Racism is one of the most difficult topics in American history and a topic that is often not talked about at all. In American Dream we see the story of two very different women Lucia, a Mexican American woman and Emerson a Caucasian woman both working at a detention center as officers. They come from very different backgrounds and have two conflicting ideas of what their job means. For Lucia, her parents did the right thing, they filled out paperwork, waited years for everything to come through and be legal before entering the country. But it is her feelings about the detained immigrants that creates the conflict. She believes everyone should have to wait like her family did, but Emerson believes that people should always be treated as human beings no matter what the reason is that got them where they are. Emerson is a passionate officer who wants the best for the detainees. It is a difficult reality when one of the children, Isabella is denied her inhaler. The two women differ on so many fronts, but it is when the life of a child is at stake that Emerson puts her job on the line to save this child and Lucia does everything in her power to follow the rules. When does it become okay to break the law, regardless of how you personally feel about it, to do the right thing?
