I didn’t have a college fund. My parents saved literally $0 for school. I didn’t even know parents saved money for their kids to go to college until I went to college.

I didn’t have any help on homework after kindergarten because my mom didn’t and still doesn’t know English.

I didn’t have private tutors or private lessons or scholarship or college application consulting help.

I didn’t know what Wall Street and investment banking was until I was a junior in college.

I didn’t just work “for the experience” or for the resume. I worked student jobs, retail, internships etc throughout undergrad for living expenses, despite winning full ride merit scholarships and attending an in-state, public school.

I didn’t go on any winter, summer, spring break fun trips e.g. to Coachella or any trips during college unless they were conferences or sponsored by scholarships. I was working and saving every penny.

I didn’t learn to drive until I was 19 because I wouldn’t have a car anyway. I borrowed my mom’s car for work in college because she was a stay-at-home mom.

I didn’t wear new or branded clothes growing up. I didn’t shop in the mall. I couldn’t even go shopping since I had no allowance and no car.

I didn’t vacation to places like Disneyland growing up except once or twice for a public school trip.

I didn’t fly around the US for vacations growing up. We drove to places like cherry picking farms for vacation (which were awesome tbh!)

I didn’t fly internationally growing up except once to immigrate to the US and once to visit family in China.

I didn’t know anything about personal finance. It was a forbidden topic growing up. I remember bursting into tears before grad school because I couldn’t figure out how to take out a loan. I finally learned how to save and invest on my own at age 25.

These were the experiences of someone who grew up lower-middle to middle-middle class in a family of four with peak family income of around $80,000 a year. Too much to qualify for real financial aid, too little to afford real choices.

I was a fish out of water when I moved to Silicon Valley for work. Everyone assumed I grew up just like them, especially since they looked at me and saw another Asian in tech.

But eventually I’d get found out. I got invited to a skiing and snowboarding trip and was abandoned by the group because I was a novice while they were all double-black diamond athletes. I didn’t get invited again.

Class isn’t an identity.

Class is a relationship with ownership and the means of production.

And even if I have the opportunity now to claw my way to the upper middle and on a longer timescale, the upper class, my old class left indelible marks.

I will always lack access to certain friend groups and networking opportunities because I’m not like them. I’m not relatable. I’m too sheltered, too naive, too frugal, too uncouth, too behind. I’m not enough of a risk taker, I’m lacking big dreams, I’m a bad cultural fit.

I will always lack the internal ease in life, a certain joie de vive, afforded by my peers.

I’m not complaining. I had it pretty good, all things considered. And I have it objectively good now. Most Americans don’t even go to college. Most Americans never even travel outside their state, or outside their town. Most Americans can’t afford to miss a paycheck without putting debt on a credit card.

But if even someone like me is running as hard as possible just to keep pace, just to never ever slip, just to eke out a win here and there that nearly all people in my circles take for granted, imagine how hard life is for most people.

I can achieve the American Dream, but for many people it is out of bounds.

As George Carlin said, “That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”