How Could They Not
I’m sitting in a café in Tirana, watching people at other tables. I’m alone, the only one on their phone. I’m also one of the few not smoking.
Around me, there are spirited conversations: elderly couples, young friends, families with strollers, some lovers, mostly groups of men and the occasional outsider like me.
Cafés are the heart of this city, not just meeting places, but veins that intertwine with its people. They feel constant, unhurried, life-giving. From morning until night, this is daily life in Tirana.
I glance back down at my phone and land on a social media post from a friend, outraged at the state of American politics. I didn’t fully read the comment, but the video clip autoplayed.
“I would feel privileged to be taken over by the United States,” a talking head on Fox News declared confidently. My instinctive reaction: this person has never traveled outside the U.S. except maybe on a luxury cruise.
I looked up again, taking in the scene around me. The video continued.
“…That’s what everyone wants. For some reason, that’s repellent to you Canadians, and I found that personally offensive.”
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I blinked. Was it possible someone actually believed and admitted that they were offended others didn’t want to be taken over by the U.S.? Surely this was a deepfake. I looked it up, ready to tell people to stop spreading this kind of social porn.
But it was real.
I watched it again. He wasn’t just serious, he spoke with deep contempt. If you spend every day reporting on people risking everything to enter the U.S., I can see how you might conclude everyone desperately wants in.
Over the last five decades, I’ve known many people who came to the U.S. myself included, to visit or to immigrate, legally or otherwise. I’ve had countless conversations with people who arrived fifty years ago or five. The stories are the same, but the awareness has changed.
When my parents’ generation came, they found a country rich with opportunity. They had no idea what they’d have to give up but they saw blessings being offered. Today, that’s no longer the trade-off most people are willing to make. The American Dream comes with a hidden, devastating price.
The cost is loneliness. Privacy and financial freedom come at the price of belonging and community.
Everyone still wants the TV version of American life and the fistful of dollars that comes with it. People will continue to scale any wall to chase it. But now, more people understand that if you stay too long, it will cost you the peace of belonging you didn’t know you could lose.
I look around the café again and realize something: that commentator on the screen knew this too, but couldn’t understand it. Subconsciously, he had no choice but to angrily defend his position because acknowledging the hole that status and wealth can’t fill would be unbearable. Something is missing, and he doesn’t know what it is but he can see it in others.
I linger on this romantic thought for a while, maybe a bit smug. Slowly, my mind but to incubate the question: How do I bottle up this communal contentment and sell it back in the States?
