A rising high school senior from Newton set out to answer a burning question in his mind: Is the American dream still alive?
Seventeen-year-old Michael Barbalat, the son of immigrant parents, launched a personal project called ‘The American Mosaic’ to find out.
He interviewed more than 100 people who came to the United States from other countries, documenting their stories and asking each of them the same question — whether they believe the American Dream is still within reach.
“I think of [my parents] as the very manifestation of the American Dream,” Barbalat said. “They’ve done well and started from nothing, and they have good jobs.”
The idea behind the project came from that inspiration. Barbalat saw in his parents’ story something very American – but he wanted to know if their experience was unique or a more common experience.
“I called it ‘The American Mosaic’ because I think that is the best way to think about what it is to be an American,” he said. “We have no one identity, no one group. Each individual tile may be from a place, but in America, that is a combination of all those tiles.”
Over time, his interviews spanned a wide range of backgrounds. He spoke with people originally from Cambodia now living in Hawaii, and even a circus performer from Turkey.
Barbalat had doubts of his own early on: “In 8th grade we had an assignment – we had to find out whether the American Dream was dead or alive,” Barbalat recalled. “My instant answer was ‘no.'”
But as he listened to the stories of people who had built new lives in the U.S., his outlook shifted.
“What I found was that yes, almost every single person saw this place as a place of opportunity for whatever their dreams were,” he said. “America doesn’t guarantee success, but it guarantees the freedoms to try, fail, and try again. I think that’s what makes it exceptional.”
Barbalat has now created a website to showcase his project, including full interviews and portraits of the people he met along the way, people who helped him rediscover a truth he had once questioned: that the American Dream is still alive and sought after.
