With the hope and promise for a better life, many immigrants and refugees arrive in the United States with unrealistic expectations. They are willing to take a risk and leave all that they know – country and family – believing circumstances will improve in the United States. Some feel that America is so very rich that wealth is distributed equally, and jobs will be ready and waiting for them.

In this documentary, teens examine the experiences of individuals from two specific San Diego communities, East African Refugees and Latinos, in order to examine the opportunities and obstacles these two communities face as they attempt to establish a life for themselves in a new city and country. For many Latino immigrants and East African refugees who have made the San Diego border region their home, they now find themselves caught in an economic, cultural, class and social chasm and disconnect. Their understanding of the American Dream is now colored by their family history, day-to-day realities, socio-economic barriers, language and cultural differences.

Today’s young people are also bombarded with media images and messages about what it means to be an American. At no other time in our nation’s history have certain youth experienced so much privilege and prosperity with a consumerism that finds them fluent in communication technology and connected via cell phones, text messaging and the Internet.

And yet, there are many youth, especially immigrants and refugees, who experience quite a different set of cultural and class realities. Due to increasing economic hardships especially with families already earning wages that are poverty level or below, and less than adequate housing situations, many underserved youth receive a confusing and frustrating mixed-message from society and the media, that to be wired is to belong and have the look, and the high-tech gear to connect to your peers.