This city is full of people daydreaming during their day jobs; a population all far from home wanting for more. Ironically, this is the city I was born in and moved away from. This is the city of Los Angeles, the quintessential example of the American Dream. I spent my most vulnerable years in the city of Sunshine and Flowers. It is diverse in every way with people from all over the world. No one ended up in La-La Land because they wanted a simple life. Almost every soul was drawn to Los Angeles from generation to generation. There is nothing simple about the city; so for those who were drawn there, it’s a deliberate choice to stay there. The city has picture-perfect weather almost year-round, only interrupted by wildfires and earthquakes. It only rains in winter, if it rains at all. Los Angeles is very cultured if you can afford to experience it. Restaurants offer cuisine from dozens of countries often cooked by natives of them. The boardwalk at Venice Beach is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the country, featuring local artists of all kinds performing or exhibiting along the ocean. But, the rent is extremely high and the commutes are extremely long. A community of first-generation immigrants gather very large extended families in very small apartments, gladly performing low and no-skilled labor in hotels where they can’t afford to stay, restaurants where they can’t afford to eat, and homes where they can’t afford to live. A long line of ambitions on backlog is best represented by the never-ending traffic jams. The city isn’t very walkable but that works well where everyone in Shaky Town strives for status, best represented by their luxury cars, which they often lease because they can’t afford to buy them. There are stars on Hollywood Boulevard that people literally walk all over every day, but people dream of being just like them. Everyone smiles and acts like they are on their way to make it, even though most fake it. Appearances matter more than reality, which ironically results in a materialistic society focused on ethereal dreams. While all the dreamers strive for their dreams, only a few will ever come true, the city reflects capitalism in that way. Los Angeles mirrors the U.S. in the sense that there is so much wrong with the infrastructure: policy, crime, and general dysfunction; but its allure, the possibility of fame and fortune, keeps new dreamers constantly coming in. My Granny moved to Los Angeles from Tennessee with her family for a better life - and in many ways it was better - but the City of Angels watches over no one. It’s all left in your hands. One generation later, my family in Los Angeles struggles with financial illiteracy and staying afloat on the Golden Coast. My father remains the only one of five siblings to have attended college; of myself and five cousins who make up the next generation I am the only one on track to graduate. Gentrification is pushing working-class families out of the neighborhood where my grandfather was able to buy a house using the G.I. Bill; a house drawn down on so many times just to survive that his children can no longer afford to keep it. I have come to calling it “the City of Dead Dreams” because most dreams never become reality and those few that do cease to be dreams. Every day, the sun sets on one dream; another dream rises come morning. The city has its pros and cons and a sense of ease with the ocean breeze. I love LA, the American Dream in urban form. It is my birthplace and home for my family, and in a way will always be for me. But I also love this city because I have a dream, so I hope those possibilities stay in our palms.
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