Interviewing The American Dream; The Aspring Artist Part One

"Nobody chooses to live outside."

This interview was conducted with an African American woman in the Summer of 2010 at the Public Market in Emeryville California.  Living in Oakland California, she currently works as a station agent for the Bay Area Rapid Transit, a job that as you’ll see is not her ideal.  The interview was rather lengthy and I had the choice of editing or shortening it for publication.  I chose to leave the interview untouched because the subject is very bright and was very articulate offering some insightful thoughts and also because doctoring someone’s thoughts runs against my grain. So instead of editing, I’m publishing the interview in parts.

This first part covers her experience coming of early life in Illinois and the changes that came with a move to California.

I grew up believing the American Dream was that you had a job, hopefully that you liked, that allowed you to buy a home, raise a family, that allowed you to buy things that you wanted. The American Dream is the car, the house, the 2.5 children, being able to send your children to college; hopefully you were able to go to college. Not necessarily being rich per se. I’m not talking about Ferraris or anything like that. Yeah, you know, a nice car, a Cadillac, a BMW. You know a two or three bedroom home with some actual land. It was the ability to carve out a comfortable life that allowed you a certain level of happiness, a certain level of contentment. That was what I always imagined the American Dream to be. How I understood it.

When you were growing up?

When I was growing up.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Illinois, Midwest, Champagne-Urbana. We housed the University of Illinois. So while being in the middle of the Bible Belt, in typically what they called country, because of the university being there it kept the city of Champagne-Urbana a bit more urban, clearly more diverse, a lot more forward thinking given that fact that we were in the Midwest and heavily influence by the religious, Bible Belt ideology.

I was born in 67 so, 67 to 85 I was in the Midwest. But I grew up in a six bedroom home, a family home. So for me to live in a large house was not something that was left for the rich. It was a family home, my mother grew up there. We had, I don’t know, I’m not really familiar with acreage, we had at least a quarter acre, probably more, because you could put another six bedroom on the back end of our lot. We had a corner lot so there was a lot of land, there was a big house. But we were still lower middle class. It was like a  middle class, lower middle class kind of thing. So you know, it just seemed like THAT was the American Dream. It was, you know, like what do you mean you can’t have a good sized home and a lot of land and an attic and a basement, a couple of cars, it just seems ludicrous to me. It (the concept of the American Dream) was an expectation based on what you already had. Clearly growing up in that kind of house, it was an expectation that, you assumed that you would at least do as well as your parents and hopefully that you’ll do better. So part of it is what you’re accustomed to having. My uncles and aunts had homes, good sized homes. My family is an educated family, pretty much everybody has a degree. So it was an expectation that, again, you would get a degree because that’s just what you did based on the home and the upbringing that I came from. That’s just the way things were and it was without question it was just expected.

Then you had the outside societal type thing, and that is growing up and going to school. People talked about, hey I’m going to get my degree or I’m going to go and I’m going to buy this or I’m going to get a new car or when I get married we’re going to have this type of home. And the idea was always perpetuated that if you got your education and if you did everything you were supposed to do that you could expect a certain way of life. Which is again; your homes, your cars, being able to afford children, being able to afford their education, being able to live comfortably, being able to go on vacation. It was just something that was just kind of like breathing air, you just kind of go, yeah, of course I’m gonna get these things. That was all the way through high school and beyond. Even after graduating. I did not go immediately to college, because I’m just a little bit rebelish. You know getting out, getting a job, making money, buying a car. It was always the thing that these material things or these expectations would come to fruition.

So how’s that worked out?

(Laughs) Well unfortunately, or fortunately, I moved to California. It is ridiculously (when she says the word ridiculously, she stretches the word for emphasis) expensive here.  I  moved to California in 1985 after I graduated high school. I had family out here. My grandmother lived out here, I had an uncle, I have cousins that live out here. At one time our family was fairly evenly split between the two states so I just came out. You know most adult women and their mothers need a moment of separation (laughs).  You know, you kinda go, okay ma, love you but you’re on my first and last nerve. So moving out to kind of give us a little breathing room and to find my own way.  So that was the reason for coming out but still having the security of family.

And you found it ridiculously expensive.

It was ridiculously expensive. Yeah. Comparative to where I was coming from; absolutely. Real quickly in my early twenties, the idea of a home, got to be a little bit, you kind of go, at first it wasn’t the financial hurdle which is clearly one here. But for me it became a size and location issue. Because again having been raised (in the Midwest), there’s a certain expectation and here in the Bay Area, these homes are really small (laughs); very small.  And yet they wanted, when I first came out here, probably the median cost of a home was high fives, mid to high fives. And I’m thinking you want five hundred thousand dollars for a two or three bedroom bungalow? I was thinking; really? And the backyard isn’t really a backyard. You could put one of those outdoor table things and maybe a little planter. I’m going, wow (laughs). So initially that was kind of my thought of going, yeah I’m not really trying to buy that part of the American Dream right now just because there’s a certain cost prohibitive but also just because it was not what I was accustomed to. So the house was on the backburner.

Had you graduated college by then?

I did not. I didn’t go to college until late twenties. And then when I went, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I originally went in for accounting because I was like, okay, get a job that’s a good job, stable job. So I went in and I got my accounting and I started with that. You know it paid well. I ended up by working accounts payable for a college in Marin. A Catholic college in Marin County; Dominican. So I got a job there doing accounts payable. At the time I was still living in Marin. So it was okay. At that point I thought, you know, I’m well on my way. I didn’t buy the house but I did buy a car. Not a big one off the showroom floor but I did have a car. I was comfortable with the pay that I had gotten. This was after I went to school the first time. I didn’t finish out because I ended up getting a job. And, you know, being young and silly I go, why do I need to finish out if I’ve got a job? (Laughs) I’ll get back to that (Laughs). So I left and proceeded to work.  So for my mid-twenties I was thinking that this is alright. I’m on a good start to my own personal American Dream. The only downside to that was that it’s boring. You know, I basically got bored. And somewhere in there from my late twenties to my early thirties I decided that for me personally it was more than just money but it was about being fulfilled or having a job that meant something to me that I loved. I happened to be watching a program; it was probably on public television. They were interviewing one of the directors, I believe it was Spielberg, and he was talking about filmmaking. And he said that he loved what he did. That he didn’t need vacation. Didn’t need sick time. He wasn’t looking forward to retirement. That for him, he would do this whether he got paid or not.  He would do this until he died. And that really resonated with me. Because I decided that, that’s what I wanted. That’s what I had been looking for. Not just a job and not just a career but something that I was passionate about. Something that, whether I was able to get rich off of it or not, again still within the construct of…I wasn’t trying to be broke but at the same time there has to be something that you can do, something that you love and get paid for it and live comfortably. You know maybe you don’t buy the BMW, maybe you get the Toyota but it can still be a nice Toyota. And so I spent the rest of my next probably ten years on that endeavor to say, okay what makes me tick? What is it that I want to do? Forget the money, forget what anybody says is right or wrong or what I should or shouldn’t do and just really kind of discovering me.

So the dream changed. Clearly as the years went on and I embarked on this little self discovery the house continued to get pushed back further because what I found was that what I was really interested in was art and anybody who knows anything about art regardless of what it is; film making, to being an actor, to being a singer; all of it, the whole gamut; unless you make it you don’t get paid a whole heck of a lot. I mean it’s like feast and famine. When you’re doing well, you’re doing well. When you’re not, you’re really not. So that definitely put the house on more than the back burner, you just kind of take the pot off the stove completely and go, we’ll revisit this at a much later date. And as the years went on, as you well know, the housing market and the economy just kept going up and up and up. Before the bust, we were looking at median homes all the way up in the high six. So it had gone up by well over 100,000 dollars for a median cost home. And yet the homes hadn’t gotten any bigger (laughs), they hadn’t gotten any better. They were just outrageously inflated and so I was like, no, not at all. I had toyed with the idea of a condominium but then again based on my sensibilities of my Mid-Western upbringing it was like a glorified apartment and I was like why would I want to spend 450,000 which again is a bargain when you’re looking at six (to) five pushing seven. But it’s an apartment. Less than 1500 square feet. And I’m paying a mortgage plus HOAs and all the other stuff that comes with it? Nah. That went out the door (laughs).

What about the family?

That was another dream that changed. I think again, when you’re younger, your assumption is that you will have children. And I don’t know how much of that is about you wanting children and how much of that is just an expectation both on my part and everyone else that you will have children. But as life turned out, I ended up by meeting a woman.  I was dating a man at the time, but meeting a woman that for some reason sparked an interest and (I) said okay, well, I’m an open forward thinking person (laughs), we’ll check this out. And so during my finding me, I also found that I wasn’t opposed to dating females. But that brought up another interesting aspect in terms of having children and that is, obviously the conversation comes up about whether or not you want children. To back track a bit in terms of getting married or dating a man if nothing more than an accident you would probably have a child unless you both said hey you know what, I’m not interested, I have no desire, it just tends to happen. When that accidental process or whatever came up then you really had to stop and think about whether or not I wanted children. Because now it would be something that I would have to put some effort into. It wouldn’t just come up and we’d go, well hell we’ll just deal with it. I remember having the conversation with my grandmother to say I am fairly indifferent to it quite frankly. Now that I have to put some real effort and thought to it. And she told me at the time, she says, if it comes, it comes, if it doesn’t it doesn’t. And she was very, just kind of the no pressure, no hey what do you mean you don’t want (children)?  You know she’s just like hey different women at different times of their lives you know the whole adage of your clock will ring and so just chill, just relax, there’s no rush. Again, a part of the family background is that my family didn’t have children early. My mother didn’t have me till she was twenty five. So it wasn’t one of those things that we felt we had to jump into. I did come from a small family so we’re not necessarily into breeding for breeding’s sake. So she didn’t make a big deal of it and I was like great I’m not going to make a big deal about it and I’ll just sit back and when the desire or when I get this thing that supposedly women get when you just feel like you just have to have, I would deal with it then. There’s clearly a malfunction in my clock (laughs). It doesn’t ring, it doesn’t tick, it doesn’t do anything. I like children well enough but I continue to be fairly indifferent to it. It’s like I would never harm or allow a child to be harmed. Children certainly seem to gravitate to me but I think it’s kind of like, kids are like cats. You know when you don’t really care too much about a cat, that’s when the cat wants to be on your lap. But if you were trying to pet the cat then the cat would snub its nose at you and walk away. It’s like, kid’s are like that. You know, they’ll come, they’ll sit on the lap and want to play and I’m not opposed to it but I would be just as fine if they didn’t.

So you’re American Dream changed drastically as regards, the house, the car, the kids and you got involved with a woman. What did that do to your family’s dream?

Well, clearly, my mother was…devastated. Both from just her own expectation of being a grandparent; apparently she had her own dreams and aspirations of weddings and son-in-laws and all that other good stuff. But, my mother was also an extremely religious woman. So what I believe even superseded that was her own particular religious beliefs about the lifestyle that I was living. And so that was for her quite a hurdle. It was very much a minefield. We treaded very carefully. My mother and I actually had a very good relationship. We enjoyed each other’s company. But not only had I changed certain ideas about what the American Dream was for me, that time of self-discovery also allowed me a chance to think about other things like my religious or spiritual beliefs. Were they mine or was it like the house, the cars, the families, the children? Was it just something that I had taken for granted? Like it was just something that was expected. But was it mine? Was it something that I wanted? Was it something that I believed? Had I even spent any time to dissect what my thoughts and feelings about the whole thing of God and religion and spirituality and what that meant? And so what I found is that she and I not only had problems in terms of just the lifestyle, but what I couldn’t get her to understand was that I had also found great fault with her religious beliefs. Case in point was I had told her one time and I firmly believe it to this day, I said nobody chooses, I firmly believe that to some extent nobody chooses to live outside. It’s not an easy way to do it. Particularly already being a black female. So you know being African-American there were certain drawbacks in the greater society of the US of A. Being a female there are certain limitations and drawbacks to that because the world was not built for females. And then I’m going to just choose to add on to that pile of problems (laughs), hurdles, this added bit because hey what the heck, why not, sounds fun. So I had a conversation with her and I said, you know I spent a lot of time, and I prayed a lot, and I said to my supposed Father which was based on where I was raised, ‘if this is wrong, if this is something that you no longer want me to take a part of, let me know.’ And by that I meant anything, any sign. My girlfriend drops me the next day or it fizzles out or I’m at a job and it just so happens we have a new hire, or some guy that…anything, anything that would pull me from this path, I was open and ready to accept. Because if I was truly sinning then I was open to being brought back to a righteous path. And I mean open, clearly open. Didn’t happen. So then my point was to her, if God speaks to us, he hasn’t spoken to me. Which means that at the point of which I meet my creator I can honestly stand before him and say, you know and I know that in various points of my life I asked you, I pleaded with you that if I was not living in the way that you deemed acceptable to let me know. And in my heart I knew that I was willing to make whatever changes were necessary. You didn’t say nothing. So then we have nothing to discuss. And that ended the conversation between me and my mother (laughs). She was furious. My mother has passed. So that was pretty much how we left it. Towards the end before she got sick it got to be a little bit tumultuous because we did have a good relationship. We would have days when we would go shopping and we would enjoy each other’s company and I would think that we were in a live and let live kind of situation. And then I swear she’d go to church or she’d talk to somebody or something and she’d do a hundred and eighty and she’d talk to me or call me on the phone or and (she would say), you know this is a sin and we would be at it locking horns again. And I’m sitting here going, okay, great, I thought we had already dealt with this. But she seemed to be in her own struggle. She actually happened to meet a girlfriend of mine and her comment to me was if she wasn’t in a relationship with me she actually would have really liked the girl. Could have actually seen herself, you know, inviting her over or whatever. And I’m thinking with the exception of the fact that she’s attached to me; yes. And I’m sitting here going do you know how ludicrous that is? So you’re saying there’s absolutely nothing, there is nothing morally wrong with the woman. She’s someone that you would have even considered a friend except for her relationship with me. Yes. Okay. And so she had this internal battle where she wanted to be…it’s like everything about me and my life was okay, something that she could be happy and proud about except for that. And that one thing was enough to just wash out everything else; on certain days (laughs). And it (her ongoing conflict) continued until she got sick and subsequently passed.