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What is your American dream and how do you achieve it? A new museum, steps from the White House, hopes to help answer that question.
“This space is dedicated to the idea of the American dream and the sense that this is an ideal worth striving for, worth celebrating,” said Emily Mitzner, director of content and exhibits at the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream.
Visitors to the museum walk through the front doors and are immediately looking at a mesmerizing, life-size gold tree sculpture. The Ambassador George L. Argyros Tree of Generations comes complete with hundreds of “leaves” that are actually small screens that display pictures of people who come to the museum and take a selfie at a special kiosk.
While the focus of the museum is the American dream, it does not exactly define what it is.
“Our sense is that it is the ability to achieve what you want to achieve, to build the life you want to live,” Mitzner said.
The museum completed a study with Gallup focusing on how people define the dream.
“The No. 1 thing people say over and over is freedom of choice, the ability to live the way they want to, to have enough to provide for their family,” she said.
The five-floor museum has numerous interactive exhibits that focus on the “four pillars,” education, health, finance and entrepreneurship.
They have an education gallery that showcases how education from preschool to college can create opportunity, as well as health and medical research galleries.
The museum is located on Pennsylvania Avenue in the former Riggs Bank building. They lean into the theme, incorporating old vault doors into the exhibits, and teaching bite-sized personal finance lessons, from the importance of compounding interest to understanding the market.
The predominant focus is telling inspiring stories of people achieving the American dream. Hundreds of Americans’ stories are told through interactive exhibits, including holograms of Serena Williams, Sanjay Gupta and others that converse with visitors and answer questions about their lives.
They also tell the story of the American dream in a floor to ceiling, 270-degree theater that shows the short film, “America: Built on Dreams.” The 18-minute movie that makes you turn your head in all directions tells the story of several locals, including Virginia Ali of Ben’s Chili Bowl and Washington Spirit owner Michele Kang.
The museum also has a 360 degree “holodeck.”
“The technology there is a wow, but also the stories are too. The stories kind of get emotional and connect you to people,” Mitzner said. “We want to try to elevate people doing great things, opportunities for hope, ways to find some optimism for what we can do together. And so as much as we can shrink that gap between everyone.”
Tickets to the museum are free. The holodeck experience is an extra charge. The museum is open every day, except Tuesday, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Emily Mitzner’s name.
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