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[Lei Lei]

The Statue of Liberty was for many immigrants the first point of view of the United States. It signifies freedom and personal liberty and is iconic of the American Dream. Even for those that this was not the first sight, they have heard the stories. In many of our cases, when people would come home, or go back to Haiti for two weeks, one month or 6 weeks, they looked so fresh. They had new clothes, that they changed 2 to 3 times a day. They came like Santa Clause, bringing gifts and money for all around them. They made it seem like money grows on trees in America, thus, making the myth a reality.

When people go back home, they don't tell them, yes, I was an engineer when I was home, but now I wash dishes for Red Lobster because I don't know the language and I have to pass the test in the US before I can practice. They don't tell them, yes, I was a doctor, when I was home, but now, I work as a "waiter" for the Hyatt, until I retake some of my classes and pass the exam. When we go back home, we don't tell them that we planned the trip nine months in advance. Nor, do we tell them we went to the dollar stores, shopped off the clearance racks, waited for sales, or shopped Black Friday for the gifts that we bring for everybody.

The term American Dream has had many shades of meaning throughout American history. Today, it generally refers to the idea that one's prosperity depends upon one's own abilities and hard work, not on a rigid class structure. That's America. Here prosperity can get you class structure. Don't get it twisted. There is a difference between old money and new money. People with old money, they say are people that is use to the money. People who grew up with the money. People that do not have anything really to prove. They can ride off the reputation of the family name. Or they can choose to work. Either way they have been exposed to the finer things in life. New money, well you learn refinement, but that doesn't make you refined.

America is the place for opportunity. America is the place, if you know what you are doing you will achieve more prosperity than they could in Haiti, at least a whole lot quicker than you would have anyway. You see, here is America, whether you have that silver spoon in your mouth or not, as long as you have that drive it is a place that you and your children can grow up with an education and career opportunities, unlike in Haiti where that sometimes depends on your class, caste, race, or ethnicity. In general, the American Dream can be defined as having the opportunity and freedom that allows all citizens to achieve their goals in life through hard work and determination alone. Is that too much to ask for also in Haiti. I was told once, "In Haiti, we don't need all that", granted it wasn't in this context, but do you think that maybe if we modeled behind something or someone that works we can do better?

The definition of the American Dream is now under constant discussion and debate.[1] But, look at all that's out here. Look at America, in comparison to Haiti. Can't we in Haiti have (1) individual freedom of choice in life styles, (2) equal access to economic abundance, and (3) the pursuit of shared objectives mutually advantageous to the individual and society." [2] What are we afraid of? The generic definition of the term "American Dream" appears in a history book by James Truslow Adams entitled The Epic of America (1931)

"If, as I have said, the things already listed were all we had to contribute, America would have made no distinctive and unique gift to mankind. But there has been also the American dream, that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement."

How is it that we can't have this, and we were the first free slaves? In America, african americans, many of them anyway blame the white man for slavery, Whereareas, my personal opinion, and I say again, my personal opinion, african americans are made at the person who profited off of the person who orginially sold them in the first place. That is what America and Americans is about. Money. Getting it. How can they be mad, when is was tribe leaders or when slavery was there way before the white man came to Africa. Haitians, we, us, were the inspiration for freedom. We wanted it, we got it. Do you know and realize that there are still some people alive who witnessed or lived during American Slavery? We don't have that. That's how long it has been since be have been free. However, one thing we do have in common with American Slavery is the fact that slavery, bondage, was not just physical. It was also mental and emotional. Haiti like America once was is still to a certain extent, untamed lands, we still haven't completely learned how to deal with nature or how to live with other people.

The Ideology of the American Dream

Regardless of the content of each individual version of the American dream they all include the belief in the opportunity to achieve some form of quantitative or qualitative success. Therefore, in order to better understand the existence of so many different versions of the American dream it would first be helpful to define the different ways in which success can be measured. In her book Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation, Jennifer Hochschild[5] states that definitions of success involves measurement as well as content. She classifies success into the following three categories which have important normative and behavioral consequences:

Absolute success- "In this case achieving the American dream implies reaching some threshold of well being, higher than where one began but not necessarily dazzling. But that breads complacentcy"[6]

Competitive success- requires "achieving victory over someone else. My success implies your failure. Competitors are usually people, whether known and concrete (opponents in a tennis match) or unknown and abstract (all other applicants for a job)", but for some they fail to realize, you are the middle man, there will always be someone better or worse than you. Someone will always will have more or less than you also.[7]

Relative success- "Here achieving the American dream consists in becoming better off than some comparison point, whether one's childhood, people in the old country, one's neighbors, a character from a book, another race or gender-anything or anyone that one measures oneself against. Relative success implies no threshold of well-being, and it may or may not entail continually changing the comparison group as one achieves a given level of accomplishment.[6]

In spite of much evidence that indicates that America is an unequal society, just like Haiti, and that one's race, sex, class and family background have a great deal to do with one's life chances. But at least in America, you have a chance. For many in haiti, their only chance would be to come here. Start new. Start over, somewhere where nobody knows them.

What does the American Dream mean to you?

Question Who may pursue success?

Answer-"everyone regardless of ascriptive traits, family background or personal history"(18). Flaws Fails to account for aspects of inequality such as race and sex discrimination (26).

Question What does one pursue?

Answer-"the reasonable anticipation , though not the promise of success" (18). Flaws Fails to acknowledge the shortage of resources and opportunities which prevent everyone from having a reasonable chance of having their expectations met (27).

Question How does one pursue success?

Answer- "through actions and traits under one's own control"(18). Flaws Ignores the fact that if one may claim responsibility for success one must accept responsibility for failure. Therefore people who fail are presumed to lack talent or will (30).

Question Why is success worth pursuing?

Answer- "true success is associated with virtue" (18). Flaws Failure implies sin. Also devaluing losers allows people to believe the world is just even when it is not (30).

In addition to the individual flaws of each tenet Hochschild asserts that the overall flaw of the American dream ideology is its emphasis on "individual people's behavior rather than on economic processes, environmental constraints, or political structures as the causal explanation for social orderings"(36). She further states that social ordering takes place because our institutions are designed to ensure that some fail and the American dream ideology does not "help Americans cope with or even to recognize that fact"(37).

The Land of Opportunity

The American dream as the literary expression of 'America: the land of opportunity' has been expressed by many authors including William Bradford, Walt Whitman, Crevecour, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.[8]

We were the first land of freedom, but for what? How is it that we are the first in the Western Hemisphere to be free and the poorest of them now. Why aren't we a toursit attraction? Why do we go to other islands to buy stuff and come back and sell them to our own.

Even when America is considered the "land of opportunity" for all, this is not always the case. Restrictions on opportunity have meant that all residents of the United States have not had a 'level playing field.' Black men did not have the right to vote until the United States Constitution was amended in 1870. Women did not have the right to vote until 1920. 1920. 1920.

As the first large non-WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) group of immigrants, the Irish faced employment discrimination in the 19th century. Most job descriptions that specified that only men or women could apply were only made illegal in the 1970s. "Second-wave" feminists in the 1960s and 1970s sought to overturn long-standing laws that had prevented women from taking an equal part in the economy. 1970s. I was already born. Imagine that.

Race and the American Dream

America has become a multiracial country through both forced and voluntary immigration. Many immigrants came to the United States with hopes and aspirations that have become known as the American Dream. In the U.S. Constitution, it says that Americans are entitled to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Why we can't get it back home. We gave our life to be free from slavery, we are still working towards liberty, pursuit of happiness. State of Mind. State of Mind. The poorest sometimes are the happiness because at least they appreciate the little things. Because even the little things is something.

The following quotation exemplifies this idea:

"I arrived in America thinking the streets were paved with gold. I learned 3 things: 1. The streets were not paved with gold, 2. The streets were not paved at all, and 3. I was expected to pave them." - Unknown Italian Immigrant[citation needed]

The vision of the American Dream is different from person to person, but there is a general consensus about what it consists of across all races. A person's race, however, does affect the way they view the American Dream and how to go about achieving it.

According to Josh Sides, the African American Dream was to escape the poor ghettos that they were residentially segregated into. They wanted to move from these neighborhoods, where crime ran rampant, to the peaceful security of the suburbs. It is here that their children will receive the education to break the cycle of poverty. Jennifer Hochschild (2001) says that it is this idea that keeps poor African Americans believing in and striving for the American Dream. For the most part, I guess it was like that. You know considering they got beat, they got spat on (one of the dirtiest things you can do) they got dragged, they got killed you would think now, the majority would want to go to school, sit on the front of the bus, not rob, rape and kill one another. You would think. Imagine if we, in our little place in comparison provided what America does. Or is that what we are afraid? Are we afraid if we give more we will get less in return. I hope not, because I know we did not pioneer freedom for nothing. We pioneered and yet we are the last to enjoy.

According to a study performed by "The National Community for Leadership", Latino Americans have their own ideology of the American Dream. For them, being able to better yourself and provide better opportunities for your children is what the American Dream encompasses. It is much more than having a lot of money and material possessions.

But stick together. Granted all nationalities have their problems within self. But if a Latino opens a business, they support one another. Can we say the same? Or do we act like we are making the other person rich?

Education and the American Dream

Education has been the pillar of most American success since this country was built.

This is what we need. Hochschild has written that "the American dream is the promise that all who live in the United States have a reasonable chance to achieve success as they understand it (material or otherwise) through their own efforts and resources".(Hochschild 2001:35) Many people believe that a significant resource in achieving the American Dream is by attaining an education. Education, for the most part, determines a person's job opportunities and level of income. It has become an understanding that without an education the idea of the "American Dream" seems out of reach. Education has become one of the central institutions in making the American Dream a reality. "Schools are expected to teach children enough so that they can choose their own vision of success and then to give them the skills they need to pursue that vision". (Hochschild 2001:36) However, not all public schools in the United States are equal in any aspect of education. This may lead to unequal opportunities for certain children based on their location or income level. But at least there is something. How is it that our country is really poor, but a majority of the schools are private? Private means pay right? Just thought I would ask.

For example, in Jennifer Hochschild's article Public Schools and the American Dream (2001) and Heather Johnson's book The American Dream and the Power of Wealth: Choosing Schools and Inheriting Inequality in the Land of Opportunity (2006) both Hochschild and Johnson identify the role of public education as one that is supposed to level out what is initially an uneven playing field. However, both authors assert that economic inequality, racial segregation and inequalities created by inherited wealth result in public schools that are separate and unequal, a direct contradiction to the American ideology of meritocracy. (Johnson 2006:46) Therefore, as Hochschild asserts, public schools is the place where many of the lower class and minorities first encounter disadvantages in their pursuit of the dream because these schools don't equalize opportunities across generations but instead become the arena in which many Americans first fail.

Hochschild believes that educational policies that can help children with unequal opportunities achieve the goals of the American Dream are desegregation, inclusion, school choice, school finance reform and standards based reforms. However, these policies must be approved by individual state policymakers. Although the benefits from these policies would be great, the power is in the hands of the wealthy, which may not see a need to enhance education policies. Therefore the cycle of inequality remains for those on the lower end of the social ladder. Ist that one of our problems? Well, look at that, this is even a problem that exist in the good old US.

Social Class and the American Dream

Americans would like to consider America as a merit-based society where individual effort and abilities determine how successful one will be in life (Johnson 2006: 150; Domhoff 2006: 200; Hochschild 1997: 18). The belief held by many Americans is that individuals themselves have the ability to choose their own destinies. Although the American Dream focuses on individualism and obtaining material, economic, and educational assets; evidence shows that hard work alone does not guarantee success, nor does merit alone determine a person's position in life. Sometimes just knowing the right people or being in the right place at the right time, does the trick. But our blessed country, once they find out your status would take the opportunity away.

Johnson (2006) uses the working poor as an example of how some people work very hard and yet never achieve success.

Research has shown that social class is one factor that greatly impacts a person's privileges and advantages in life. "Class can shape, constrain, and mediate the development and expression of knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, motives, traits, and symptoms" (Aries and Seider 2007: 138). In laymen's terms, the more money, wealth, or economic assets one obtains, the higher the class he or she will achieve. "Social class constrains the possibilities they [people] face and the decisions they make and it provides the possibilities and limits for his or her personal identity" (Aries and Seider 2007:138). Social class places people in different positions that either benefit or limit their advantages in pursuit of the American Dream. Poverty reduces opportunities and can greatly inhibit one's chances of success. Therefore, class greatly impacts the way people perceive and achieve the American Dream.

Wealth and the American Dream

The United States prides itself with being a merit-based nation that "assures all citizens that regardless of the circumstances to which you were born, with hard work and determination we all have equal chances in life" (Johnson 2006:102). In this merit-based system, all people are ensured that they are competing on a fair and level-playing field, allowing all to have equal chances and opportunities when achieving/pursuing the American Dream. No one group or person is placed ahead or below another group or person. The actions and behaviors of people directly influence the rewards/punishments they receive on a daily basis. But is this always the case? According to Johnson (2006) and her book The American Dream and the Power of Wealth, a direct contradiction to the American Dream's ideal of a society based on merit has to do with wealth, not income, and the way it is acquired, distributed and used. Wealth (financial assistance, intergenerational transfers and family security) is not merit-based and acquired through individual achievement. Rather, wealth is a "critical advantage being passed along to the next generation-advantages often unearned by the parents themselves, and always unearned by their children" (2006:102). "A foundational conflict exists between the meritocratic values of the American Dream and the structure of intergenerational wealth inequality" (2006:102).

The Working Class and the American Dream

The Change to Win Federation is also known as "The American Dream for America's Workers" and "was founded in September 2005 by seven unions and six million workers devoted to building a movement of working people with the power to provide workers a paycheck that supports a family, universal, affordable health care, a secure retirement and dignity on the job" (Change to Win 2007). They are an organization made up of several affiliated unions such as, but not limited to, the Laborers' International Union of North America, the Service Employees International Union, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. They strongly focus on the power of unions "to unite the 50 million workers in Change to Win affiliate industries whose jobs cannot be outsourced and who are vital to the global economy — but who are not given a chance to reach the middle class" (Change to Win 2007). The organization believes that the American Dream is being threatened as "CEO pay is skyrocketing and corporate profits go up and up. But most workers are being left behind — the gap between the rich and everyone else is gaping and growing" (Change to Win 2007). They believe that the only way to uphold the middle class and the American Dream is to unite American unions with other unions around the world who will all "negotiate with global corporations to raise living standards and win respect for workers' rights everywhere" (Change to Win 2007).

In order to achieve their goal the organization has created the American Dream Project, which is an "ongoing series of opinion surveys monitoring how Americans feel about their chances to achieve the American Dream" (Change to Win 2007). The newest survey in 2006 opened up to include all registered voters and found that "the respondents identified four elements as key to their conception of the American Dream:

• having a job that pays enough to support a family;
• having affordable quality health care;
• being able to ensure your children have the opportunity to succeed; and
• having a secure and dignified retirement.

On all four of these core issues, more than 90% of respondents said that having a union would help them do better. To take one example, when asked if having a union would help them achieve the American Dream goal of "having affordable quality health care", 94% said that it would help - with 67% going so far as to say it would "definitely" help" (Change to Win 2007).

Home Ownership and the American Dream

Although wealth is a generally assumed characteristic of the American Dream, there are other aspects of the American Dream that some would argue are more important than the mere accumulation of wealth. Modarres (2007) explains that a major source of wealth and intergenerational transfer of wealth is real estate. Purchasing a home is perhaps the most important investment many Americans will make. With that statement, it can be assumed that the American Dream can be achieved, but can be achieved to its highest value with the investment in real estate.

Do not get it twisted, at least once we pay for a house back home, its ours it can't be taken away. Once you pay for a house here in the states, they look for every reason to take it away.

If you don't understand the "American Dream" by now, well...........

What's "Haiti's Dream"? Are we really looking for that much different? Why we can't get it?

Quotations

In 1960, the poet Archibald MacLeish, debating 'national purpose', said: "There are those, I know, who will reply that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right, It is. It is the American dream."

George Carlin once said, "It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

J.G. Ballard once wrote, "The American Dream has run out of gas. The car has stopped. It no longer supplies the world with its images, its dreams, its fantasies. No more. It's over. It supplies the world with its nightmares now: the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Vietnam..."

The American singer Madonna refers to the term in her song American Life from the same-titled 2003 album, American Life, in the chorus, by singing "I'm just livin' out the American Dream/And I just realized that nothing is what it seems."

Hunter S. Thompson's autobiographical novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas had much to say on the author's opinions on the American Dream, and whether or not it still existed. The protagonist at one point describes a group of graveyard casino gamblers: "[S]weet Jesus, there are a hell of a lot of them—still screaming around these desert-city crap tables at four-thiry on a Sunday morning. Still humping the American Dream, that vision of the Big Winner somehow emerging from the last minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale Vegas casino."

"We believe that what matters most is not narrow appeals masquerading as values, but the shared values that show the true face of America; not narrow values that divide us, but the shared values that unite us: family, faith, hard work, opportunity and responsibility for all, so that every child, every adult, every parent, every worker in America has an equal shot at living up to their God-given potential. That is the American dream and the American value." -Senator John Kerry

"Success is somebody else's failure. Success is the American Dream we can keep dreaming because most people in most places, including thirty million of ourselves, live wide awake in the terrible reality of poverty." -Ursula K. LeGuin

"The American dream is, in part, responsible for a great deal of crime and violence because people feel that the country owes them not only a living but a good living." -David Abrahansen

References

1. <LI id=_note-0>^ "As a force behind government New Political Dictionary by William Safire (New York: Random House, 1993). <LI id=_note-Zangrando>^ a b Zangrando, Joanna Schneider and Zangrando, Robert L. "Black Protest: A Rejection of the American Dream". Journal of Black Studies, 1(2) (Dec., 1970), pp. 141-159. <LI id=_note-1>^ Scouten, George Samuel. "Planting the American dream: English colonialism and the origins of American myth." PhD dissertation 2002, University of South Carolina; ISBN: 0-493-97159-9, Accession No: AAI3076792 <LI id=_note-2>^ L.L. Lee, "Walter Van Tilburg Clark's Ambiguous American Dream", College English, Vol. 26, No. 5. (Feb., 1965), pp. 382-387. <LI id=_note-3>^ Hochschild, Jennifer (1995-08-21). Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691029573. <LI id=_note-hoc16>^ a b Hochschild 1995:16 <LI id=_note-4>^ Hochschild 1995:17 <LI id=_note-5>^ Pearson, Roger L. "Gatsby: False Prophet of the American Dream". The English Journal, 59(5) (May, 1970), pp. 638-642+645. <LI id=_note-Smith>^ a b Smith, Wendy. Unintended benefits (Review of Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream, by Edward Humes (San Diego: Harcourt Books, 2006)). Los Angeles Times, Oct 1, 2006. p. R.4
2. ^ Hornstein, Jeffrey M. A Nation Of Realtors: A Cultural History Of The Twentieth-century American Middle Class. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005)

• "As a force behind government philosophy, it seems to be interpreted by most users as a combination of

fHochschild, Jennifer. 2001. "Public Schools and The American Dream." Dissent: 35-42.

• Hornstein, Jeffrey M. A Nation Of Realtors: A Cultural History Of The Twentieth-century American Middle Class. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005)
• Johnson, Heather Beth. 2006. The American Dream and the Power of Wealth: Choosing Schools and Inheriting Inequality in the Land of Opportunity. New York: Routledge.
• L.L. Lee, "Walter Van Tilburg Clark's Ambiguous American Dream", College English, Vol. 26, No. 5. (Feb., 1965), pp. 382-387.
• Miller, Kerby A. 1988. Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
• Pearson, Roger L. "Gatsby: False Prophet of the American Dream". The English Journal, 59(5) (May, 1970), pp. 638-642+645.
• ScoEverybodies Nobodyuten, George Samuel. "Planting the American dream: English colonialism and the origins of American myth." PhD dissertation 2002, University of South Carolina; ISBN: 0-493-97159-9, Accession No: AAI3076792
• Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.New York, NY: Grand Central Publishing. retrieved Oct. 2007. MLK Papers Project Sermons: "The American Dream"
• Smith, Wendy. "Unintended benefits" (Review of Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream, by Edward Humes (San Diego: Harcourt Books, 2006)). Los Angeles Times, Oct 1, 2006. p. R.4
• Zangrando, Joanna Schneider and Zangrando, Robert L. "Black Protest: A Rejection of the American Dream". Journal of Black Studies, 1(2) (Dec., 1970), pp. 141-159.