Wake Up, America

1. What is your definition of The American Dream? Describe some examples of people you know, have heard about, or have read about that have dreamed an American Dream.
Maybe it's how saying Dr. before a person's name immediately adds 100 points to their IQ level that used to make me think that the American Dream could only be achieved through hard work and a killer education, specifically a PhD. However, when I entered this realm called reality I found that that was a complete lie. My abuelos came from Mexico to the United States with a hundred dollars, rudimentary English, and a newborn baby that would grow up to be my mother. I'm sure the thought of how that happened would have horrified my abuelos had they not been so busy working. They found jobs in the jewelry industry at Foley's before they created their own jewelry business when my mom was a child. By the time I was born, they were making $200,000 a year, lived in a nice house, and still didn't have a degree higher than a high school diploma. It is from them that I learned that education isn't the key to success. It's hard work.That's until I met trust fund babies, who's sole job was not to work hard but to simply maintain the money. They were the nanny for their many dollar bills, and these dollar bills liked to go on vacation and buy nice clothes. But, with the nanny's kids came a lack of appreciation for where the money came from and so by the time they were old, the money was gone and the grandparent who worked hard to make the money was dead. Both the money and the relative were gone, one with the Earth.It was from this that I concluded that money was what kept the American Dream going and that a need for money is what gave the American Dream that initial push. Money that the current generation can spend and apply to their own lives came from an old relative who achieved the American Dream makes it that much more real in the mind of the new generations. This money directly affects us and we notice that, and when we're told that it's because of the American Dream, then the idea of the American Dream becomes real. And so, the American Dream is created, but whether it died or not is unknown because the idea of it lives on. I think the American Dream is that hard work can take you anywhere, but whether the American Dream is the American Reality is yet to be known.