The American Dream: A Look From Both Sides Of The Border

As Sanchez notes, “The plunder of the Southwest is allegorized … in the Yankees’ appropriation of the Mexican girl’s gold and jewels” (xxii), which is symbolically expanded exponentially to “create new millionaires back on the East coast” (xxiii). A Latina author writing this type of veiled social criticism of U.S. policy and political prerogatives is, like her subtle interweaving of feminist themes, quite progressive and unparalleled for her

What is the American Dream? During the course of the time periods there have been many different opinions about what The American Dream is. The American Dream goes back to the Puritans and Quakers were they believed America should be spiritual and material happiness. Overtime it has evolved more and it’s about “dream of the land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement”(O’Mara 2). The American Dream has an historical background, evolution period, and and time when The American Dream wasn’t equally experienced by everyone.

Francisco Jimenez is a Mexican-American Author who was born in Pedro, Tlaquepaque, Mexico on 1943. He immigrated with his family to California, and as a child he worked in the fields of California. He is currently the Fay Boyle Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, and director of the Ethnic Studies Program at Santa Clara University. Having received his B.A. from SCU and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Latin American literature from Columbia University under a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, he has served on various professional boards and commissions, including the California Council for the Humanities,

What is the American dream? Dictionary.com defines it as, ¨the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every American.” This can also be seen or defined by the ideal way of living.

How do the arguments and perspectives in these poems reflect past and present attitudes toward immigration?

In almost every single line of “Immigrants,” reference to the American culture is mentioned. “Hot dogs and apple pie” (ln. 2) are undeniably American food such as “Bill” and “Daisy” are unmistakably American names. Likewise, “blonde dolls that blink/ blue eyes [and] . . . football[s] and tiny cleats” (ln. 4-5) are associated with American past times. Indeed, by alluding to all-American clichés, it is easy to determine that immigrants inevitably suppress their ethnic identity. Yet in marked contrast to “Immigrants,” the reader can see two cultures ultimately harmoniously coming together in “Bilingual/Bilingie.” The imagery in “Bilingual/Bilingie” demonstrates the narrator’s struggle in wanting to obey her father’s wishes of keeping English and Spanish separate. She

James Truslow Adams, the author of The Epic of America, once said, “The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. ” (The American) The American Dream is one thing uniquely American, a shared ideal among American people of all the different religions, socioeconomic classes, and lifestyles. It is a promise of hope and possibilities that America has been holding onto since its foundation, a promise of life’s meaningfulness and of one’s ability to reinvent oneself.

The American dream is the idea that every person should have the chance to be successful in the United States. People from all over flocked to the US in hopes of achieving this American dream that everyone talked about; however, things were not quite as expected when they got here. The whole idea was gilded, so to speak. From the outside, everything looked perfect, but once these people settled down in America, they soon realized that it was not everything it had been made out to be.

The American dream is the one that gives you the opportunity to be successful, in-which you can turn that one opportunity into success, also to have a healthy life, and to have a family/friends that cares and loves you; no matter how much or little money and success you have.  The belief of the American Dream is partly shown in the story of ‘The Great Gatsby’ when Jay Gatsby grows up being poor and gets an opportunity to be successful, which ends up working out very well for him; when he

What is the American dream, you might ask. That’s a good question. The American dream to me is the way you want or how you want to live life. You have a dream, something that you want, most of the time it is an object such as money, fame or something along those lines. Some may be along the lines of freedom, from something.

Being that he was born quite a bit later than Lazarus, instead of feeling the same hope she felt, he feels pride. In Bruchac’s poem Ellis Island he writes “I too come to this island, nine decades the answerer of dreams.” This shows how he feels, like Lazarus, that America still shines her torch to collect the weary and transport them to a new opportunity. He too feels that here is the land for your wishes to become possible, in a way they never were in the old world. You can divulge this from the stanza (among others),” after leaving the sickness, the old Empires of Europe.”While it is clear he feels pride for his Slovak grandparents, it is also clear that a struggle is taking place. Not a struggle for anything physical, but for some internal balance of right and wrong. For although he does has a lineage of immigrants, that is only part of his story. Bruchac makes it clear to the reader in the beginning of the third stanza that his conflict is about having mixed heritage. “Another voice speaks of native lands within this nation.” So well he is standing in Ellis Island rejoicing for his Slovakian side, Bruchac at the same time is mourning for what the Europeans did to his American Indian ancestors. He is thinking of times past “when the earth became owned” and what was once a land that belonged to no one but those who cared for it, and was cared for by

a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.” (Source: https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-american-dream-quotes-and-history-3306009) The American Dream could only thrive if it was not hindered by “taxation without representation”. “For them it is the dream of living a simple, happy and fulfilling life and the most important features being faith and equality. ‘The American Dream’ also is about liberty and America being the country of unlimited opportunities.” (Source: http://america.day-dreamer.de/dream.htm)

The American Dream is a term that is often thrown around when talking about the careers and futures of American youth, but what is the “American Dream” referring to? There is no clear-cut definition of the “American Dream” as it is a term in which the meaning is altered based on the person defining it because of their personal background or bias. James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America gives a more cohesive definition of the American Dream as he states: “life should be better and richer for everyone, with the opportunity for each according to ability or achievement regardless of social class or circumstances of birth”. The American Dream can be characterized as a rich life full of opportunity and possibilities regardless of any background from which one may come from.

What is the American Dream? For many the Dream is the hope for religious freedom, racial equality, or prosperity, but I believe the Dream is all of the above. The American Dream is anything that someone wants it to be. For the Founding Fathers, the Dream was a new nation with religious freedom and equality for all people. For immigrants during the 19th and early 20th century, the dream was a new future in a nation where anything was possible. For the American citizens during the Great Depression, it is the the hope for America to get back on it’s feet and become what is was only a few years earlier. Finally, my dream is that with hard work I can accomplish my wildest dreams. Even before America was founded, people dreamed that their wanting

Can we, as American citizens, really understand the struggles of immigrants coming to our country? What they lose and what they gain? How our offensive and insensitive words affect them? The answers to these questions can be answered through the photo album created in this text, full of images from the life of Pablo Salazar, displaying his experiences as an American immigrant from Guatemala. This poem explores the questions presented by utilizing Pablo’s own words and views as answers. Through an intensive interview with him, I sought to understand his struggles and how the stereotype of an immigrant has shaped his identity and placement in American society. From there, I created a creative piece that I felt properly encompassed how he sees