The True Cost Of The American Dream

The grass is not always greener on the other side because you haven’t seen the other side yet.

I am in between. Trying to write to be understood by those who matter to me, yet also trying to push my mind with ideas beyond the everyday. It is another borderland I inhabit. Not quite here nor there. On good days I feel I am a bridge. On bad days I just feel alone. -Sergio Troncoso

Yesterday I happened to watch this movie The Illegal directed by Danish Renzu and my heart cried looking at the misery of millions of people leaving their homeland to pursue an American dream but at what cost?

My article is being written for all those people who are still in the dilemma of whether to move abroad or pursue something more worthy in their home country. I am not going to discourage your decision at all as I don’t know you rather I would raise some questions that you must answer to your soul before you take a plunge of ruining or making your life.

Coming back to the movie, The Illegal revolved around a young guy from Delhi, India, who moved to the US to pursue a filmmaking course. His uncle promised him to support his stay at his abode but the day he reached his uncle along with his wife asked him to find another accommodation. He was literally on the streets of the US until one Indian who was working in a restaurant in his old age saw him sleeping on the side bench of the road and offered him food and a place to stay with the help of his owner.

But his miseries don’t end. What all he gets to face in the first year would have been a trauma for any of us because he was being abused consistently in his job, lost his focus in studies, didn’t know half of the problems his parents were enduring back at home and was giving up every single day.

The movie turned out to be a mirror to me.

This movie was quite relatable to me as a person because there was a time in 2018 when all I wanted was to move abroad.

I was going through domestic abuse marriage, and my siblings turned their back on me. I didn’t get any financial support even though I appeared for General IELTS and Academic IELTS and scored well in both.

I had to drop that plan, and I realized after few years that it wasn’t working out for me because I was running away from myself.

The Reality

When COVID started bothering us last year, the majority of the people living abroad lost their jobs along with financial security, medical safety, and will to fight back resulting in more cases of suicide.

I would want to know if this is the kind of life you have been planning for yourself?

If the answer is no then figure out the real reasons why do you want to move abroad? What is not there in your home country? By paying hefty fees to the colleges where they wouldn’t show mercy to you to throw you out of the country if you fail to pay just one instalment, why do you want to affect your mental health this way?

Trust me no matter what they say but this is not a struggle. This is stupidity.

My siblings moved abroad in 2008 and 2010 and whatever amount of money they took from my dad hasn’t been returned yet nor they are planning to return it anytime soon. Although my parents have traveled to New Zealand thrice to visit my brother, the money factor always remains in the picture. And my sister has purchased her house along with her boyfriend this year after being a resident of the United Kingdom for good 12 years. Like really?

What am I trying to bring to your eyes here is she couldn’t save a lot to have a house of her own? Then for what a person believes that moving abroad and earning in dollars and pounds will make you super-rich or well respected in the society? You take loans from Banks and fail to pay them back resulting in the selling of your fixed assets and putting your parents into the absolute shameful situation, what all is this for?

What you have been looking out there has always been in you.

There are many ways to live this beautiful life and if your heart is not content in your abode you won’t be peaceful anywhere else too.

In the movie also, the main character kept on running away from his home and he couldn’t even visit his parents for 5 years. His sister got married without his presence, and he kept on making the plans of applying for the green card, getting a good movie script, and running after other fancy dreams.

After watching this movie, I looked up at the sky and thanked God for keeping me in India because he knew what was waiting for me abroad or anywhere else with COVID around the corner and I am so glad today that my plan didn’t work out. If moving abroad is all about struggling while being abused or facing major racial discrimination, I am sorry to say but to hell with such an American dream.

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door. — Emma Lazarus

Gurpreet Dhariwal is the author of “My Soul Rants: Poems of a Born Spectator.” Her eBook is now available at Google Play Store, Amazon, and Kindle. Connect with Gurpreet on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or Youtube