Background
Sociocultural Context: Immigration and the American Dream
Red City explores how the intense pressures of the American dream, particularly for immigrant families, can fuel a societal obsession with self-improvement that powerful systems exploit. The phrase “American dream” was first popularized amid the Great Depression by historian James Truslow Adams, whose book The Epic of America defined the American dream as “that dream of a land in which life should be brighter and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement” (Adams, James Truslow. The Epic of America. Little, Brown, and Co. 1931. p. 413). Adams argued for an American ideal in which each person was free to achieve as much as their talent and hard work would allow, and he went on to claim that this equality of opportunity was unique in the world and made the United States a magnet for immigrants seeking a better life. This idealized image took root, becoming a fundamental part of America’s collective understanding of itself, even as later social critics called attention to the lingering inequalities that made the dream just that: a dream.
The novel’s protagonists, Sam and Ari, are both children of immigrants whose ambitions are shaped by socioeconomic vulnerability and by the dream of limitless opportunity. Sam’s mother, having fled poverty in China, pushes her daughter to “work hard, reach for the stars” (9) to achieve a better life. Ari is brought from India, and his family’s financial well-being depends on the monthly stipend he earns through his performance. These narratives reflect the pressures associated with concepts like the “model minority,” a term coined by sociologist William Pettersen, writing in New York Times Magazine in 1966, to describe Japanese Americans as a model for other “minority” groups in the US to emulate. The term soon broadened to encompass other Asian American groups, culminating in TIME Magazine’s infamous 1987 cover article, “Those Asian-American Whiz Kids.” More recent criticism notes that this myth erases the diversity of Asian American experience, exerts unreasonable pressure on the young people to whom it is applied, and is often weaponized against other communities of color. Writing in TIME in 2020, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyên notes how the model minority myth is used to invalidate Asian American criticisms of racism and systemic injustice: “How could we have anything valid to feel or say about race when we, as a model minority, were supposedly accepted by American society?” (Nguyên, Viet Thanh. “Asian Americans Are Still Caught in the Trap of the ‘Model Minority.’ And it Creates Inequality for All.” TIME, 25 Jun. 2020).
Social Context: The Wellness Industry and the Rise of “Biohacking”
The American “wellness” industry, as distinct from the practice of medicine, traces its roots to the late 19th century, when the physician and entrepreneur John Harvey Kellogg took control of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, a facility owned and operated by the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Battle Creek, Michigan. Kellogg expanded Adventist dietary principles to encompass a complete lifestyle regimen, emphasizing a grain-based, vegetarian diet, regular exercise and calisthenics, and abstinence from tobacco, alcohol, and sex. His program became a global fad; visitors to the sanitarium included the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw and the world-renowned French stage actress Sarah Bernhardt. Kellogg was the first to use the term “wellness” in its modern sense: as a promise that the human body can be optimized in pursuit of a better and longer life, rather than simply treated with medicine when ill (Markel, Howard. “How Dr. Kellogg’s World-Renowned Health Spa Made Him a Wellness Titan." PBS, 18 Aug. 2017).
In the 21st century, this 19th-century ideal has been updated to incorporate the language and ideals of the now-dominant tech industry. The result is a phenomenon known as “biohacking,” which involves making small changes to diet and lifestyle in an effort to optimize health and performance. While many of these practices are little different from the wellness practices of previous eras, the vogue for biohacking can also be used to promote dubious or untested supplements and other products and services (Jaber, Raja. “What is Biohacking? Separating Fact from Hype.” Stony Brook Medicine, 2025). In both its 19th and 21st-century guises, wellness as an industry reflects underlying anxieties about meritocracy and opportunity. If the American dream is that anyone can succeed with enough talent and hard work, then the other side of that promise is the nagging sense that one is never working hard enough or doing enough to optimize one’s abilities.
Red City depicts an alternate Los Angeles in which economic inequality is the defining feature of daily life, and the competition to “get ahead” is all-consuming. The alchemical syndicates in the novel capitalize on this intense drive by commodifying perfection. They market “sand,” a drug that “enhances everything about who you are” (69), as a luxury product for the elite. This mirrors the contemporary wellness and biohacking industries, a multi-trillion-dollar global market where expensive supplements, exclusive treatments, and technologies like cryotherapy are sold with the promise of self-optimization. In Red City, as in the real world, achieving a “perfected” version of oneself becomes a status symbol accessible only to the wealthy, creating a stark social hierarchy where human potential is just another commodity.
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