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The American Dream

Marshall

FYW 1000C

Fall 2018

Inga Oladottir

10 Ways of Looking at The American Dream, a Numbered Multimodal Multi-Genre Research Composition

STORY

My best friend is from Bel Air, Maryland and her name is Annie. Me and Annie both go to St. Johns University in New York city and she used to always tell me how different New York is from her hometown. I never really understood what she meant by that because in my mind it was all America, how different could it be? But boyyy, I definitely saw the difference Annie always talked about as soon as I was in my friend’s town. The first time I went home with Annie, I was a couple months into freshman year and New York was the only place I had ever been to in America. I had no idea that there were places in America so different from New York that it almost felt like stepping into a new country. When I saw the town that she is from, and the neighborhood she grew up in, I just thought: That is the epitome of the American dream. She lives in a big, white house with a big front lawn. The house is surrounded by a white picking fence, and then when I looked around, so did all the other houses in her neighborhood. There was a yard sale going on in front of one of the houses so I got to see a couple of her neighbors, and they were all so friendly and happy looking. When we went back to New York a couple days later, my opinion about what the American dream is had certainly changed. I actually have two best friends and both of them are from America, but now when I look at them, I would only think that one of them has lived the American dream.

FACTS, STATISTICS, MEDIA

1. The ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. (googled the American dream definition)

http://www.generations.com/2015/09/21/the-evolution-of-the-american-dream/

http://scpaworks.org/2018/05/workforce-chartoftheweek-the-fading-american-dream/

4. The road to success is not easy to navigate, but with hard work, drive and passion, it’s possible to achieve the American dream – Tommy Hilfiger. https://people.com/celebrity/hilfiger-launching-fashion-reality-show/

5. Less than 20% of Americans say they’re living the American dream https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/19/less-than-20-percent-of-americans-say-theyre-living-the-american-dream.html

https://www.pri.org/stories/2011-11-21/souring-american-dream

7. What’s killing the American dream? Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1nXxPMsOIs

8. Myths and realities of the American dream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQvAsXfMkiw

9. Myth: If you have money, you will find happiness. Truth: Money isn’t everything.

http://www.paleobosslady.com/blog/the-american-dream-is-a-lie

10. The American dream on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream

11. An article on what the American dream is today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream

12. 36% of people that think their family has achieved the American dream.http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/31/most-think-the-american-dream-is-within-reach-for-them/

13. Fact: If your parents are on the bottom rung of the economic ladder, there’s a good chance you��ll end up there too.http://stateofopportunity.michiganradio.org/post/five-facts-about-achieving-american-dream

14.Cartoon on the American dream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L4YIkYP5uU

15.We need to remain a nation that doesn't just welcome but celebrates legal immigrants who come here seeking to pursue the american dream. - Ted Cruz

https://www.thedailybeast.com/is-ted-cruz-post-hispanic

TEXUAL ANALYSIS

The article “The Transformation of the American Dream” by Robert J. Shiller was published in The New York Times on August 4th, 2017. The article explains how the American dream has transformed over the years and how it shifts from being an idea about social justice and equal opportunity, to the idea of wealth and homeownership. It also deals with how American’s associate having a home and a business with living up to the standards of the American dream. The text shows us how the idea of the American dream has changed over the years, depending on what was happening in the country at the time. The text talks about different perspectives that different leaders have of the American dream, and how that influences how the public views it. The author uses facts and statements to support what he is discussing in the text and he uses it to make his own statements clearer. Using other people’s words to support your own is a powerful way to get people to listen because it proves that you are not the only one thinking that way. Another way to say this is that the author uses logos to appeal to the audience, he presents plausible arguments on logical or apparent logical terms to support his text. I think that the text provides us with a good example of what the American dream should be, but at the same time it also shows us what it is in reality. Today, the American dream is just about being rich and having a big, fancy house but that is not what it is supposed to be. In my opinion it should be hope, it should be a way for people to know that they are worthy and that they deserve to be treated like everyone else. The last passage of the text struck me the most because it stated what I have been thinking all along about the American dream concept. Shiller said in the passage that “we need to bring back the American dream of social justice” and for me, he last passage is the beauty of the whole text because it puts the American dream into perspective and I think that it is the central idea of what the dream is about. On the contrary, even if humans want the American dream to be about social justice, we get caught up in our greed for material things and forget the true idea of the American dream. We get stuck on this idea that we have to have money to live up to it and that ruins the clear concept of what the American dream is really about. This text is very important to my research paper because it deals exactly with my question, what is the American dream? The text shows us what it is supposed to be but it also shows us what many American people perceive it to be and that is why this text is so important to my research topic.

VISUAL ANALYSIS

List of things:

· Many doctors trying to save the man

· The man is old àThe American Dream is an old concept

· The man has a hole in his chest

o Maybe he was shot

o It could be a hidden connection to the gun violence happening in the US.

1. Whose message is this? Who created or paid for it and why? Where was it originally published?

This is a message from a girl named Karly Tinervia. She is writing on her blog about the book The Working Poor Invisible in America by David K. Shipler, where the picture was originally published. Karly talks about how the American dream is dying and how it is hard for people in poverty to get out of it.

2. Who is the “target audience”? What is their age, ethnicity, class, profession, interests, etc.? What words images or sounds suggest this?

The target audience is everyone that wants to listen to her message. She wants people to understand what Shipler is talking about in his book and be influenced by it. Karly is talking about a subject that relates to everyone that lives in America because the idea of the American dream relates to everyone and the man in the image is dressed in the colors of the American flag which suggest that it relates to Americans.

3. What is the “text” of the message? (What we actually see and/or hear: written or spoken words, photos, drawings, logos, design, music, sounds, etc.)

We see an old man that is lying on a table with a shotgun wound on his chest. The man is surrounded by several doctors but by the look of it, he has passed away. The man is dressed in the colors of the American flag.

4. What is the “subtext” of the message? (What do you think is the hidden or unstated meaning?)

The subtext of the message is that the American dream is dying right in front of us and it is too late to prevent it from happening. More and more people are not able to make enough money to live a good life and so many people never reach their goals of fulfilling the American dream.

5. What kind of lifestyle is presented or what kind of injustice does the image seek to address?

The image seeks to address the issue of poverty and how unfair the system in America works. There is only a certain number of people that can live the American dream and those people are often those that are born into rich families, so everything is handed to them from the day they are born. People that don’t have that advantage have a hard time of reaching that same level of success and most of them never do.

6. What values are expressed?

Social justice and equal right (or more precisely, the lack of it) are the values that come to my head when I look at the picture

7. What positive messages are presented? What negative messages are presented?

The positive message presented is that there will always be people that are willing to help others, no matter if they don’t benefit from it. The negative message is that there are also people that will not do anything, they stay away and watch everything happening from a far.

8. What groups of people does this message empower? What groups does it disempower? How does this serve the media maker’s interests?

I think that this message should empower every American to be a better version of himself and maybe help the less fortunate.

9. What part of the story is not being told? How and where could you get more information about the untold stories?

The part that is not being told is how we got to this point. Why is the American dream slowly dying? Who is responsible for it and who is responsible for saving it?

10. What conclusions can you make about this image?

This image illustrates what is happening to the American dream and that if we don’t start doing anything about it now, soon it will be too late.

Analysis

This image was originally posted in the book “The Working Poor Invisible in America” by David K. Shipler. The book along with the image was first published on January 4th2004 but I discovered it on a personal blog. The owner of the blog is Karly Tinervia and in the blog that the image appears in, Karly is talking about the context of the book. The image displays an old man that is lying flat on a table with a shotgun wound on his chest. The man is surrounded by several doctors but by the look of it, he has just passed away. The man is dressed in the colors of the American flag but despite what we might think we see, the image has a hidden message. It symbolized how the American dream is dying right in front of our eyes, and that most people just stand by and watch it happen. In the image, there is one doctor that is still actively trying to save the life of the old man while the others just watch him and that is supposed to symbolize the reason for why the American dream is dying. Most people think that there is nothing they can do, or that the power is not in their hands, but, most people don’t realize that you don’t have to do anything significant to make a change. You can start by doing something small, such as helping the less fortunate in this country with small acts of kindness. Those little things, might just be the start for some people on the road to a better life that perhaps, makes them a little closer to achieving the American dream.

SURVEY

Do you consider you family to be a part of the middle class?

Are you an American citizen?

What do you consider to be the American dream?

Do you think that your family lived out the American dream? Why or why not?

Analysis of survey results

Most people that took the survey considered their family to be of the middle class and most of them were American citizens. When it came to provide an explanation of what people considered to be the American dream, I noticed that all the answers had something to do with having money and being able to provide for themselves. Some answers involved having a house, usually a big house with a family. Most people thought that their families had lived out the American dream, but there were couple participants that did not think so. You can see a couple of examples in the picture above, but the reason those people didn’t consider their families to have lived it out the dream was because of a financial crisis. When I look at the last two questions and compare the two, I see a clear link between them, due to the fact that people measure their success based on how much money they have. The people that think they are living the American dream are those who have money, and the people who don’t think they are living it, are the people with little or no money.

One answer in the survey really caught my attention. It was an answer to the question about what the American dream is and that person said “I think the American dream is that everyone has an equal opportunity to be successful if they put all their hard work into it.” I feel like that statement sums up the original idea of the American dream and the reason that people from all over the world come to live in America. Somehow, over time, the idea has shifted over to being a dream about wealth and power, and I think that my results show that.

EXPERT OPINION

The article “Envy and the American Dream” by Nitin Nohria discussed the issue of how jealousy can shift people´s focus away from their own goals and over to other people´s success. It is an interesting aprroach as to why the American dream has been deteriorating over the past years and because of that, I think it will take a lot of work to re-establish what the American dream used to be. “In the meantime, instead of envying the good fortune of others, let’s focus on what we can do to stoke and further individual ambition,” (Nohria).That is a part of why the American dream is becoming a very distant for some people is because they envy other people’s success and that prevents them from working on their own goals and having success in what they are doing. If those people would just shift their focus back on what they are doing and stop comparing themselves to others, they would get closer to their own goals, and even better, they would get closer to the American dream. I think that Nohria also provides me with a different perspective on my research topic because he is not originally from America. His views of the dream might be different from other Americans since he came to the country with his own ideas about the dream and what he thought represented America.

RESEARCH QUESTION DIALOGUE

Research question: “What is the American dream?”

Me: “Where is the American Dream?”

Source:““The American Dream is back.” President Trump made that claim in a speech in January” (Shiller).

Me: “What is the American dream about?”

Source: “Mr. Trump and Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, have suggested it involves owning a beautiful home and a roaring business, but it wasn’t always so. Instead, in the 1930s, it meant freedom, mutual respect and equality of opportunity” (Shiller).

Me: “What is the difference between the American dream then and now?”

Source: “It had more to do with morality than material success” (Shiller).

Me: “Why is the dream slowly dying?”

Source: “One reason Shipler believes the American Dream is dead is because hard work does not pay off” (Shipler).

Me: “Does hard work not pay off any more?”

Source: “This results in these people being trapped working a few low paying jobs with no advancement opportunities. America was built on the notion of hard work that will then lead to opportunity and success, but Shipler shows that this is not the case anymore” (Shipler).

Me: “Do you even stand a chance if your parents are poor?”

Source: “If your parents are on the bottom rung of the economic ladder, there’s a good chance you’ll end up there too” (Dwyer).

Me: “In our modern society, do you even stand a chance then if you want to start your own business?”

Source: “We are going to create an environment for small business like we haven’t seen in many many decades,” (Shiller).

Me: “What about the dream of owning a house, or a home of some kind?”

Source: “Mr. Carson has explicitly said that homeownership is a central part of the Dream. In a speech at the National Housing Conference on June 9, he said, “I worry that millennials may become a lost generation for homeownership, excluded from the American Dream”” (Shiller).

Me: “But is homeownership a part of the American dream?”

Source: “Mr. Adams emphasized ideals rather than material goods, a “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.” And he clarified, “It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages...” (Shiller).

Me: “Does everyone have an equal opportunity to live the American dream in our society?”

Source: “If you want to achieve the American dream, the color of your skin matters” (Dwyer).

Me: “That needs to change, right?”

Source: “we need to remain a nation that doesn’t just welcome but that celebrates legal immigrants who come here seeking to pursue the American dream” (Cruiz).

Me: “The fact that immigrants want to come to America to pursue the American dream, does that make it a rather important concept?”

Source: “The American Dream is the country’s most important asset—more valuable than its extraordinary natural resources, deep financial capacity, or unparalleled workforce. It’s so valuable because it is a narrative that continues to draw people here from other countries, and it inspires those of us who are already here to work hard every day to better ourselves and our children” (Nohria).

Me: “What can help us save it?”

Source: “I agree with him that restoring confidence in the link between business success and social prosperity will be vital to sustaining the American Dream” (Nohria).

Me: “So what is keeping people from business success?”

Source: “Lately there are signs that America is shifting from an orientation of ambition toward one of envy. Whether it is the 99% who envy the 1% or the 53% who resent the 47% who are receiving government distributions, we are beginning to show signs of focusing more on others than on ourselves” (Nohria).

Me: “How does envy affect the American dream?”

Source: “It shifts people’s gaze toward others in a negative way and takes their focus off their own goals” (Nohria).

Me: “How can we change that and save the American dream?”

Source: “Fixing the problems that imperil this status will require difficult collective action. In the meantime, instead of envying the good fortune of others, let’s focus on what we can do to stoke and further individual ambition” (Nohria).

Me: “How do we want the American dream to look like when we save it?”

Source: “Instead, we need to bring back the American Dream of a just society, where everyone has an opportunity to reach “the fullest stature of which they are innately capable”” (Shiller).

Me: “But despite all the work that is before us, what do you think about America?”

Source: “Thirty years after my arrival as an immigrant, and despite the current hard times, I still see America as the best place to live and work and dream. Fixing the problems that imperil this status will require difficult collective action” (Nohria).

WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED TO KNOW, OR WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT TO SAY?

The American dream has always been about freedom. People came to America to pursue the dream of freedom and happiness, being their own master and making money only for themselves. The American dream protects anyone that wants to pursue their dream and reach their potential to the fullest, (The Balance). The original idea about the American dream was that America should be the best country and that other countries would strive to be like it. “The American Dream is that 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,” (The Balance). Over the years, the idea about the American dream has been criticized due to the fact that the poverty rate in this country is increases and there are very limited options to help the people that fall into poverty. Homeownership has always been a big part of the American dream and president Roosevelt created a system that insured mortgages to help more people be able to afford a home. President Roosevelt said that everyone has the right to own a decent home, have a job that supports one’s family, and that everyone should have the opportunity to get an education and receive health care, but to this day, many families still don’t have enough money to afford health care. president Obama made it his mission to try and change that, and furthered the FDR’s idea that affordable health care is a fundamental need in every country. Today, there are many disagreements over the definition of the American dream and some people even say that it does not exist anymore, (The Balance). There is a need in this country to do something, it does not matter if people think the American dream exists or not. Income inequality, which is the gap between rich and poor, has been growing in America for approximately 30 years and Americas top 10% makes about 9 times as much as the bottom 90%, (Income Inequality). The wages in America have also been stagnating for over 30 years so the average American worker and the country’s lowest wage workers see no growth in their weekly wages, (Income Inequality). That means that even if you work and work, you always stay in the same place. You can’t climb up the income ladder because you are stuck with the same wages every week and that money goes to bills and things that are necessary for living. People have a hard time getting themselves out of that circle and therefore most people get stuck there, (Income Inequality).

CONCLUSION

The American dream is a concept created a very long time ago that, since then, has shaped American society and how we think about America. By definition the American dream is idea that every American citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success through hard work, determination, and initiative, (American Dream). The concept about the American dream has always been the same but over time, people have changed it’s meaning into something else. The American dream has been turned into a competition between people, to become more successful than others and have a bigger house, better car and, overall, a better life. As stated before, the American dream is in essence about achieving success and being successful but it was never about being more successful than others. Everyone has their own ideas about what success is and in addition to that, everyone has their own goals and ideas about what kind of success they want to achieve. Fulfilling the American dream should not be about fulfilling the same dream, but instead, it should be based on what each individual desires. People need to stop comparing themselves to others because we all have our own journeys and we never know the motives behind each individual’s actions are. The original idea of what the American dream stands for has to be brought back. The idea that everyone is equal and should have an equal opportunity to reach their goals and be successful. For that to happen, there has to be a change in the American society, so we can be able to say that everyone has equal opportunities. The American economy has to change from being an “envy economy” back into what it was before, which is an “ambitious economy,” (Nohria), meaning that people have to shift their focus away from other people, over to themselves if success is what they are looking for, because that is how you achieve your own dreams.

Works Cited

Amadeo, Kimberly. “5 Ways Our Founding Fathers Protect The American Dream.” The Balance Small Business, The Balance, www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-american-dream-quotes-and-history-3306009.

“The American Dream Is a Fu*King Lie.” PaleoBOSS Lady, www.paleobosslady.com/blog/the-american-dream-is-a-lie.

“American Dream.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Nov. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream.

BridgeWorks. “The Evolution of the American Dream.” BridgeWorks, 24 July 2017, www.generations.com/2015/09/21/the-evolution-of-the-american-dream/.

Carter, Shawn M. “Less than 20% of Americans Say They're Living the American Dream-Here's Why.” CNBC, CNBC, 19 Sept. 2017, www.cnbc.com/2017/09/19/less-than-20-percent-of-americans-say-theyre-living-the-american-dream.html.

Dwyer, Dustin. “Five Facts about Achieving the American Dream.” State of Opportunity, stateofopportunity.michiganradio.org/post/five-facts-about-achieving-american-dream.

“Income Inequality.” Inequality.org, inequality.org/facts/income-inequality/.

“Hilfiger Launching Fashion Reality Show.” PEOPLE.com, Time Inc, people.com/celebrity/hilfiger-launching-fashion-reality-show/.

Jr., Ruben Navarrette. “Is Ted Cruz 'Post-Hispanic'?” The Daily Beast, The Daily Beast Company, 22 Jan. 2015, www.thedailybeast.com/is-ted-cruz-post-hispanic.

Nohria, Nitin. “Envy and the American Dream.” Harvard Business Review, 1 Aug. 2014, hbr.org/2013/01/envy-and-the-american-dream.

PragerU. “What's Killing the American Dream?” YouTube, YouTube, 26 Sept. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1nXxPMsOIs.

Productions, WorldBeat. “The Myth and Realities of the American Dream.” YouTube, YouTube, 22 Mar. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQvAsXfMkiw.

Shiller, Robert J. “The Transformation of the 'American Dream'.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 Aug. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/upshot/the-transformation-of-the-american-dream.html.

Smith, Samantha. “Most Say American Dream Is within Reach for Them.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 31 Oct. 2017, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/31/most-think-the-american-dream-is-within-reach-for-them/.

“The Souring of the American Dream.” Public Radio International, PRI, www.pri.org/stories/2011-11-21/souring-american-dream.

Star, Clovis. “The Collapse of The American Dream Explained Cartoon.” YouTube, YouTube, 9 Apr. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L4YIkYP5uU.

Tinervia, Karly. “Karly Tinervia.” Karly Tinervia, 1 Jan. 1970, karlytinervia15.blogspot.com/.

“Workforce #ChartOfTheWeek | The Fading American Dream?” SCPa Works, 7 May 2018, scpaworks.org/2018/05/workforce-chartoftheweek-the-fading-american-dream/.

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