The American Dream
Your final journal assignment for the first quarter is an appropriate one. You've studied the early colonists and then the early Americans. Both groups of people had visions of the greatness of America. The Puritans saw a religious "city upon a hill." The founding fathers constituted a democratic republic that would encourage other governments throughout the world to also engage in a social contract with its citizens, ensuring a protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It was to be a model of government for the rest of the world.
A Frenchman, Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur, emigrated to the colonies in 1755. He married a American-born women, raised a family, and farmed in Orange County, NY. Life was going well until the Revolutionary War broke out. Unwilling to choose between the revolutionary and the Tory cause, de Crevecoeur fled to England, leaving his wife and children. When the are ended, he published a book in 1782, Letters From an American Farmer, adapting the pseudonym of an American farmer, James, and writing back in epistles to his brethren in England. The book told of the promise of the good life in America; it is one of the first written statements of the American Dream.
The notion of the American Dream (even today) represents a romanticized ideal of the hope and promise of America. For de Crevecoeur, the American Dream promised these new and exciting gifts to all who dared to call themselves, Americans:
1. America is an asylum, a refuge for Europe's poor and downtrodden
2. The American society is a melting pot of people from all over Europe
3. The American economy rewards the hard worker with a chance to get ahead.
4. The American is free to worship as he pleases, and religion demands little of him.
5. Americans are the western pilgrims, bringing the best of Europe to this new land, and making it better. Americans are looked upon as leaders of the world.
Throughout America's history, there is no doubt that the American Dream has been realized by millions of successful people. There is also little doubt that reality of America did not always live up to the Dream. Undoubtedly, millions of people experienced failures, too--nightmares, not dreams.
Look over the five aspects of deCrevecouer's Dream listed above. Write about how one of those ideas either rewarded OR failed an individual. Ideally, I'd like you to relate a personal story about a relative or someone you closely know. However, if you absolutely cannot think of someone, you are free to write about someone else. In that case, provide your information source at the end of your writing.
posted by JTF @ 9:18 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
"The American economy rewards the hard worker with a chance to get ahead."
The same as kb yellow, I feel it compliments my grandfather as well. My grandfather lived in Italy until he was twelve. He was sent over by his father by himself so that he could have a better life. My grandfather stayed with his aunt and uncle who did not treat him very well. He worked very hard as a young boy. He finally broke away from them and married my grandmother. He worked as a mason until he was 65! I still can't believe that at 65 years old he worked on 2-story buildings in 100 degree weather. He worked so hard for so little. I feel his will makes him an outstanding person. My grandfather is now 68 living a well deserved retirement tending his garden and cooking great meals. His story gives me so much inspiration. I know I don't want to be a mason so I strive to obtain the most out of my education.
KE BLUE said...
“The American economy rewards the hard worker with a chance to get ahead.”
My great-grandmother and her family are examples of hard workers who were rewarded with chances which improved their lifestyles. Her mother and father were poor farmers in Italy. When her father traveled to America to start a new life for his family, they knew that this could be the last time they would ever see each other. It was seven years before he could save enough money to send for his family. In that time, two of his children died, one on the boat on the way to America. My great-grandmother was twelve when she arrived at Ellis Island. She did not speak or write English, but was put into the third grade. She dropped out after two years. By my age, she was put to work in a suit-making factory with no air conditioners but plenty of steam pressers nearby. Today, we would call this a sweatshop. When she was sixteen, she married a stone mason from Italy. She began her day at five thirty in the morning and did not return home until six at night. In addition to cooking and cleaning, she also needed to thread the needles she would use the next day. By threading them and running them through beeswax, she was able to sew on more buttons the next day. This allowed her to make more money since she was being paid per button. When my great-grandmother was married with children, they insisted on speaking only English in the house because they were in America. They refused to teach their children Italian. They wanted to give their children more opportunities to succeed. She and her husband were able to buy a modest house and support a family. When my great-grandmother was in Italy, she was told that the streets in America were paved with gold. Years later, she told my mother, “They were right.”
The average american can get ahead in many, many ways with nothing but a hard work ethic. Scroll up to the top of the schoolsville homepage, there you will see someone who has truly found happyness and started with almost nothing to his name. My poppop did a simalair thing, his family came over to america from europe and he started a mechanical contracting bussiness with nothing but himself, a pickup truck, and a pipe wrench. They now do multi-million dollar jobs at a time and have dozens and dozens of employees. Things like this happen all the time in America, sure some would say that there are two failures for every success, but if you truly have what it takes and want to go the distance with every ounce of strength you have, than you can truly become and american dream.
An American Dream
De Crevecoeurs’ ideas are ideas that can most definitely describe my grandmother and the generations after. Although she was not European, she came to America looking for opportunities. She was a full Filipino woman that came to America hoping to upgrade her lifestyle and escape the semi-terrorist country. The Korean War was also happening and that created some tension with the American soldiers were stationed in her region of the Philippines. My grandmother brought her recipes, skills, and superstition to America. In America, she met a man named Charles Mayes (my grandfather) who, at the time, was about to be sent to Korea. When he returned, they married and made a living together. Charles was a white man. Their first child was my father. When my father first got his PhD, he started chemical engineering at Hercules Inc. Eventually, Macdermid Inc brought part of Hercules, my father’s part. Working at Macdermid, my father has moved up the line to become the chemical plant manager. Religion has never really been a problem. No one has ever really mad a big conversion, but my cousins have chose a different branch of Christianity. Currently, my family is a huge melting pot. I have at less ten different nationalities in my blood. Thanks to my Grandmother, I am living the immigrated American dream.
I choose to write about my mother. She represents this theory, "The American economy rewards the hard worker with a chance to get ahead." My mother is the strongest person I will probably ever meet. She came from literally nothing and turned it into a better life i could have ever have dreamed. She grew up in the slums of baltimore in a 1 bedroom apartment with her entire family. She didn;t let that stop her. She went to school and studied all night, trying to get a scholarship to college or else she wouln't be able to go. All of her work payed off when the University of Notre Dame of Baltimore have her a full academic scholarship. She made the most of her oppertunity and studied as much as she could. She worked part time at a local Burger King and took classes at night. Then she got a job as a teller at Cecil Federal Bank. She worked hard and made her way up the ladder and is now the President of that bank. She now provides for two kids and gives each of us more than enough. A great house, meals every night,and many personal luxeries. She turned nothing into everything by setting her mind to it and working as hard as she could to achieve it.
3. The American economy rewards the hard worker with a chance to get ahead.
When I looked at this assignment, I knew immediately that I would be writing about my Oma and Opa. An Oma and Opa is grandmother and grandfather in German. Over stormy seas, they traveled to America from Germany in 1955. My Oma and Opa came from poor families; Oma came from a factory family, and Opa came from a farming family. When they came to America, they had been married for one year, and my uncle was six months old. They had a very rough time starting in America. My grandparents lived with my great aunt and great uncle when they arrived in this country. During the night, Oma would clean in a bakery. Opa worked in a machine shop as a machinist working very long hours. After working at the shop for approximately ten years and becoming a foreman during that period, his boss advised him to open his own machine shop. Opa soon opened Beaver Tool and Machine, Co., Inc. After business soared and after making good decisions on investments, Opa and his family was living the good life. Through these investments and hard work, Oma and Opa became wealthy. I believe this is a perfect example of the third aspect of Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crevecouer’s dream because it shows how my grandparents went from rags to riches.
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