<p>And you may ask yourself, my God, what have I done?</p>
<p>IN AMERICA:</p>
<p>No one has the RIGHT to wealth; you have the RIGHT to pursue wealth.
No one has the RIGHT to education and employment; you have the RIGHT to the opportunity to work at getting an education and good employment. You have the RIGHT to emergency medical care to preserve life; but you DON’T have the RIGHT to universal healthcare for all your medical needs and wants.</p>
<p>I don’t know if the person who said that the "American dream " is a lie was an immigrant. I think that we are disapointed in life when we expect too much from others. As you said, some immigrants believe that every single pennies in America are made of gold and they think that once they come here, life will be amazing. I think that some of them don’t work hard enough to polish the penny, some are just disappointed because they thought that they were going to sit in the US without making any effort and an invisible hand would feed them. You know, sometimes when other immigrants visit their home country, they lie about everything. They say that America is flower and sugar but don’t say that they are striving to succeed. Those ones are maybe the lazy one who just lie to their compatriots, and give them hope by hiding the truth about success in the US</p>
<p>My father in law lived the american dream, even though he wasn’t an immigrant. He was the first in his family to go to college, a state university on a football scholarship. I recently saw a picture of the house he grew up in, and trust me, it looked like one of those dust bowl pictures. His scholarship was just tuition and there were no student loans, and he had zero money, so the coach got him a job as the garbage man for the dorms. Yes, the garbage man. He did this work every morning before class and the cafeteria ladies saved him breakfast each day as he wound up there as the last stop on his rounds. He finished life as a successful business man, retired in Florida, and passed away this fall.</p>
<p>I have a few stories about immigrants in our town. The Vietnamese priest who escaped the fall of Saigon as a teenager, came here with the clothes on his back and is now an administrator with the diocese. The Vietnamese tailor who has sent both of his kids to college. The Jamaican couple who run a restaurant near my house. The Vietnamese girl (gee, we have a lot of Vietnamese here) who started public high school knowing not a single word of English, graduated valedictorian, went to the state univ., graduated with a 4.0 and went to MIT for grad school.</p>
<p>"Yes, the garbage man. "</p>
<p>Mercymom , back home we learn to say that there is no “dumb carreer” or profession when we turn 8. So garbage man is ok.</p>
<p>Yeah ! you have met a lot of vietnamese mom.</p>
<p>I think it’s worth digging deeply into what Christcorp was trying to say there. I agree that it’s better to understand the U.S. as “opportunity” rather than guarantee. In our family it took several generations to achieve the financial foothold my great-grandparents imagined in 1906 when they left Russia for America with their 5 children on a boat (and more born here later)! For them, the American dream meant their first opportunity for national citizenship, because as Jews the religious persecution denied them this in their country of birth. Nor could they own land there or attend universities, because of their religion. They came over with a pot and a pan.</p>
<p>The “American Dream” to them meant freedom from annual pogroms, annual raids on their village by neighbors who pointed government troops to their doors, rapes and burning of businesses by people they had served the previous week. Freedom from fear and terror.</p>
<p>They sent their kids to free American public schools, which had never been available to them in their country of birth. They were allowed to own land here, a privilege denied due to religion previously, so one moved to a rural area (to become “a chicken farmer”!) but most stayed urban for reasons of factory employment. </p>
<p>My grandparents never finished 7th grade because they had to drop out to bring wages to their family, but they all ensured their own kids finished public high school. They went to PTA meetings, supervised homework, sided with the teachers every time… </p>
<p>The boys’ paths were quite different than the girls. When World War II came along, the boys all enlisted to fight the German Nazis. When they returned, there was the G.I. Bill for veterans, so in one generation they went to places like Harvard and Johns Hopkins University, then into careers in law. We had no family capital, only intellectual capital to invest. Other Jewish families we knew scraped together funds from each other and cousins, to begin small sole-operated nieghborhood businesses, although ours not so. They didn’t enter the corporate world yet; too much antiSemitism still in those days. </p>
<p>The government helped all WWII veterans (of every faith or non-faith) with mortgages so home ownership came into our family at that unique historical moment. Cheap land was made available through a government-subsidized suburbanizing infrastructure of highways and sewers to expand the cities. </p>
<p>Their sisters didn’t have this unique opportunity of the G.I. Bill, so instead tried instead to “marry well” those men lining themselves up for such professions, so they could have middle-class stability and security in their future horizon.</p>
<p>Nobody in my family ever sought money and nobody has made a fortune, but
we came here more for security of body and soul, not financial wealth. We have achieved what we set out to achieve.</p>
<p>As the grandchildren of immigrants, we were taught mightily that this is indeed the greatest country in the world because of the freedom of religion, which ensures us the chance to choose an educated life in safety. Those of my extended family who did not leave for these shores in the early l900’s were killed by Nazis in World War II, or grew up under Soviet Communism without opportunity to study their religion. They would not identify me today as family except as some lost footnote in their family history story; they’d call themselves Russians, although a rare few such families are starting to show up again, curious to rediscover their roots and send their children or grandchildren to religious schools once again. </p>
<p>I have no wealthy relatives, but I am never afraid at night because of soldiers at my door. My grandparents lived their lives in an apartment, but I live in my owned home. Everyone in my extended family works extremely hard on a day-to-day basis, but the opportunity to pursue higher education (college and professional schools) and the impulse to help in a military situation are key to our understanding of this country.</p>
<p>I am not familiar with how it’s going for contemporary immigrants, but I did understand growing up that this process of “rags-to-safety/ease/comfort” (not “riches”) took us 2 generations, tremendous daily effort by each and every family member, and some flukes of history (such as the G.I.Bill available to the men in my family) to upgrade financially to the middle class. We are grateful but we participated full-heartedly every step of the way.</p>
<p>My parents’ generation has been called “The Greatest Generation” but I wonder if there will ever again be such a dramatic leap from poverty to comfort in one generation. The opportunity for freedom from religious-based terror and persecution and a future of dire continued poverty, plus the free public grade-school education was my grandparents’ American Dream. The lucky chance to attend private colleges after WW-II boosted my parents unexpectedly following their military service in what they saw as a justified war to secure world freedom from the Nazi regime in Europe. </p>
<p>I think each family has a unique story to tell.</p>
<p>You guys are really helping me with your answers. Keep giving me more :D</p>
<p>I will send a copy of my book to each of you when it gets published although it will not be completely in English :w</p>
<p>^^I probably misspoke when I said the government helped “all” WW-II veterans with mortgages, as there was discrimination against African-American WW-II veterans who could not get into these government-subsidized suburban mortgages in the l950’s and l960’s. Race discrimination with neighborhoods and housing was still in place in those years before the Fair Housing Act of the l960’s written under the guidance Dr. Martin Luther King and finally passed in Congress to law. I recently saw a TV commercial inviting any African American families who had been denied government-subsidized mortgage opportunity in their family’s past to call a phone number, and wondered if this is related to that post-WWII race discrimination re: housing mortgages then (not now).</p>
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<p>Gee, good to know that I’m allowed to exist through your charity. Apparently I’m “them”, not a real, God-fearing American like yourself.</p>
<p>Ironically, other than that, I mostly agree with your post.</p>
<p>To the OP: The “American Dream” is different things to different people. The stereotype is that of an upper middle class suburban family with a couple of kids and a white picket fence. And for some people, that is what they want, but it is not what everyone wants. The wonderful thing is that you are able to make the American Dream what <em>you</em> want, and to pursue it.</p>
<p>jess; don’t take it personal. It’s something you should be very proud of. I have lived in many countries; 15 to be exact. Some of these mandated what your religious beliefs would be. Until the end of the 70’s and early 80’s; Spain was set up that the ONLY recognized religion was Catholicism. No other belief was recognized for taxes or any other purpose. It has since changed. I’ve lived in Muslim nations where you better recognize the muslim beliefs and traditions. If you were in public and didn’t honor it, they actually had “Religious Police” to handle the problem.</p>
<p>I think the greatest thing about our country isn’t that they allow us to believe whatever religion we want; but that we don’t have a communist country saying WE CAN’T PRACTICE a certain faith; or certain cultures that say we MUST PRACTICE a certain faith. </p>
<p>So yes, it isn’t that non believers allows believers to practice; it’s that believers allow non believers to also practice that. If you look at history around the world, it’s usually a flat; “YOU MUST” or “YOU CAN’T”. Ours is based on “YOU CAN” or “YOU DON’T HAVE TO”.</p>
<p>Two more posts on the American dream from the other thread:</p>
<p>By arachnophobia12: I still don’t know what the “American Dream” is…</p>
<p>XCI_Wraith : To me, the American Dream = Freedom, mostly from intrusive government.</p>
<p>Am I living it? When compared to the rest of the world, definitely yes. When compared to the ideal, hell no. </p>
<p>Since the demographic was asked, I am the child of immigrants who fled communism. I was born here. I consider it to be the single greatest blessing I have ever received.</p>