Stakes is High: Life After the American Dream

Smith opens the essay by telling the story of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to campaign for president. Chisholm, born of immigrant parents, was elected to Congress, representing New York’s 12th District, then campaigned for the Democratic nomination in 1972, losing the race to George McGovern. McGovern would eventually lose in a landslide to the incumbent Richard Nixon, who two years later would resign as a result of the Watergate scandal. Smith admits that he wonders what would have happened had Chisholm been elected, but then reminds himself of the reality of America, a country with a “history of antagonism toward black people, women, and immigrants” (141). Smith contrasts the unlikelihood of Chisholm’s win with the inevitability of Donald Trump, who clearly represents America’s long line of “wealthy white men whose primary concern was ownership and control of the land from which they drew their wealth” (141).

What Chisholm and Trump have in common, however, is that they are both New Yorkers. Smith then goes into telling his own New York story, having moved from Virginia in pursuit of his dreams. Like his family’s past generations, Smith left in pursuit of opportunity. Smith’s reflections about his family lead to him telling the story of