I sit at a stop light and look to my left.

Next to me is a dirty, grey Toyota Corolla. Possibly built in 1992.

Around it’s mirror hangs two endearingly intertwined graduation tassels, hung there by two graduates in a fit of optimistic enthusiasm two years ago.

In the front seats sits a couple. The owners of the tassels?

They rest, exhausted by the day’s labors, heads leaning on fists propped up on window’s ledges, waiting for the light to turn green.

In the back a toddler sits, wrapped in a puffy white hand-me-down jacket, playing with a flashing, whizzing, whirley-gig of a toy.

Is this America?

The light changes and I drive off.