It was less than a ten-minute Lyft ride.
Same route. Same city. Different direction.
And yet, the two rides couldn’t have been more different.
Ride #1: “America Is The Best Place In The World” (With Google Translate)
The first driver picked us up on the way to dinner. Friendly, upbeat, and clearly happy to talk — but there was one catch.
He didn’t speak much English. Like, hardly any at all.
So the conversation happened in a very 2026 way: he’d say something into his phone, Google Translate would spit out English, we’d respond, and he’d translate it back into Spanish.
It was a little awkward at first, but it quickly became kind of charming — like we were all cooperating in the middle of Miami traffic to prove that communication is still possible if everyone actually wants it to be.
My wife speaks a little Spanish, which helped, and our driver spoke a bit of English. At one point, the driver told her that knowing even a little of the language was “helpful in Miami,” because so many people speak Spanish here. But even then, he defaulted to using the translator — as if it were the safest shared language for all of us.
And somewhere in the middle of this back-and-forth, he said something that didn’t feel like a talking point or a slogan.
“America is the best place in the world.”
Not sarcastically. Not politically. Just… sincerely.
He talked about being from the Dominican Republic. About being able to work. About building a life. About opportunity. He wasn’t pretending everything was perfect — but compared to where he came from, the possibilities still mattered.
All the while, all we could think was that many people in this country — and in Washington, D.C. — don’t want him here.
We got out of the car feeling oddly uplifted for a random short ride to dinner. Despite those who are madly trying to squelch it, “The American Dream,” which has brought immigrants to our country for almost 250 years, is still out there.
Ride #2: The Conversation That Turned Into A Trap
The ride back started normally.
The second driver, who also appeared to be Latino (but “of Latino descent;” everything about him suggested he had been born in the U.S.), was friendly and asked how our dinner was; we made small talk. Then we mentioned we were going on a cruise the next day, which led to a discussion of different cruise lines.
That eventually brought up Disney Cruise Line — the usual pros and cons. Great service. Family-friendly. Can be pricey. The kind of conversation you could have with any stranger without it getting weird.
Until it did.
Somewhere in that Disney discussion, our driver suddenly pivoted into a full-on diatribe about Disney being “too woke.” Why? Because, according to him, Disney shows gay parents to kids, and children “shouldn’t be force-fed that type of family as acceptable.”
And that’s when the dynamic shifted.
Because now we weren’t in a normal conversation anymore — we were passengers, strapped into the back seat, close to our hotel, with a driver who had decided this was the moment to unload.
We mostly stayed quiet. Not because we agreed. But because we were trapped.
There was so much we wanted to say. The obvious thing, for starters: some kids do have same-sex parents. Families like that exist. Kids see them in real life. And showing that reality — calmly, normally — isn’t “forcing” anything. It’s just acknowledging the world as it is, and letting kids know that people who are different from them (whether it’s having same-sex parents or being Black, Asian, Middle Eastern or, like him, Latino) still deserve basic respect.
But we were also less than five minutes from the hotel.
And five minutes is a long time when you’re in someone else’s car, and they’ve decided to turn the ride into a lecture. Our only recourse was to give a lower tip than we’d normally give. No regrets.
Same Distance. Two Completely Different Americas.
What stuck with me wasn’t just what each driver said — it was the contrast.
The immigrant who chose to come here talked about opportunity, gratitude, and building a life — and used technology to bridge the gap so we could understand each other.
The person who was born here talked about what shouldn’t be shown, normalized, or accepted.
Same city. Same road. Same app. Same fare.
Two completely different perspectives on what America is — and who it’s for.
The Part That Lingers
Neither driver knew the other existed. They’ll probably never meet. They’ll keep driving the same streets, carrying passengers to dinner, to hotels, to airports.
And depending on which car you get into, you’ll hear a very different version of the country you’re traveling through.
All in under ten minutes.
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