The Illusion of Success

I thought I was safe. I thought I had fulfilled the dream—the so-called American dream. My parents, immigrants who arrived in this land of opportunity decades ago, had drilled into me the importance of education, stability, and upward mobility. My mother, a white Haitian, and my father, a Black Asian, had come here with nothing but hope in their hearts and the weight of a better future on their shoulders. "Education is your only option," they always said. "This country will give you everything if you just work hard enough."

And I did.

At 45 years old, with a bachelor’s degree in technology, a steady career, and a corner office in my corporate job, I was the ideal child in their eyes. I had become what they dreamed of—an emblem of success. Unlike my siblings, who took paths that enraged my parents, I followed the script. My brother, who went to trade school, was nearly disowned for "thinking small." My sister, an entrepreneur, was chastised for not following the traditional path.

But here’s the thing: they always seemed happier than me.

Every time I spoke to my sister, she was somewhere new—traveling the country, laughing, living freely. Jealousy burned in my chest. How could she throw away everything our parents sacrificed for and still look so... alive? My brother was no different. He moved to the rhythm of his own clock, untethered by anyone else’s expectations. While I toiled under fluorescent lights, bound to my desk and a schedule that wasn’t mine, he was building his life at his own pace. And again, I envied him.

My life was nothing like theirs. It was consumed by my corporation. Even when I wasn’t working, I was working—thinking of strategies, ways to push the company forward, ways to make myself indispensable. My entire identity was wrapped up in my job, and my worth was tied to my productivity. My parents were proud. But I wasn’t free. I didn’t even know who I was.

And then, one day, I woke up, and I had had enough.

Enough of their endless demands. Enough of sacrificing my time, my soul, my happiness. Enough of the cage I had willingly locked myself into. I was ready to reclaim myself, to find the person I had lost somewhere along the way.

But fate had other plans.

On January 20th, 2025, I learned who I really was—or, perhaps, who I had never been.

That morning, I received a letter. Cold, impersonal, and final. It informed me that I was under review for deportation.

Deportation? I stared at the words, disbelief mingling with a rage I didn’t know I was capable of. I was born in this country. I had lived here my entire life. I had done everything right. The education, the job, the taxes, the picket fence, the family, the car—it all meant nothing. Nothing at all.

Because, to them, I didn’t belong.

The bureaucrats were deciding where to send me—Haiti or South Korea, countries I had never set foot in. They didn’t care that this was my home. To them, my existence here was conditional, my presence always temporary, no matter how much I had given to this country.

And in that moment, I saw the truth. The American dream wasn’t real. It was a mirage, a pretty lie designed to keep people like me striving for something that could never truly be ours. I had built my entire life on a foundation that was never solid to begin with.

I remembered the stories from the '90s, when New York's mayor deported so-called criminals back to their parents’ countries, even if those people had never set foot outside the U.S. Back then, I was too young to understand what it truly meant. I never imagined that one day, it would be me.

Me.

Forty-five years old. A respected professional. A model citizen. Facing the loss of everything I had built. My education, my career, my home—all of it was meaningless now.

My whole life had been a lie.

As I sat in silence, clutching that letter in my trembling hands, one question echoed in my mind: What was all of this for?



And for the first time in my life, I didn’t have an answer.