I met a man (who asked not to be named) at the Al-Iman Masjid. Bright-eyed and eager, he told me about his journey to America. First in 2018 when he lived here for a year to learn about American culture before moving back to Morocco. Then a couple years later when he would win the Diversity Visa Program lottery and came to permanently live in America.

The interviewee’s idea of the American Dream is the idea of development. He himself is fascinated in linguistics, speaking multiple languages including Spanish and French. He believes that living in America has helped him develop culturally and economically. Despite this, he doesn’t feel he’s completely achieved the American Dream yet. At the time that I spoke with him, he was out of a job and in between job interviews. But he remains unfalteringly optimistic.

When I asked him to provide an object that represents his journey, he pointed me towards a dissertation he started back home, which he stepped away from because of finances. His PhD focused on humor in American literature, the translation of it, and immigrant experiences with it. To him, those questions are representative of the fascination that brought him to America, and of the New York “cosmopolitan artist” lifestyle he ascribes himself with. A few weeks later, he shared with me a stock image cartoon to represent the PhD, a symbol of the stereotypical jokes about New York–the hot dog and big apple–that endeared him to the city, and inspired him to learn about humor. 

– Ismaeel El-Shafei

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