The American Dream Immigrants

“Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)” - Langston Hughes An immigrant escapes poverty with only the clothes on his back, and hope in his heart. Clutching the frail hand of his child he lifts his weary eyes towards the road sign before him: “Next exit, The American Dream”. Immigrants, contrary to the belief of many Americans, are truly amazing people. They migrate from their country, their jobs, and often, their home and family, in search of a better life; The American Dream. The truth is however, immigrants are not the only individuals in search of this patriotic ideal. Today, according to the United States

An ideal that has been deeply rooted in liberal philosophy ever since John Locke put quill to paper and wrote “ “Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.” in the second treatise of government in December 1689. However, equality, or more specifically, the lack therefore, Has prevented many Americans from holding the American Dream in their calloused hands since the very conception of the United States of America. From the Jim crow laws of the early to mid 20th century to the subconscious misogyny of the job force, the American Dream cannot be universally accessible as long as race and gender inequality persists. Moreover, many people still believe that gender and racial discrimination is not a valid issue in the United States. They acknowledge that discrimination used to be commonplace, but many do not empathize with the currently oppressed. “Didn’t we elect the first black president 10 years ago? And didn’t we almost elect a woman president 2 years ago?”. Although it is true that slavery and Jim Crow have been abolished in the United States, and women 's suffrage has been granted, the underlying

We as Americans are indifferent to the injustice that surrounds us. We see the homeless on the street, but we don’t stop to ask them how they’re doing. We hear phrases like “Man, that shits hella gay” being thrown around on a daily basis, but we never stop to think about the LGBT community whose reality has become a derogatory term. We pass by the ghettos of Detroit and the slums of South Chicago, but when a child dies from gang warfare we don’t register them as a fellow human being, but as a statistic. It is this indifference that prevents many from achieving the American Dream. By proliferating indifference we turn a literal blind eye to those in need when sometimes, all a person needs is an opportunity and a starting point. Many will say that “well if they weren’t so goddamn lazy, maybe they wouldn’t be poor.” Although it is true that the American Dream, by definition, is achievable for those who work hard for it, sometimes hard work is simply not enough. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr once proclaimed in the 1960s, “It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.” The moment we begin to realize that the American Dream is NOT achievable for all is the moment we begin to synthesize solutions to level the playing field so that America may be the dream that it once