What is the dream of home ownership? Does
owning your home mean you belong to this country, or, does it simply represent,
to yourself and others, that finally, you have made it? How does the dream
of owning a home, a place -- even a small condominium on the top floor
of a triple decker with a view of the downtown sky scrapers, neighbors
you can borrow sugar from and regular trash pickup mesh with the dream
of a better education, more money, a car? Is it really all the same dream
-- the one for a better life for ourselves and our families? How do our
individual and communal dreams become coded and translated through the
filter of the "American Dream"? Did we, our parents, grandparents leave
behind other dreams in other countries, other languages, other neighborhoods?
For whom and how is this dream meaningful, worth pursuing, attainable?
And for whom is this dream just still a dream? The teachers' homebuying
lessons in this section grapple with these questions, and others.
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What happens to a dream deferred?
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Does is dry up
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Like a raisin in the sun?
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Or fester like a sore-
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And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat?
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Or crust and sugar over-
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Like a syrupy sweet?
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Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
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Or does it explode?
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-From Harlem (2), Langston Hughes
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