime, better academic resources and more social benefits than Mexico. And as my mom would say, being low-income in the U.S. is starkly different than being low-income in Mexico. But the concern I once held for the state of Mexico’s politics, I now share with the U.S., starting when I saw the country’s soft underbelly in 2021.
On Jan. 6 of that year, I woke up looking forward to enjoying “la Rosca,” a Mexican pastry eaten on the Three King’s Day, a day to commemorate the three Wisemen giving gifts to a newborn Jesus. The day is a sort of extension of Christmas — filled with food, gift giving and laughter — but that year, my home went quiet.
When I saw the insurrection at the Capitol, I had a hard time believing what we were watching. The riot seemed like something I would see on Latin American news, not in the U.S. Where people in Mexico were coming together to celebrate the Three Kings, Americans had never been so divided.
After Jan. 6, I hoped that the violence would die down. But in 2022, a man broke in to the home of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with plans to kidnap her, attacking her husband Paul when the intruder discovered she wasn’t home. And then just last week, a shooter attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, killing an attendee and injuring two others.
These events, and many more, exposed the growing violence, aggression and fear that has come to fester in our country’s politics. I had hoped that this type of violence would stay in Mexico, where politicians being shot or killed has become nearly normal. In the past year, the country recorded 37 murders of political candidates. I fear that political violence in the U.S. could become as frequent as it is in Mexico.
The “American Dream” promises a united citizenry in which the country and its people keep each other in check. At this moment, the U.S. feels more like a nightmare.