[[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

THE GAS STATION ATTENDANT IS A POETIC TAKE ON LOVE AND CLASS  
[[link removed]]


 

Eileen G’Sell
June 28, 2026
Jacobin
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Karla Murthy’s new documentary film about her immigrant
father’s tumultuous journey up and back down the class ladder turns
the mythology of the American dream on its head. It’s a story many
native-born Americans will find strikingly familiar. _

In The Gas Station Attendant, Karla Murthy traces her father’s
journey from child runaway to immigrant engineer to overnight gas
station attendant, asking a question American culture rarely permits:
What does relentless optimism actually cost?, (Greene Fort Productions
/ the Independent Television Service / Firelight Media / Center for
Asian American Media)

 

Two years ago, the summer that he turned seventy, my father worked for
his younger brother’s thriving contracting company. Week after
sweltering week, Dad tore down ceiling tile, crushed ductwork, and
carried heavy industrial air conditioners and other HVAC equipment out
of an old school. The building itself was basically a brick oven, and
the other laborers were less than half his age. After retiring early
from the postal service, my father spent his sixties helping raise his
grandkids and pursuing his dream of becoming a Catholic deacon. But
that summer, tight finances and the lure of quick cash spoke louder to
him than the strain on his joints.

By July, my sisters and I were scheming on how to compel him to quit.
When confronted with any of our concerns, Dad responded with his usual
refrain, the same thing he’d said when he worked construction in our
childhood: “You forget, girls, I’m Superman.”

At a time when thousands of baby boomers are returning to work
[[link removed]]
to make ends meet, Karla Murthy’s new documentary
[[link removed]], The Gas Station Attendant,
is bound to resonate. It is a powerful film that both honors a
complicated patriarch and exposes the fallibility — and
fallout — of his American dream. Murthy’s father, H. N. Shantha,
would seem to be the poster child for the virtues of extreme
bootstrapping: he escaped a life of indigence in India, earned a
college degree in the United States, joined the
professional-managerial class as an engineer, and provided for a
boisterous brood in suburban Houston.

_This is not a paywall. LOG IN OR REGISTER FOR FREE TO KEEP READING.
Subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital
magazine starting at just __$3 a month_
[[link removed]]_._

* Subscribe [[link removed]]
* Donate [[link removed]]

Our summer issue is out now. Get a discounted subscription to our
print magazine today. [[link removed]]

* the gas station attendant
[[link removed]]
* documentary
[[link removed]]
* class
[[link removed]]
* class mobility
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit portside.org
[[link removed]]

Bluesky [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 



########################################################################

[link removed]

To unsubscribe from the xxxxxx list, click the following link:
[link removed]