Behold the Dreamers

Riding the bus across town toward the apartment of the Edwards, Neni overhears excited discussion of African Americans as they talk about attending Barack Obama’s inauguration. Desperate for money for the deportation case, Neni confronts Cindy with pictures that show Cindy while she is under the influence of Vicodin. Neni blackmails Cindy for money in exchange for the photos. Cindy gives Neni $10,000 and promises Neni that she will see her in jail for her actions.

When Neni informs Jende about the blackmail money, Jende is initially guilty and ambivalent about his wife’s actions. By the end of the night, however, he’s glad for the money, the single largest amount he has ever had in his life.

With a tighter budget, Neni is increasingly concerned with the cost of food, and she longs for the thrill of haggling down prices and the excitement back home, at the Limbe market. Neni also thinks about the accusation Anna had made of her the day after Neni blackmailed Cindy. Although Anna is unaware of the substance of the conversation between Cindy and Neni, she does notice that Cindy has been hostile and withdrawn since then. Neni refuses the blame for this situation, and she ends the conversation by telling Anna that she will no longer prioritize the happiness of her employer over that of the Jonga family. Cindy’s happiness or unhappiness is Cindy’s problem.

Neni volunteers in the Judson Memorial office for Natasha. Neni muses to herself about the guilt she feels over the blackmail and allows Natasha to talk her out of a scheme to divorce Jende, marry another man, and then divorce him in order to get her green card. That night, Neni sends an email to Mighty to tell the little boy to cherish his mother. The email bounces back as undeliverable.

Cindy chokes to death on her own vomit while high, drunk, and alone, according to Winston. Cindy had been so miserable and depressed in the weeks before her death that her friends staged an intervention to get her to go to treatment. Winston tells the Jongas that Clark seems devastated by the news.

A week later, Jende attends Cindy’s memorial service, at which Cindy’s family and friends all share kind words about her. Neni feels so remorseful that Jende tries to reassure her that it was Cindy’s time to go. He convinces Neni not to give the blackmail money to the church as penance.

Some weeks later, Neni receives the welcome news that she has been selected by her school for induction into an honor society because of her high grades. Her pride turns to bitterness when a school official informs her that she is ineligible for scholarships and aid to continue school because of her immigration status. Even worse, in her eyes, is that the official tries to dissuade her from her dream of becoming a pharmacist. The man believes she should aim lower because becoming a pharmacist isn’t achievable for someone—an immigrant and a mother—like Neni. Nevertheless, the whole family attends when Neni is inducted.

In May, Jende’s father dies back in Limbe. Unable to attend, Jende watches the service (for which he wired money home) by video link. Jende begins to experience strange pains in his body under the burden of worry and hard work. He is forced to visit a doctor, where, as he answers questions about his symptoms, he realizes the overwhelming stress under which he has labored.

The visit to the doctor convinces Jende that it’s time to give up and return to Limbe. He explains to an angry Neni that everyone is struggling in America because of the recession, and he is tired of fighting against such impossible odds. If white Americans cannot find work because of the recession, he asks Neni, what can a person like him hope to achieve?

Neni is sad. She remembers how she had longed to be a part of the America represented in the pictures of immigrant friends and American sitcoms. She had seen in movies something of the struggle against inequality that African Americans faced, but she brushed this aside as atypical. She is two terms away from pharmacy school but unlikely to achieve that dream, now that Jende wants to go home. Even worse is all the opportunities Liomi and Timba will miss out on by not growing up in America. Despite her friends’ advice to fight to stay, Neni knows they will most certainly go home, especially since Jende has put away the blackmail money in a savings account, instead of paying lawyer’s fees.

Desperate to stay, Neni shares the green-card-by-marriage scheme with Jende. He is so angry in response that he slams a door in her face.

Bubakar tries to dissuade Jende from returning voluntarily to Cameroon, but Jende is adamant. Winston agrees with Jende and explains that the recession has changed everything for immigrants. With the recession, immigrants and native-born Americans alike find it impossible to thrive in America. His mother, aware of desperate Cameroonians crossing the Mediterranean to get to Europe, cannot understand his decision, however.

A desperate Neni considers giving Liomi up for adoption to her math teacher so Liomi can grow up as an American. Natasha tells her not to. Neni explains that giving one’s child over to relatives for a better life is not so unusual where she comes from; sometimes, the people treat the children well, and sometimes they treat them poorly. Neni tells Natasha she thinks she is becoming another person. Neni is unable to answer when Natasha asks if she likes this new person.

Four days before Jende’s court appearance, he and Neni have an argument over Jende’s decision to return to Cameroon voluntarily. The argument escalates to blows when Jende loses his temper and strikes Neni multiple times. Neni agrees to forgive Jende, reasoning that there is nothing else she can do. At the immigration hearing days later, Jende enters his request to leave America voluntarily. Jende does not feel the expected sense of relief until Neni, her eyes full of tears, tells him that she is glad for his sake that their difficulties in America are almost over.

Neni receives and responds to a voicemail from Vince, who contacts her from India. Vince asks Neni to work as a nanny to stabilize things at home now that Cindy is gone. Now that Cindy is dead, Clark is deeply involved with his sons’ lives. Vince reminisces about the good parts of his relationship with his mother, but he assures Neni he will never return permanently to America because the system is too corrupt. As tempting as the offer sounds, Neni knows she cannot take the job. In Cindy’s place, she would hate the idea of an enemy coming into her home and raising her child.