American Dream

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American Dream
The American Dream is a philosophy that everybody in America, including immigrants and citizens who started in poor conditions, has an equivalent open door in making monetary and social progress in the United States. Despite the fact that the expression did not exist until 1931 when James Truslow Adams referred to the wonder like this in his book “The Epic of America,” the way of life of the American Dream has been available since the start of this nation, as we presently remember it. Immigrants converged to America in the seventeenth and eighteenth hundreds of years with the guarantee of religious opportunity and chances for financial thriving. The American Dream, which widely connects with the political issues of this nation, has of late become a belief system that has blurred away. As Donald Trump commented, “The truth of the matter is, the American Dream is dead,” as he declared his presidential bid recently. Bernie Sanders made a discourse addressing oligarchic propensities in America on the Senate floor in 2014 “What Happened to the America Dream?” In a speech in February, Jeb Bush declared that the “American Dream has turned into a hallucination.” Most presidential race applicants are battling with the promise to recreate “the American Dream.” To in the end make an America in which all subjects — paying little attention to personality or childhood — have a break even with an open door for achievement would be an incredible achievement.

Though the American Dream has existed for more years than most people and the fact that it has kept failing people, Americans keep dreaming.
Most Americans dream of economic prosperity and a debt free life. This has proven to allude most of the people, but it is a reality to the rich few of the society. The fact that this is not a reality for most Americans prove that the American Dream is just but a dream invented by the people in the 19th century to try and give hope to the poor who continue to languish in absolute poverty while the rich thrive and enjoy their wealth at the expense of the poor. This is comparable to the life in the 1870s.This period was the time of the great Mobilier scandal that saw the Mobilier company get te construction rights of the creek bridge through corruption. This is an example of the rich exploiting the poor and powerless people to get what they want. In 1873, the Congress approved a salary raise for the Congressmen and all government officials which meant that there would be a rise in the taxes paid by the people, and this meant that those who had no jobs would suffer more than those in the government positions(Brown 291).
The American dream is nothing new, and neither does it start with the great Historian James Truslow. The dream is a philosophy that existed since the beginning of America, but the Americans back then did not have a name for the theory. All-Americans back in the 1700s and the 1800s all dreamt of having the same thing that the Americans are fighting for today which is Democracy for all people and equality in the social life. Back in the 1700s the native Americans who were the Indians fought the white settlers for a right to their land and all their resources. In 1872, Captain Jack, a Modoc leader led his people out of the reservations where they had pushed to by the white settlers. He took them to a former Modoc land that had a small river where they could fish and harvest some roots for food. The Indian Beaureu cautioned Jack for this action and ordered him to take the people back to the reservation. When Jack refused to heed to this directive and let his people starve in the reservation. He chose to ignore the directive and fight for the democratic right of the people to the land. Late in the same year troopers led by Major Jacko were sent to ensure that Jack and his people left the river (Brown 222-225). Just like the Indians in the 1870s, Americans today fight for the right to stay in their homes but most of them end up losing due to their economic state. Many Americans today lose their houses to the banks since they owe them and can’t pay the loans.
Racial discrimination is a non-appreciated treatment by the black Americans. An end to the mistreatments is a dream of all the blacks Americans but this dream remains just a dream to most of them. Blacks were mistreated in the 1900s to the 1920s until they began the fight for their rights. In 1925, a black doctor from Detroit worked his way from the ghetto and managed to buy a house in a previously all-white neighbourhood. The whites did not approve of this and the blacks could not allow the doctor to be evicted from the community just because he was black. After his arrival in the neighbourhood, a crowd gathered outside his house and one of the doctors’ defenders shot one of the white men who wanted the doctor evicted (Boyle 14). The shooting started a new war between the blacks and whites. The war ended up in the courts and it led to the rise of Attorney Clarence Darrow who argued that the case was nothing but prejudice. The 11 blacks accused of the shooting on Gallard street were released and the real shooter was also found not guilty and it was ruled as self-defense (Boyle 67). The case is an example of blacks’ mistreatment that has carried on to the current age. Blacks currently live in the poorest states in the U.S like Detroit and Compton apart from the few who have fought their way up. Black oppression and racial discrimination are a significant problem for the black Americans who always end up spending some years in prison for petty crimes like stealing since they cannot get better jobs due to the discrimination.
Americans nowadays dream of a peaceful America and spreading the peace to te rest of the globe. Peace in the world is still a work in progress since most nations in the world are at war with one another over natural resources or over power. This was the case in the Second World War in 1939-1945. The world remained apart as the war went on and soldiers killed each with no mercy (Sledge 19). Sledge describes the war as one where cruelty and mercilessness were the key rules. The American soldiers killed the Japanese soldiers and even went to the extent of removing their teeth as well as mutilating them (Sledge 57). The Second World War and the current wars around the globe are an excellent example of the non-existence of peace in the world.
Food security all over the world is a big concern and many Americans always engage in charitable events to try to feed the hungry all over the world. Therefore, food security is one of the dreams of many Americans who wish to end the deaths of many hungry children. The world depends on farming for most of its food and farming can be impossible at times due to the natural calamities like typhoons and floods that were out every crop planted. These calamities are always a significant setback in feeding the people. For instance, the Durst bowl in the 1930s in the U.S and Canada was the beginning of a severe drought experienced in America. The Dust Bowl forced many families to abandon their farms and to move to new lands as their farms were rendered useless by the Bowl, which carried away all the topsoil through wind erosion (Egan 15). The families that depended on farming as their primary source of livelihood were left poor and with no food.
In conclusion, the American Dream has been in existence from the beginning of times but to some people it does not exist. The American Dream is real to most of the rich in America but to most of the poor people it is just a fantasy that is not and will never be real. As explained above many people in America are dreamers but their dreams do not turn into reality and, therefore, it is safe to say that the American Dream only exists to the chosen few who can afford a perfect and luxurious life.

References
Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. 2005. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Print.
Boyle, Kevin. Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age. 2004. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. 1970. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Sledge, Eugene. With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. 1981. New York: Ballantine Books.