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Share Your Score and Story
Share Your Score and Story
Share a story about your experience and how you’ve gotten to where you are today.
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Cira Kelley

New york

74%

My childhood was spent in Jamaica WI with my American born artist parents. My sister and I were shielded from racism and prejudice and the notion of the American dream. We learned about it in our one room home school classroom. I never had to deal with it until I was 9 when we came back to America. Well my parents and sister returned. I was entering this land for the first time at 9 years old. An immigrant in my American family.

During my very first train ride from Florida to Chicago- somewhere in Kentucky- I encountered racism for the first time. I didn’t know what it “looked like” so it slipped past me. A white child made a comment, something to the effect of “we don’t play with your kind”. “Ok” I thought to myself “you’re mean anyway so who would want to be your friend? I certainly don’t”.

We settled in Harlem NY where racism and the American dream were so far apart but yet so entwined. I hated school- they didn’t teach the interesting lessons we had in homeschool. School was not a place of exploration but rather a holding pen until one entered the penal system. However I realized after high school that it was what I needed to achieve the elusive and unheard of American dream. Get that education!!! Life will be better. Education surpasses skin color and prejudice.

Once again racism and the American dream were so far apart but yet so entwined. Attending a segregated Jewish college opened my eyes to the inequality of higher education. The beautiful classrooms and trips abroad were not made available to us- the “others”. We scrapped- they were given.

“Get a masters degree” they said “as a black woman it shows that you want to achieve”. I did. 7 years of school. I thought “now I can touch the prize- stability”. Nope. By now a single mother of two daughters I could barely pay bills- faced evictions more than once- and had to live on food stamps, borrow from my parents and constantly chose between groceries or bills.

I did it all right. The great education. Professionally licensed in my field. Working full time. I’m not lazy. Why is the dream alluding me? Racism? Genderism? Single motherism? Ok maybe this career is not the right one.

So I went back to school and got another masters. This time I will achieve this dream I told myself. I will rise above what society thinks of me. I will show and prove that I’m not lazy. I will work harder than everyone. I deserve it. My children deserve it. My grandson deserves it!!!

So now I am middle aged and all I can say is my bills are paid and I can afford a pair of sneakers without having to choose between them and groceries, or the light bill. My daughter is almost finished with college to the tune of almost 200,000. My chocolate grandson is marginalized in school. We fight everyday for his education to ensure he is not just in a holding pen until he enters the penal system.
Is this my American dream?

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