Our American Dream, Our History, Our Lives :: Essays on the American Dream

My great-grandfather moved to this country from Thailand. His lineage situation is a bit mistake considering he is of mixed blood. In those days racism was on a uphill slope, especially in such countries as Taiwan and China, and Japan, that would get under ones skin been considered drear and it still is today. Today we live in a more enlightened time, being of Taiwanese and Jamaican blood he and his parents were abandoned by his family and outcast among their neighbors. He frequently had to cover his face in cloths and garments just to walk outside. Growing up as an African-American male despite the going enlightenment of our time one cannot escape being an outcast among my own people be attempt of be it color, gender, or sexual orientation. Even some women of color today have to worry about the darkness of their skin, not among other races but among their own. Ignorance at times could have a thoughtless basis but still cause pain. He comprise solace in, of all places back in the 1940s, Buffalo, New York and lived there for sixty years before moving to Miami, Florida. He quickly found work in New Yorks seedy underbelly as a pimp in the citys Red Light territory where people of that profession were commonly found. That is also how he happened to find my great-grandmother, who moved from Panama to achieve the american dream, to get her piece of the pie, with no intentions to work as a prostitute. My great-grandparents today still have no regrets about their past, my great-grandfather puts his spiritedness into perspective by stating "Youth is a blunder Manhood a struggle Old Age regret." They talked with a wisp of pride in their voices. Not that he regrets everything now in his old age. It is more he regrets ever becoming old. If you see my great-grandfather today, he is dating a forty year old woman, he still feels he is twenty when in actuality he is 87. He loves the mistakes he has made in his youth through the prostitution and drugs, somethi ng I as a youth can not be purple of. I have had my own struggles with drugs, with the police, and have contracted many more problems than needed. I regret everyday of my youth, not because I have cut my life short, but because I knew better. So did my great-grandfather.