"The City of Refuge" tells the story of a character who is "so dumb he thinks ante bellum's an old woman" (6). With an exaggerated depiction of a Southern migrant Fisher writes a realistic story showing how life in Harlem entails cramped housing, lack of high paying jobs, and cabaret life. Harlem is part of New York City that has drawn the attention of the world because of its music, diverse population, and because of what it offers to African Americans. There is a scene in Home to Harlem when central character Jake comments on The Congo, a Harlem cabaret, "When chippies come from down home, tha's where they hangs out first. You kain always find something that New York ain't done made a fool of yet" (McKay, 35). New York offers the very basic necessities of life including the freedom to move about, but by no means does it protect all its inhabitants.

The Great Gatsby and "The City of Refuge" were published in the same year, and both take place in the greater New York City area, yet they are seemingly worlds apart. One is the tale of upscale parties, love affairs, and murder on Long Island; the other is a story of congested, competitive, and burgeoning Harlem. These two pieces are based on the same premise: a migrant comes to New York City to find a life not available back in rural North Dakota or North Carolina. On the surface the motives of Gillis and Gatsby do not seem entirely unrelated, but they are. They both dream a version of the American dream, but it is Gillis' that offers a version much truer to the need to dream. Harlem is proof to Gillis that African Americans can indeed be citizens within their own country without the looming threat of a lynch mob or the reality of living in a sharecropping culture eerily reminiscent of slavery.

Harold Bloom writes, "Whatever the American dream has become, its truest contemporary representative remains Jay Gatsby, at once a gangster and a Romantic idealist, and above all a victim of his own High Romantic, Keastian dream of love" (1). Bloom fails to see that this version of the American dream excludes the portion of the American population "who did not come to America of his own volition" (Margolies, 15). Decker does not even want the American dream attached to Gatsby because it is a term that was not in existence at the time, and he ends up missing that the sentiment of it was alive and kicking. Fitzgerald does tell a moving story about a Heratio Alger and Ben Franklin-esque figure, and he highlights the difficulty the average person has in achieving a legitimate wealth and prosperity. Gatsby is shunned by the upper class because he lacks a past that includes Ivy League schools, coming out parties, and summering by the lake. This desired level of lifestyle is what brings Gatsby's dream into doubt as being a touchstone for Americans because of its reliance on upper class white culture, which Gatsby tries to attain by engaging in illegal and dishonest work. Decker is correct in stating, "Yet it is not enough to say that Gatsby's dream is simply an aspect of what Fitzgerald coined the Jazz Age. It is also swept along by the racial nativism peculiar to the Tribal Twenties" (68), in that Gatsby ignores or presents distorted images of minority groups. Fitzgerald's characters are oblivious to the insurgence of African American culture into white America except for the Queensboro Bridge scene in which blacks are a threat to Nick and Gatsby's place in society. When Fitzgerald excludes other races or social groups in America he fails to acknowledge that these other groups were dreaming a much more fundamental dream.

While Fitzgerald ignores "the world of popular culture with its new craze for Negro dance steps, Negro jazz, and Negro entertainers" (Margolies, 32), Fisher ignores certain issues as well, including the disturbing race theories, the problematic materialistic desires of the decade, and Harlem's upper class. The fictional story of the migrant's dream in New York is a very difficult story to tell because there are so many players who figure into it. But Fisher's Harlem helps to define an American dream that is based upon leaving an oppressive life for one that should be granted to all humans. The difference between Fitzgerald and Fisher's rendering of the American dream is how the term "mobility" functions within each one. Attaining the freedom to move about in wealthy circles is the dream of Gatsby; attaining the freedom to simply move is the objective for Gillis. The paintings of African American artist Aaron Douglas highlight this sentiment. The 1936 piece "Aspiration" depicts black arms in shackles raised upwards at the bottom of the painting. They are reaching towards a platform on which two African American men and one woman are situated. They are cast in a purple light and stand with confidence, strength, and a sort of longing. Around them are pink, purple, and light blue hues that draw the viewer's eyes to the upper right hand corner of the painting. The three figures are looking towards skyscrapers and symbols of industry that are perched upon a hill. They are looking towards the city to offer an alternative to the dismal life of the cotton culture South.

Fisher's story continues where Douglas' painting ends when he takes the reader to the city after the migrant's arrival. The city does not entail a "happily ever after" ending for the migrant; instead, the city offers a different brand of hardships when it erects figurative walls around an energetic newcomer. What sets these stories apart is that Gillis is more fulfilled with his move to the city because he was able to attain freedom and justice that African Americans from the South do not have access to at this time. The twenties are a crucial time for developing a definition of the American dream and Gatsby and Gillis' stories both demonstrate this; but it is Gillis' story that directs readers to a more accessible dream. These two stories operate independently from the other, and both showcase the array of issues in 1920s New York, but in attempting to define the American dream during these complicated times, the dream of Gillis emerges to be a more universal one. James Gatz may be able to change his name and put on an army uniform in an attempt to cover up his true identity, but Gillis can never hide the fact that he is black. In order for a person to chase after the things Gatsby desires, one must first be given the rights that Gillis lacks because of his skin color.