‘Little America’ returns to screens for second season

New York: Apple TV + series "Little America" returned to screens for a second season Friday with the aim of challenging the American dream, creator Sian Heder said.

From the Song family and their hat store in Detroit to Jibril, a Somali cook in Minneapolis, the dream´s ideal -- that you can succeed in the United States through hard work and perseverance -- is still alive.

But the emotional toll of uprooting oneself, financial difficulties, family pressure to succeed and sometimes the disappointment of failing to connect to New York City appear throughout the eight sub-40-minute episodes, which are inspired by true stories.

"One of the themes we were really interested in exploring this year was, what happens when the American Dream doesn´t work out the way that you expect it to," said Heder.

For Heder -- the director of 2021 movie "CODA," which won three Oscars this year including best picture -- the "whole idea of America of like, pull him up by your bootstraps, and capitalism, and it´s up to you to make it work out, you know, is a huge strain."

"It´s an incredible amount of pressure on an individual.

"This is the land of opportunity, but in a way. There´s not a lot of safety nets in this country to catch you if you don´t succeed," she added.

The first season was released in early 2020, when ex-president Donald Trump still occupied the White House.

"There was almost a reactivity to all the negativity where we felt that we needed to be very optimistic and positive about this country and take it back, in a way."

"I think this season there´s probably more freedom to explore the nuances and complications of whatever the American dream means," said the 45-year-old Heder.

The series is adapted from Epic Magazine´s portraits of immigrants.