The Cast

Simon Moya-Smith

Simon is a journalist and activist, and a contributing writer for NBC News. He is of Native and Chicano heritage and grew up in Los Angeles and Denver. Having battled poverty, a turbulent family life, and the allure of gang life, he went on to become a powerful national voice for indigenous and oppressed communities.

Garrison Redd

Garrison grew up in the segregated, impoverished Brownsville section of Brooklyn and was working hard for his dream to play professional football when, at age 17, he took a bullet from a stranger performing a gang initiation ceremony, which put an end to his dreams of being in the NFL. From this tragedy, a new, potent American dream was born.

Cian Westmoreland

Born in an Armed Forces family and raised in many countries, Cian Westmoreland is a former Air Force RF/SATCOM Technician who served in Kandahar AirField, Afghanistan, at the 73rd Expeditionary Air Control Squadron. After a report stated that airstrikes he provided communications for were responsible for 359+ civilian deaths, Cian’s conscience forced him to speak out against the U.S. drone strike program. He is now a volunteer and activist at the US/Mexico border, helping asylum seekers and deportees living in Tijuana.

Trammy Anh

Trammy is a project manager in a biotech company, and her parents are boat people from Vietnam. She grew up in San Jose (California) and Norman (Oklahoma) in a traditional immigrant family. The intense struggle between the filial piety she ascribes to and Trammy’s desire to become her own person drove her to depression and suicidal thoughts. The events surrounding COVID-19 revealed the arbitrary nature of racial injustices, especially against the Black and Brown community. The pandemic and protests solidified her purpose in life and vision for America, but this awakening came at a cost.

Adeeba Shahid Talukder

Adeeba was only 80 days old when her parents emigrated to the USA from Pakistan. Growing up in Brooklyn in a conservative Muslim family, she witnessed the hardships her mother quietly endured as she grasped at the American Dream of a freer and more stable life. As a hijab-wearing young woman, Adeeba faced the casual cruelties of Islamophobia at school and in the city, which grew into a frenzy of hate during the tragic days of the 9/11 attacks, a few hundred meters from her high school. As an award-winning poet and bridge between two estranged cultures, discrimination is not the only thing Adeeba had to rise above. There was another obstacle standing between her and the America she adored in love songs.

Liam and Rowan Kilkenny

Liam (14) and his sister Rowan (10) live in Manhattan’s Upper West Side in a beautiful apartment building overlooking Central Park. They attend a great public school and feel fortunate to live in New York City. Over the years, the siblings have been creating “Wolfland” an imaginary, ever-expanding universe based on Greek mythology, but centered around art and fashion, with a dash of Harry Potter influence for good measure. Liam and Rowan have been stitching together “Wolfland’ myths, its rituals, and imaginative multi-planetary architecture for many years now, ever since Rowan was just 3 years old. The siblings can escape into their alternative universe for inspiration and play, or when the reality is unbearable, as during the pandemic and upheaval of summer 2020.

Lexie Robinson

Lexie was born to a Puerto Rican mother and a white father and brought up in Connecticut between the painful chasm of poverty and wealth, the projects and the mansion. Battling various demons, at 17, Lexie found herself trapped in the life she believed she was predestined for: alcoholism and teenage motherhood, living on welfare in the projects. She inherited her mother’s American Dream of merely putting food on the table for her daughter. Through luck, happenstance, and the care of a former boss, she found an exit out of poverty, and she took it. Now, she is VP of sales for a company that affords her a wholly different way to provide for her family. Still, though, the American dream remains elusive and deceptive.