American Dream, Percorso

“G.B. Benedetti - N. Tommaseo”

Liceo Scientifico “G.B. Benedetti” – Liceo Linguistico e delle Scienze Umane “N. Tommaseo”

Venezia

A.S. 2014/2015

Valentina Boulos

5° E

Why I selected this topic

We can consider the “American dream” as the sparkle that lights up

United States: a country made of possibilities, freedom and wealth.

It is the dream of every American becoming real, but also a dream

of hope for all the people who want to move to the USA in order to

achieve happiness and economy prosperity.

I have always been fascinated by what people were saying about

this country that seemed so perfect: movies, songs, television, all

talking about it. So what actually brought me in the USA was the

curiosity to see if all that was really true - my “American dream”

was living a year as an American thanks to a students’ exchange

programme.

What is the American Dream? Definition and history

In the dictionary we can find two different definitions of American Dream:

^1st The ideals of freedom, equality and opportunity traditionally held

to be available to every American.

^2nd A life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally

sought by individuals in the US.

So with the words "American Dream" we refer to the hope that

through hard work, courage, and determination, it is possible to

reach a better standard of living and economic prosperity.

The first man who popularized this catch-phrase was the historian

James Truslow Adams in his book The epic of America.

He defined it

as a “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 “ regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.

During that time the United States were suffering under the Great

Depression after the sudden devastating collapse of US stock

market prices on October 29, 1929, but that dream always

Dictionary.com

¹ The epic of America,

James Truslow Adams, pp. 214-215, Little Brown and

²

Company, 1931

motivated American people to go through the struggle. In fact we

can consider the “American Dream” as the national ethos of USA.

But The American Dream has long roots, indeed a lot of historians

think that the American Dream has its beginning in the Declaration

of Independence and thanks the European settlers: “We hold these

truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they

are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that

among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness ³

”.

Once, the American Dream was an escape from the persecution and

the war, it was one of the principal reasons of emigration to

America. This country was seen like a place of opportunities for the

businessmen from other areas of the world. America has always

been a dream, a nation created by collective dreams, it is a “Gods’

chosen country” where all the inhabitants need to bring this dream

of democracy, freedom, opportunity and pursuit of happiness to the

rest of the world. But behind this patina of optimism and justice, we

can find a racist and conservative country that seems has never

grown up ideologically. Even if America is a country of descents of

immigrants and a cultural mix, there has always been racialism

against some populations.

At the beginning of the ^16th century European settlers arrived in

America in search for religious freedom but they encountered

frequent conflicts with the Native Americans who were

exterminated by the white invaders. From the ^17th to ^19th centuries,

hundreds of thousands of African slaves came to America against

their will and after the independence of the USA from Great Britain,

they tried to reach their rights for centuries.

Up to the first half of the ^19th century the racist attacks were mostly

directed against the immigrants of Northern and Western Europe

⁴

and in particular against German, Scandinavian and Irish people.

During the mid-^19th century instead, a relevant number of Asian

immigrants moved to the United States. At the end of the 19th

century another major wave of European immigration took place,

these new immigrants were from Italy, Poland and there were a lot

of Jewish among them, and unlike the earlier European immigrants,

they brought along with them their culture and traditions that were

different from their European predecessors. Therefore they were

often the victims of discrimination.

The first relevant federal legislation that restricted immigration was

the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

³.

Approximately one-third came from Ireland

⁴