Where is “that American Joy”?: Ibi Zoboi's American Street (2017) as a Twenty‐First‐Century Political Novel about the Limits of the Haitian/American Dream

A product of American exceptionalism, the myth of the American Dream has always defended that the United States is the nation of upward mobility par excellence. Nonetheless, in the last two decades, many scholars, economists, and even politicians have acknowledged the fact that economic inequality i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Orbis litterarum Vol. 80; no. 6; pp. 589 - 601
Main Author: Roldán‐Sevillano, Laura
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Malden Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.12.2025
Subjects:
American Dream
Detroit literature
Haitian American fiction
migrant Bildungsroman
political novel
precarity
United States > US
ISSN:0105-7510, 1600-0730
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:A product of American exceptionalism, the myth of the American Dream has always defended that the United States is the nation of upward mobility par excellence. Nonetheless, in the last two decades, many scholars, economists, and even politicians have acknowledged the fact that economic inequality is a reality in the country, especially vis‐à‐vis non‐white citizens and migrants. Precisely, this article aims to demonstrate that American Street (2017), Ibi Zoboi's migration Bildungsroman about a teenage Haitian girl separated from her mother upon their arrival in the United States who must live with her Haitian American relatives in post‐Great‐Recession Detroit, is a twenty‐first‐century political novel that exposes and criticizes the fallacy of the American Dream and the vulnerability of contemporary economic migrants of color dealing with the dire effects of precarity, urban segregation and their collapsed hopes about the Promised Land. However, as this article will also demonstrate, notwithstanding all these obstacles in their pursuit of the American “good life,” Zoboi's protagonist and her Haitian family are resilient individuals who, in order to survive and keep on fighting for a better future on US soil, do their best to adapt to their broken dreams—even if it entails bending the law—by resorting, not to American individualism, but to Haitian Vodou, relationality, and communal resistance.
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ISSN:0105-7510
1600-0730
DOI:10.1111/oli.12489