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The Land Of Dreams Unfulfilled by Zlata Kustric Oh, the dream of America, or North America at that, how great it used to be. All my life I've heard nothing but how great that continent is. ‘It is the land where all your dreams come true,' my parents would always say, but that's all that it remained, a land of dreams, until a year ago when my parents decided that it was time to leave Slovenia. We made it to America, all right, and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't cry myself to sleep because of it. Never, in a million years, would we have dreamed just how much we were going to regret having that naïve dream: we should have known better! I grew up in Piran, Slovenia. It is a quiet, little southern town. Winters were short and mild and the summers were long and hot. For nearly half of the year, we did nothing but swim and bathe in the sun's warm rays. The population of the town was rather small and it was one of those places where everyone knew everyone else. I had lived there for eighteen years of my life, with my parents as well as my brother and sister. We were always very happy. My siblings and I had a lot of friends with whom we loved to spend time. Despite everything we had, it didn't stop my parents from always droning on-and-on about America. Maybe all the movies we had seen that contributed to the over-glamourized image of the United States. Of course, all these movies took place in California where the characters were all little rich kids, who did nothing but waste their parent's money. Everybody in our part of the world had the same dream, and that was to make it to America one day. I suppose the same story had been passed down throughout the generations. "The roads are paved with gold over there," they would say, "money practically grows on trees, everyone is a millionaire in America." I never much cared for this dream that everyone around me seemed to possess. I was perfectly happy where I was, but my family did not share my feelings. "Oh Rianna," my sister would always say, "do you have any idea how great it is over there? We could finally become what we've always dreamed of, movie stars. Oh, don't you realize that us moving would be the best thing that could ever happen to us." My sister Mel was my best friend, she was only a year younger than me, and we did everything together. All her life she had dreamed of becoming a big movie star. She knew very well that if we remained in Slovenia, she would never make it big. There was even some talk about sending her over to California, by herself, to pursue her dreams, but that never went through. Finally, we decided that if one of us were to go, then we would all go. I always viewed the whole hype as just that, hype. It seemed too far away from my home, an entire ocean away and it was strange. A foreign land, where we had no one. That's why a horrible feeling of dread overcame me when my father walked into the house and announced that we were moving. "Kids, you will never believe this! I got a work visa to transfer to Los Angeles, California. We're going to America! I had never seen my whole family so happy. I did not understand how they could be so willing to drop the life that we had known, all our lives, and just start somewhere else, where we didn't speak the language, or know anyone. "Ahhhh, Billy, Rianna, this is absolutely the best news in the world. I have never been so happy." Mel was jumping up and down with joy. "Better news than Brad Pitt asking you to marry him." Billy teased. "Hmmm". She mockingly thought about it for a second and then exclaimed. "Yes!" For the next two weeks, we did nothing but pack our things and say goodbye to our jealous friends. "Oh Rianna, I'm going to miss you so much," my friend Lejla said, "but I am so jealous, you get to go where the real life is, you're not stuck down here for the rest of your life." "You wanna trade places, Lejla?" I asked without a hint of sarcasm in my voice. "Ha, ha, ha, very funny Rie," she added with mock laughter, "but you better write me every day. I never want us to lose touch. She finished with tears welling-up in her eyes. We said our goodbyes and parted ways, for what I thought would be forever. The next morning we got a family friend to give us a lift to Trieste, Italy, from where our plane was departing. It was only about an hour and a half drive from Piran. "Well kids, take a look at the beautiful Adriatic Sea," my mom said as we boarded the plane. "Yeah, you might never see it again," our father added, with a weird look on his face. We boarded the plane and some twenty-odd hours later, including the layovers, we had arrived to our destination, Los Angeles, California. My first impression of LA was that it was extremely busy. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere. It seemed so big, so much space and so much people, the complete opposite of our small town back home. Mel was looking around with awe in her eyes. She looked like a little kid in a candy store, and I couldn't help but smile to myself. We spoke some English, not a lot, but enough to help us get around. We arrived in our new home in what seemed a rather poor part of the city, East L.A. Every house was very small and they were all cramped together. The cars that people drove were old and beat up, and we were nowhere near the beach. Our guide told us that this was just a temporary placement until we earned enough money to move to a better part of the city. The house that we were placed in was a very small two-bedroom house, despite the fact that there were five us in the family. "Ugh, what a dump" my brother Billy whispered to me. He was a year older than me, and wasn't quite as naïve as the rest of my family. "Umm, don't worry kids, this is just a temporary setback. This is just until I get enough projects and earn some money. We'll move to Beverly Hills then, I promise" he added with a fake smile never leaving his lips. "Oh really daddy, please, I don't want to stay here" Mel whined with tears in her eyes. But we all knew that there wasn't much we could do about our "temporary placement". The only good news was that we weren't going to an East LA school. Mom and Dad felt that it was two dangerous for three white kids, so they enrolled us in a more ‘prestigious' school. In other words, we were surrounded by rich-kid snobs. We also found out that we would have to transfer on three buses every day to get to that school, and leave two hours before it started: it was that far away. The beach took even longer to get to: four buses and two and a half hours later, we would make it to the beach. After our first week we didn't bother going anymore. It was too much hassle. Our parents could not afford to get us a car then, so we had to take the bus everywhere we went. My parents, both architects, were swamped with work all of the time, and we barely saw them. They were working for very small money, I could tell. They just weren't as happy as I knew my parents to be, and neither was the rest of my family. It was bad enough that Mel and I had to share a room with Billy. We got along ok, but it was hard. We had no privacy, and we were beginning to get on each other's nerves. School wasn't any easier: we didn't fit in because we weren't quite as rich as everyone else in our school. Also our English was not the greatest, and I knew people laughed at us, behind our backs, because of our accents. For the first few months, Billy, Mel and I stuck together, but after a while Mel began to drift away from us. She made friends with some of the most popular girls in school. They were the crowd that looked down their noses at everyone who wasn't as ‘pretty' or as ‘popular' as they were. "Melanie, honey, no offense, but your sister is a nerd." Clara said to Mel one day. "What do you mean, Clara?" Mel asked. "Well look at her, she never attempts to talk to anyone, and look at the way she dresses! Humph! Who would have thought that you guys are related?" Clara added with a snort. Mel didn't want to cross the ‘leader' of her group, so she reluctantly agreed. "Um, yeah, I know what you mean." To avoid conflict with her new ‘friends', my sister began to ignore me. Billy had ditched me too. He joined the basketball team, which took up most of his time. Frankly I didn't know what my problem was. I think that I just didn't want to fit in: I just wanted to go back home. Back where there were no false pretensions, and where you didn't have to pretend to be someone you're not, just to impress someone. I remained a loner, at school and at home, all I ever did was read and avoid the rest of my family. |