Pink Flamingo: The Destruction Of The American Dream

The “American Dream” is a lifestyle that many citizens of the country fantasize about living. Yet, it’s shocking to think that this country is somewhere that poverty and luxury live only a block apart. The American culture is one that is despised by most and idolized by few. Some believe the nation to be ironically contradictive of how it is portrayed; they believe it to be an American nightmare rather than a dream. Others chase green cards and citizenship to socially move upward from blue collar customs to achieve a white picket fence lifestyle.

The culture being portrayed as being accompanied with unlimited luxury and wealth is a common hoax. Not only being believed by foreigners, but also believed by the nation’s inhabitants. It is understandable

In the speech given by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, approximately a decade in difference from the rise of the pink flamingo, he discusses the cause and effect of price inflation on an economically damaged country. The United States Steel corporation set the wave for Americans when deciding to increase the prices of their steel ¨by some 6 dollars a ton¨ (Kennedy). Kennedy characterizes this sudden act as ¨unjustifiable and irresponsible¨ in regards to the impoverished and middle class that occupy the country (Kennedy). He suggests that if other companies in the industry make the choice to inflate the prices of their products, it could “seriously handicap our efforts to prevent an inflationary spiral from eating up the pensions of our older citizens, and our new gains in purchasing power” (Kennedy). If companies choose to imitate the American Steel Corporation, it would drastically set back the progress already made to repair the adverse economic system. Actions like this made by “executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility” are the shoulders of which the culture of poverty in this nation rest (Kennedy). Chasers of the dream fail to realize that the negligent actions of such individuals, being a crucial set back to achieving the idealistic American lifestyle, is the cause for the immense potency of the culture

Richard Rodriguez gives a narrative of his migration from his homeland, Mexico, to California. He explains his concluding impressions of the state and contrasts it to the culture he knew in Mexico. Rodriguez analyzes what principles he believed California to be developed on: being ¨constructed on a Protestant faith in individualism,¨ and having the choice to ¨heal the sixteenth-century tear of Europe,¨ and emphasizes that his concluding thoughts completely contrasted what he originally expected (Rodriguez). He comes to a conclusion of California being ¨America 's wild child,¨ and ¨such a sad place¨ (Rodriguez). However, Mexico being a ¨country of tragedy¨, in his eyes, had ¨sweeter children,¨ and ¨more opulent funerals” in comparison to the disappointing cultural behavior he witnessed in California