What is the American Dream? 

I have heard of it as “owning a house, surrounded by a white-picket fence, with a family you love inside.”

Though was that always the case? Some quick research shows that the idea of a house on its own plot of land, the picket-fence and a wife who stays inside and cooks while the man works rose to prominence as veterans returned from World War II. Property developers wanted the home-bound soldiers to use the money that Uncle Sam paid them on more “stuff.” New cars, no more apartments, vast, personal yards and private family homes. That ‘dream’ was invented in the same way that diamonds used to be worth far less than other ‘precious’ stones like sapphires or emeralds, a clever advertisement campaign convinced women and men that love is best expressed in little carbon triangles which have been cut in pretty ways (and that only real [not lab-grown] diamonds which are harvested by modern slave labor and bloody wars in Africa) are good enough to show your love to your wife.

The first time that “The American Dream” was made into a popular term was in 1931, in a book written by James Truslow Adams called The Epic of America, except that dream is without houses or fences or apron-wearing wives.  

“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 his ability or achievement…It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

“...it is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely…” this interjection by Truslow Adams is ruled by the last word in the line, ‘merely’, which puts ‘motor cars and high wages’ at the very end of the American Dream, or, better envisioned as cars and high wages are simply an after-effect of the Dream being realized. 

One of the express reasons that the United States rose to be the wealthiest, and most powerful nations the world has ever seen is because she, at her philosophical core, avoids rejecting people for cultural or religious backgrounds. Sure there might be some people stateside which are more bigoted and make that process more strenuous for some – but look across the seas to the Middle East: Iran does not suffer Christians in its borders, nor does China. It does not matter how pagan one is, or how barbarian of a culture one was born from. 

It is a simple math reflected in the separation of divisions in sports: 

As I understand it, the greater the pool of people, and wealth which a university has to pull from, the higher rank it is given, due to its likelihood to produce more talented or athletic individuals for its programs. What this means for nations of the globe is that ‘the more population they (nations) have to draw from, the greater heights which can be reached.’ Prior to the invention of the United States, nations were ethno-centric with singular religions. That the people which aided the advancement of their particular nation in the ever-competition against its neighbors were (almost) always of the same skin color, culture, and religion. But America? 

“The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone…”

Our women have birthed many babies – a nation!~ and we have taken in the refugees of other nations and combined we as a country have sailed upwards – that is of course until right around now, when America is facing a double-shock of its own invention: that some seem greedy to displace refugees who do work, who don’t commit crimes and who even pay taxes, all the while couples in the United States are having fewer babies than ever. Things like wages which have not paralleled the cost of living, access to healthcare, and a doom-sounding social media are all bars which are prohibitive in educated persons having children. 

It is a fact that a country as an entity needs every man and woman pairing to have more than 2.1 babies per couple to simply replace the generation prior – or to gain that population instead through steady immigration (the 0.1 is to account for deaths before maturity). It’s not that a couple must have two-plus children, but if they value the future-economic growth of the country there must be either a stable or increasing population, rather than a declining one. 

To continue the American Dream for everyone – in part – either immigration reform, or an economic and healthcare shift to increase family size and ratio is needed.

“...with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement,”

I suppose the real question at the end of this essay is not necessarily if you, the reader, believe Truslow’s Adams’ original definition to be the true American Dream, but if you, the reader, believe all are entitled to it, or just your specific cultural or social circle. Perhaps if it is so and this dream is framed for only the few, rather than all the great and good men and women of the Earth, then there is a part of America which is dead for in the 1930’s when giants still roamed the earth it was written: 

…but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”