Is the American dream dead, broken or still alive? To be honest, I don’t think that any dream just dies. They may not come to complete fruition, they may change or even get discarded, but I don’t necessarily believe that they die. Some believe that the American dream is dead and others believe it is broken. In an article for the World Economic Forum, Alberto Gallo posits that the dream has turned into greed and inequality and he’s not entirely wrong. (read article here) The gap in wealth has never been greater. Economists continue to lament the decreasing middle class. Student loans are expected to be the next bubble that breaks. For crying out loud, a billionaire launched a car into space just because he could. I’m guessing he couldn’t come up with any better use of his money? But with all of that one can see why everyone believes the American dream is gone.
But is it really? The problem with a blanket statement on the death of the dream is that it implies there is only one definition that exists. I think that’s a mistake. Is our society broken? Probably. And probably something to be explored in more detail at a future date. But we forget that we aren’t the only ones reaching for the dream. The American dream is not only for American citizens. If that were the case we wouldn’t have an immigration problem, would we?
The immigrants that want to come to our country are, for the most part, not looking for fame or fortune. They are looking for a decent life. One that includes a safe place to live and raise a family, a job that puts food on the table and a roof over their heads. They want their kids to get an education and be able to walk the street without fear. They ask for very little in the grand scheme of things. For them, the dream is alive and well. Alive enough that they are willing to risk their life to chase it. And while I agree that we have to adhere to our immigration laws and we certainly cannot support everyone in the world, it is wrong to dismiss why they come. We have long proclaimed that in our country it doesn’t matter where or what socioeconomic status you were born into. A willingness to work hard and anyone can be a success. That success can be as modest as being a janitor or as high end as being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. The immigrants struggling to come to this country not only understand that but are generally willing to work to achieve it.
Only American citizens define success as the amount of money or power a person has available. And if that were the only definition of the American dream, then yes, it has been corrupted. According to Gallo’s article, “today’s young generation is the first in modern history expected to be poorer than their parents.” But wasn’t that always inevitable? If you are to believe that a child is always to be wealthier than their parents, then eventually you would have a country of only millionaires. And then billionaires. And then trillionaires. Where does it stop? We continue to buy into the myth that everyone wants the same things and anything short of that is a failure. We push every person to get a college degree and by doing so have degraded the value of a degree. We malign blue collar jobs as not being good enough, but then laud a good plumber as worth his weight in gold when it comes to keeping our bathrooms in working order. The American dream isn’t working for Americans because we’ve lost sight of what the dream means.
No, I don’t think the American dream is dead. It just needs to be redefined by its citizens. It is the responsibility of the individual to determine their dream. And not just to define, but to actively strive for its success and to hold accountable anyone or any thing that stands in the way.
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Just for the record iZombie from Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright is a highly underrated show. The Walking Dead seems to have cornered the market on zombie television. It’s a great show. At least it was a great show, not so sure about last season. But The Walking Dead is very dark and depressing. iZombie is just fun. The music is great (as you would expect from a Rob Thomas project) and the stories are entertaining. It’s both light hearted and socially aware. If there ever is a zombie apocalypse, I want an iZombie world and I want to be like Liv.
