Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The words are carved in copper at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.

Today, that promise looks like a dead letter. ICE raids at dawn, separated families, the National Guard in the streets. The criminalization of migrants is no longer exceptional. It's an assumed policy.

Latinos — the largest minority in the country, an economic force decisive in swing states — live between exploitation, the permanent threat of deportation, and the need to be seen.

In Atlanta, two women map that reality from the inside.

Gigi Pedraza left Peru, lived in Chicago and Boston, before settling in Atlanta — a city emblematic of the civil rights movement, proud of its "Atlanta way" of getting along. She founded the Latino Community Fund Georgia when she realized her community was everywhere in the state — and invisible in its official story.

Jennifer — a pseudonym she chose — crossed the border from Mexico as a child, without legal status. She learned early to navigate a system designed to keep her on the margins — until Freedom University helped her find a way through.

Together, they give voice to a reality that remains largely undocumented — like so many of the people who live it.

What’s Left of the American Dream? / Que reste-t-il du rêve américain ? is a bilingual documentary series by Walid Hajar Rachedi. Set in Atlanta — the city of Martin Luther King Jr., a “Black Mecca” and a new crossroads of migration — during the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term in 2025, it explores the stories of those who still live the American Dream, those who question it, and those who never believed in it.

Editorial and sound support for this episode : Ryad Maouche.
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