The American Dream is a philosophical statement or theory that has lived with the American people and many other people of other countries. It can basically be defined as a national accustomed place whichgenerally talks about a prosperous good life and acquisition of freedom. This concept was first brought to light by James Truslow Adams in the year 1931. On the basis of this concept all citizen at whatever position are made to feel that they have the potential to be wealthy and have a happy life. The American Dream has its roots in the declaration of independence which was the second sentence ruling. The declaration states that “all men are created equal” and on addition to that all men are “endowed by their creator with certain inalienable Rights”. The rights that have been mentioned include right to pursue happiness, life and liberty (Hochschild and Scovronick 9).
American cohesive experience has been built by the help of the American Dream. Despite of its major contribution in building American experience the American Dream, is the main cause of the overinflated expectations. Research that has been conducted through interviews reveal that in spite of the deep seated belief in the American Dream the United States continues to perpetuate indifferent treatment on the basis or race and class. For these reason both the negative and positive aspects of the American dream are not as a result of individual success but the social group in which one belongs.
The American Dream places America to a higher standing. Basically America is considered to be very unique by the outside world and exceptional by its citizens because of the American Dream. Many people in the various parts of the world view America as a land of milk and honey because of the conceptions that they have about America. The American dream created a special unique sense of America in the minds of many people. Foreigners from developing poor countries where there is poor governance as well as rampant corruption with joblessness view America as the only place of refuge.
The perception that this people have of America makes them to greatly value any chance that they may get of living in America. Therefore if all works out well and they get the chance to visit America or live and work there they consider such to be a precious opportunity. These people come to America with very high expectations hoping to secure good jobs easily as well as accumulation of riches to be able to live better lives and also support there families back in there original countries. The foreigners come to America with very high expectations of living in great wealth and happily, this mind set developed as a result of the concepts they developed from the American Dream (Hochschild and Scovronick 12).
Many immigrants get frustrated when they finally come to a realization that it was only a mere dream and things are not like that in reality. The truth starts to don on them when they spend several months looking for jobs which they cannot easily secure because of there color, class and there low academic qualifications. It does not usually take long before one faces the truth because many things starts happening at the entry point which is the immigration office. These people are critically scrutinized by the officers at the immigration office because of their indifferences. Most of the time they have to answer many questions that do not make sense which they did not expect. Despite of the many positive attributes that America has there are still some many negative aspects that are very far from being eliminated for instance racism.
Many immigrants who were interviewed confessed that they did not leave to the notion that they had about America when they finally found the chance to come to the highly ranked nation. This does not mean that there are no adorable and unique aspects of America. For instance an immigrant from a nation where corruption is the order of governance will have something beautiful to say about the American government. Some of the unique attributes of America is that, it’s a very powerful country with a very strong and tough economy as well as politics (Hochschild and Scovronick 15).
America is very spectacular and unique in a sense that it has a say on the happenings in other nations. It basically controls the whole world if not most of the nations in the world, its economic growth is incomparable as well as its rich culture which is as a result of many people from all walks of live seeking refuge and home within its borders. The many immigrants who decide to reside in American as aliens or permanent residents have greatly contributed to America’s rich culture. Many people have a notion that America is a land with numerous opportunities for instance job opportunities for job seekers, good life and freedom.
The American Dream is basically interpreted differently depending to the class that one belongs to and the needs that drive him to achieve this dream. America will continue to attract many immigrants because of the notion that people have towards it. Economic and political opportunities seem very attractive to an individual who is wallowing in poverty and other forms of life’s struggles. These are some of the aspects which are vividly described by the American dream; abundant opportunities within the American system. Immigrants who come to America with such thoughts end up so frustrated when they cannot secure better jobs because of their skin color which forms the basis of their indifferent treatment. Even when they get some poor paying jobs their employees exploit them because of their lack of permanent residence in the States and this disqualifies many of the aspects of the American Dream. This was the experience of Mr. Derulo an American immigrant (Tocqueville and Frohnen 64).
Benjamin Franklin has a different story to tell because he was able to rise from adverse poverty to great riches by employing some simple strategies. Though Benjamin attributes his success to great drive to succeed which kept him motivated. Other virtues that enabled him to achieve his American Dream were frugality and industry, virtues that have been long forgotten by many people. Franklin argues in his story that many people tend to replace such important virtues with get rich quick ideologies and that is why they fail to achieve their American Dream. This is one of the main characteristics of the American immigrants of the recent years.
Finally some people especially immigrants consider America to be unique and exceptional because of its large size when looked at from a geographical angle. For instance Mr. Derulo considers America to be unique because of its enormous size and few political parties as compared to many political parties in his country. A country where politicians do not care about the welfare of the people they govern but their own selfish interests. He basically measures the greatness of America on the basis of the great injustices that his home politicians have caused his people. The main aspect that has hindered American immigrants and American minorities in achieving their American Dream is racism and indifferent treatment because of the class that some people belong to (Tocqueville and Frohnen 45).
