An American Dreams

An American Dreams is a photographic series exploring the layered complexity of my immigrant experience in the United States. This series questions how an individual can fully integrate into a new culture when the messages conveyed by the dominant culture stereotype the individual as an outsider. Assimilation becomes difficult when the very way one looks is an impediment to being fully accepted and embraced. Existing in a culture with such stringent characterizations is restrictive and is metaphorically represented within this series by the color orange. In the United States, orange clothes are often associated with the notion of prisoner or criminal. For me, existing as an Indian American immigrant, a person of color, feels like walking out the door every morning wearing an orange prison uniform. These same narrow cultural views that restrict the individual can also constrain the politic at-large into believing extreme positions that control various population’s rights throughout the country. I raise these questions about cultural perceptions in hopes to one day fully experience the American Dream.