Interrogating “American dream”: A Critical Autoethnography of a Disabled Immigrant

• In Event: Intersectional Disability Justice Critical Autoethnographic Counter-Histories as Living Archive

Abstract

Objective
Many of those who pursue a life in the United States, often from the Global South, are driven by the belief that the U.S. will offer a better life. Such belief feeds into the notion of “American Dream,” (Samuel, 2012) hoping for upper social mobility through more educational and economic opportunities. This paper is a critical autoethnography (Boylorn & Orbe, 2020; Holman Jones, 2016) of a disabled immigrant with an aim to interrogate the notion of “American dream”.
Perspectives
Through the lens of intersectional disablism, which recognizes the interconnected nature of oppression based on different identities (Authors et al., under review; Authors, 2020), the author juxtaposes her intersecting identities as a disabled Asian next to, and against “American dream.”
Modes of Inquiry/ Data Sources
The author explores how the dominant narrative of the American Dream has influenced her from the time of emigration in her adolescence to the present as a graduate student by examining her own journal entries, social media posts, and emails exchanged with her mentors, friends, and colleagues throughout her life in the U.S. These sources establish the author and her lived experiences as the center of inquiry. Moreover, these sources portray how the author’s narrative has evolved over time.
Substantiated Conclusion
In grappling with her identities and the intricately connected idea of American Dream that has been central to her pursuit of education, she reflects on the ways in which her personal history has been entangled with the various systems of power and oppression surrounding her, mainly the model minority myth around Asian American students, (Wing, 2007), ableism (Lewis, 2022), and the idea of smartness (Leonardo & Broderick 2011).
Significance
The significance of these reflections and analyses are threefold: (1) it foregrounds the lived experiences and first-person narratives of a disabled immigrant navigating the U.S. secondary and postsecondary educational structures; (2) it highlights how seemingly innocent idea of “American Dream” perpetuates racism and ableism; and (3) it reimagines “American Dream” by merging it with the Disability Justice principles, particularly interdependence, recognizing wholeness, and collective access (Berne et al., 2018). Through this reimagination, the author offers these Disability Justice principles as antidotes to the current U.S. sociopolitical landscape marked by increasing ableism and xenophobia.

Author

• Miso Kwak, University of Wisconsin - Madison