American Dream

My great-grandfather moved to this country from Thailand. His lineage situation is a bit confusing considering he is of mixed blood. In those days racism was on a uphill slope, especially in such countries as Taiwan and China, and Japan, that would have been considered blasphemous and it still is today. Today we live in a more enlightened time, being of Taiwanese and Jamaican blood he and his parents were abandoned by his family and outcast among their neighbors. He frequently had to cover his face in cloths and garments just to walk outside. Growing up as an African-American male despite the going enlightenment of our time one cannot escape being an outcast among my own people because of be it color, gender, or sexual orientation. Even some women of color today have to worry about the darkness of their skin, not among other races but among their own. Ignorance at times could have a thoughtless basis but still cause pain.

He found solace in, of all places back in the 1940's, Buffalo, New York and lived there for sixty years before moving to Miami, Florida. He quickly found work in New York's seedy underbelly as a pimp in the city's "Red Light District" where people of that profession were commonly found. That is also how he happened to find my great-grandmother, who moved from Panama to achieve the american dream, to get her piece of the pie, with no intentions to work as a prostitute. My great-grandparents today still have no regrets about their past, my great-grandfather puts his life into perspective by stating "Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age regret." They talked with a wisp of pride in their voices. Not that he regrets everything now in his old age. It is more he regrets ever becoming old. If you see my great-grandfather today, he is dating a forty year old woman, he still feels he is twenty when in actuality he is 87. He loves the mistakes he has made in his youth through the prostitution and drugs, something I as a youth can not be proud of. I have had my own struggles with drugs, with the police, and have contracted many more problems than needed. I regret everyday of my youth, not because I have cut my life short, but because I knew better. So did my great-grandfather. But his mistakes were not motivated by selfish reasons as were mine, his family was his motivation. To prove that he is not an abomination and deserves the love he had always wanted. When he met my great-grandmother love became his new motivation.

We still see the effects today of their past because frowns replaced smiles and laughter. No matter how much they say they don't regret the past and no matter how they say they are proud of what they had done, through the airy sense of pride you can sense the feeling of loathing. Is it regret, maybe? Pride can be a dangerous thing at times but when coupled with regret pride wins all the time.

He was not a pimp his whole life. He was married and had his first child. After a few years they gave up that life and decided to settle down and actually have a family. They bought a nice house on Best Street in Buffalo and lived their for a few years. Even though neither of them had a formal education they still managed to send the their eldest to a boarding school in England. They felt that would give their daughter more than they