“The Lost Beautifulness” by Anzia Yezierska, “Winning the Future: Improving Education for the Latino Community,” and the excerpt from A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass each tell a story about disappointment in the American Dream. Discussing at least TWO of the assigned readings here, give your opinion about how the American Dream gives great hope but also makes false promises. Then respond to two other students.
Student #1
The American Dream has always been portrayed as the ideal lifestyle you could have if only you could make it to America. When the mom is painting the kitchen she talks about her American dream being as simple as having a home for her son to be proud to show off. The dadd doesn’t believe in fixing up a house that isn’t they’re and instead saving the money to invest in something that could own. The dad believes the country is built on democracy and that everyone is equal when in reality the system is built to keep the rich even richer and keep the poor people even more poor and dependent. I personally believe the American dream is never really achieved by most through many people work hard to come here or even people that have lived here its just impossible to achieve a certain lifestyle without the right amount capital. Frederick Douglass gives a speech about freedom and how African American were treated as less than human being because of slavery and that was no where near close to being freedom. While giving his speech he talks about the American Dream being nonexistent for the black men and women of society.
Student #2
In “Winning the Future: Improving Education for the Latino Community”, President Barack Obama discusses early childhood development and states that Latino children at the preschool level are not as educationally developed as non-Latino children. President Obama believes that creating an accessible pre-school education program would be a solution to this problem. This solution places the responsibility of early childhood development in the state’s hands. Part of the American dream is the accessibility to free education. The problem with this is that there is still no expectation for children’s parents to nurture and educate their young children in their homes. Having a free pre-school education program sounds good but in reality, the same children that are not being nurtured and educated at an early age at home will still not be nurtured and educated at home. The breakdown in our family units and the lack of familial education is a huge problem within today’s society. His proposition will not change that core issue.
“The Lost Beautifulness” by Anzia Yezierska is a story about a mother that works hard every day to provide for her only son. Her son is away at war and her only desire is to have a beautiful home with a beautifully painted kitchen for her son to come home to. This is a tale of an immigrant that dreams of all America have to hold. She has a son that she is so proud of. He has gone off to defend this beloved country. Her son is fighting for the freedoms we all enjoy. But Yezierska was being taken advantage of by her landlord. He raised her rent repeatedly until he squeezed her out of the beautiful home that she scraped and saved to renovate. The day her son finally made it home was the day she was evicted. Her son came home after fighting for this country to find his mother with all her belongings sitting on the sidewalk. The problem with the reality of the American dream is that people are involved and people are flawed. This landlord was greedy and selfish and cared nothing of his tenants. It meant nothing to him to take an old woman’s home away from her. Dreams become destroyed because people are involved and so this landlord destroyed the beautiful world this mother lived in.
