Dream Again
Dreams come true all the time!
When my friend, the U.S.-born citizen of an El Salvador-born immigrant, was four years old, he had a night terror in broad daylight. His mother had secured a cart to carry their clothes home from the laundromat and he sat proudly in the front of the cart. Two armed men in uniforms unknown to him approached his mother. The cart drifted off to the side as they talked to her in a language she didn’t understand about rules she didn’t know she was breaking. Rules like jaywalking which were created by car companies to transfer liability to individuals walking instead of drivers when they killed pedestrians in the street.
My friend could understand every word. By four years old, he already knew that men in uniform were the ones who never smile; who yell and misunderstand; the ones who take mothers from their children. At four years old, he looked from the front of the slowly rolling cart knowing that that day could be the last he would ever see his mother.
Can you imagine?
As a mother, the idea that I could be separated from my children is my second worst nightmare (my worst nightmare is that we’d be separated and they’d never know why). I imagined the fear in his four-year-old heart, and I held that little boy as we wept together.
His mother got a ticket, and walked over to the cart and pushed them both home. They made it home together that night and every night since. Their love linked inextricably by understanding that almost anything can be forgiven as long as we stay together.
One night, my friend and I were watching the news with the volume down. Men in uniform were yelling and misunderstanding and separating families with reckless abandon and feckless cowardice. Only this time, the men covered their faces, like the white-robed men in my ancestral memory; the Klan that have terrorized my people for decades and terrorize Black children’s dreams even now.
We watched in silence–paralyzed, trying to process just how our childhood nightmares could become reality. How could something that our brains could only begin to process while sleeping be happening in our waking lives today?
…
Over in New York, a Ugandan-born U.S. dual citizen of India-born immigrants is up for the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City. At just 33 years old, I hear jokes about the new impossible standard he’ll set for Indian-American men’s success while the party he’s a member of chides him as inexperienced and dangerous. In either case, he represents a new standard and, as you know, people don’t adjust well to new rules.
I text my friends in New York on primary day, “New York, yall voting Mamdani? / not ranking cuomo?”
My friends passed the vibe check: “Ya we are. Not too excited about any candidate tho! Tbh”
“Story of the democratic party these days…unexciting,” I responded.
Another friend joined the chat. She’d left her candidate research to the last minute and asked to be convinced as to why she should support Mamdani. “I have people telling me [Cuomo’s] the only one who can stand up to trump. My Black family still loves them some cuomo.”
We go back and forth about sharing tidbits on Mamdani’s platform. I tell her, he’s pro rent freeze and taxing corporations. I shared how much I used to regard bill clinton that way, but have since learned that so much of the private prison industry and police enforcement we’re witnessing owes its existence to him.
“Mamdani seems like he lives in the land of fairy tale.” she responds–unconvinced.
Weary of engaging without more information, I signed off for the night. “Good luck New York!”
…
The next morning my news-watching friend processed out of paralysis and felt ready to talk about what we’d seen. Tears filled his eyes because it’s so fucking sad that we’ve normalized our nightmares and come to dread and disregard our dreams. It’s tragic how far we are falling fast. We breathe and cry. Together.
I check my phone: ‘cuomo concedes. Mamdani wins.’ It would seem that fairytales come true too.
And why not? A tax rate far below 20% was a billionaire fairy tale. Overturning Roe v Wade was a sexist, wealthy white supremacist fairy tale. Ending birthright citizenship in the US was a Nazi-American (pardon my redundancy) fever dream. The fairy tales of the ratchet, wretched and wealthy come true all the time.
…
Months later, the fairy tale becomes New York legend: “Mamdani wins, cuomo concedes.” New York elects its first Muslim, Democratic Socialist mayor. And why not? A truly representative democracy where everyone can be housed, fed, and educated equitably was my ancestor’s dream and the present dream of working families everywhere.
In her work, Rest Is Resistance, Tricia Hersey asks the reader who they were before the terror of capitalism and white supremacy? When you’re resting and at utter peace, what is your sweetest dream?
If you’re like me, it might take some time to see your dreams. I spent so much time living the dreams of others, it took steady and intentional mindfulness to understand which dreams were actually mine to own. But once you see even a glimmer of the version of yourself that is free and thriving, write it down. Speak it. Sing it. Play it. Dance it. Recite it. Pray it.
Do whatever you can to honor your sweetest dream because…why not? Dreams come true all the time!