American dream opinions - not in the US by Dina G

Queridos Amigos,
Por favor, si me pueden dar una ayudadita para una tarea escolar.
Para todos los que no viven o no conocen la USA (como dicen por hay), podrian decirme cual es el primer pensamiento cuando escuchan la frase “El sueño Americano” ? Que piensan de Estados Unidos, de la vida aqui?
Gracias por su ayuda :-)
Alee Soto, Cesia Abigail Galvez Guerra, Daniel Bolaños, Alma Cardona, Edwin Castaneda, Jp El Del Flow Divino Ponce, Katya Soto, Wil Romero, Manuel Martinez

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 Alee Soto “El sueño Americano”? Que piensan de Estados Unidos, de la vida aquí?

Es el cambio de vida mejor que se imaginan las personas, que desean viajar a ese país; en donde hay infinidad de “oportunidades” para los habitantes de países tercermundistas quienes con encontrar un trabajo de cuidar ancianos, limpiar edificios, casas, podar jardines u otras cosas como camareros, lava chuchos, son labores que no realiza la raza blanca, los dueños de esa primer potencia mundial y tales ocupaciones se las dejan al inmigrante en especial al latino, quien se siente que alcanzó la cúspide en esa nación; aunque sea con salarios bajos que allí se pagan; sin embargo, estos sueldos jamás nunca alcanzados en sus países, son para ellos como una fortuna y hasta les sirve para enviar un poco de ello a sus familiares que están en sus naciones de origen viviendo en una situación deplorable.
Este “sueño americano”, se convierte en realidad para aquellos y en nuestro caso en especial como latinos, a las personas que no se prepararon formándose hasta terminar sus estudios universitarios y lo que les queda es realizar el viaje “a la tierra prometida, donde hay para todos”; pero no todos tienen un empleo igualitario; porque aquí quienes tienen la mejor fuente de trabajo son la raza blanca que en su mayoría son preparados, que hablan hasta cinco idiomas o más, con maestrías y doctorados, en muchas disciplinas etc…
Mientras que los inmigrantes son una masa humana de gente que apenas tiene secundaria, analfabetas y eso permite que agarran lo que les den; es decir, cualquier trabajo y la paga la ven como si se han ganado la lotería”. “Dios siempre acompaña al desvalido” AMEN.

      Is the change for better life which they imagine people, who wish to travel to that country; in where there are plenty of "opportunities" for people in third world countries who find a job caring for elderly, clean buildings, houses, trimming gardens or other things like waiters, washing mixed, are work that does not make the white race, the owners of that first world power and such occupations is let the immigrant especially Latino, who feels that it reached the pinnacle in that nation; even with low wages which are paid there; However, these salaries never ever achieved in their countries, are for them as a fortune up serves to send a little of it to relatives that are in their Nations of origin living in a deplorable situation. This "American dream", becomes a reality for those and in our case especially as latinos, people who were not prepared to forming up to finish their university studies and what they have is the trip "to the promised land, where there is for all"; but not all have equal employment; because those who have the best source of working here are the white race that are mostly prepared, who speak five languages, or more, with master's degrees and doctorates, in many disciplines etc... While immigrants are a mass human people who just you have secondary, illiterate and that allows you to grab what you give; "i.e., (Translated by Bing)

Friday at 12:56am ·

https://www.facebook.com/alma.cardona.714

Alma Cardona El sueño americano es eso un sueño es la idea de tener otra opcion una oportunidad para cambiar el presente para procurar un futuro mejor con mejores oportunidades para nuestros hijos por supuesto aceptando sacrificios y todo eso que dice Ale pero para muchos es valido cuando el premio es ver a sus hijos profesionales y con mas calidad de vida..

The American dream is the idea of having another option, a chance to change the present to ensure a better future with better opportunities for our children of course accepting sacrifices and everything that says Ale but for many is valid when the prize is to see their professional children and with more quality of life.(Translated by Bing)

"My 2 cents about the American dream" Dina G

Dear friends,
I need some help if you can. I have a school project. Please tell me what you think about the following question: Do you still believe in the American Dream? What were your thoughts about “America” (as they call it) before coming to the US? Is it what you expected?
Thanks for your help
Leo Amaya,

Leo Amaya Well my 2 cents: I know most of us came from poor areas in el salvador. In my case for example, I came from living poor to living poorer. At age 14 I was brought here by mother bc my choices were not too many..either my father was gonna kill me with his violence or the civil war was gonna kill me. I had no way out, but when I got here things didn't get better as my mother made lil money and was renting a living room in a very small apartment. I was put in school two days after getting here..the culture shock for my system after realizing thee everything was not what I thought it would be was too much and I wanted to go back. I missed san Salvador. I missed everyone. I remember not having a quarter to buy not even a bag of chips in school. My mom used to buy me 5 for $10 t shirts from the swapmeet lol and I think I wore the same sweater for 3 years. As soon as I was able, I got a job a McDonald's and started helping my mom. We moved into our own place, a single apartment but we were happy bc we were alone. After turning 18, learning English and getting acustom to this culture, things started to change..for the better but w out papers it was hard. I made minimum wage for a few years and helped out mom as much as we could. After getting some experience I started getting better jobs, making better money and living better. By age 24 I knew I wanted to make my life here for good and had no desire to go back. I was lucky enough to become legal when I was 26 and that helped me get even better jobs bc I was always hungry and ambitious..we brought my younger bro from el Salvador and we helped him so he wouldn't go through what we went through. By age 29 I was making good money, living good. I had my own car, own place, good friends and my family was doing good financially. I never chose to go down the wrong path and I always respected the laws of this great country. At age 30, I met a great woman and was lucky enough to get a job which could allow me to have a family and be financially stable. I married this great woman after 6 years and we now have a 5 month old beautiful baby girl. We have a strong bond my girls and me. I am greatful for the opportunitues I have been given, especially without a college education. Did I found the American dream? Am I living it? Yes..my own American dream, my family..my friends..my beautiful daughter..a stable job, good health and a place I call home. That's my American dream bc I made it mine. And I wouldnt change a single thing ;)

Friday at 10:09pm

Some opinions about the American dream by Dina

Dear friends,
I need some help if you can. I have a school project. Please tell me what you think about the following question: Do you still believe in the American Dream? What were your thoughts about “America” (as they call it) before coming to the US? Is it what you expected?
Thanks for your help
Leo Amaya, Cesar Rivera, Salvador Duran, Eduardo Flores, Roberto Fuentes, Vilma Gonzalez, Maggie Garcia, Gladys Merlos, Noe-meé González-Lemus, William Hernandez

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Noe-meé González-Lemus and William Hernandez like this.

Thursday at 11:44pm

Noe-meé González-Lemus Hummm good question Dina!
It all depends what the “American Dream” means to each individual. Let me give you a brief summary of my personal achievements while living in the United States.
I lived in one of the poorest areas in El Salvador. I attended one of the worst schools from my city at that time. Like every poor child, I always desired to have candy, nice shoes (out of the uniform style), a bicycle, a nice backpack to take to school, etc...Whenever I heard a foreigners speak a different language around me, I wanted to have a conversation with them…I never did, nor would my parents have ever achieved those things for me in “El Salvador”.
I came to the States, and I knew it was going to be different…so guess what?
I went to an awesome high school, learned to speak English, I’ve met people from all over the world, partied like a kid in their 20s should, and graduated from college.
Yes. I am not rich, but the opportunities I’ve been given in this country are limitless compared to what I would have gotten in El Salvador.
The results are = I have an awesome job at one of the best media companies, I’ve traveled a bit, I never got a bicycle, but my Lexus compensated a bit for that. These are not bragging rights, this is just a piece of the “American Dream Pie” that I want to share with you.

Income Inequality: Too Big To Ignore

This is really interesting imagery, from the article Income Inequality: Too Big Ignore, representing Capitalism, in the U.S, which affects lower income individuals most negatively. When immigrants come to this country most are forced to work really low income jobs just to survive, while the rich (high income earners) rely on lower income workers hard work rather than their own...
Any thoughts?

by: Michelle Graham

 

Works Cited

Frank, Robert H. "Income Inequality: Too Big to Ignore." New York Times 16 Oct. 2010: 583. Print.

Is the American Dream Dead? by August Turak

August Turak, Contributor

I write about Service and Selflessness: the Secret to Success.

Leadership

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7/02/2012 @ 3:34PM |7,098 views

Is The American Dream Dead? The Four Inconvenient Truths Behind Income Inequality

In his latest book The Price of Inequality, Columbia’s Joseph Stiglitz argues that America “is no longer the land of opportunity” and “the ‘American Dream’ is a myth.” This Nobel laureate marshals a mind numbing array of statistics to argue that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and that never the twain shall meet: Social mobility in America, says Stiglitz, is a thing of the past.But apparently all is not lost, according to Stiglitz if we just make Brazil our model by improving education and nutrition and eliminating “corporate welfare” the American Dream may yet rise phoenix-like from the ashes.
While I share the concerns of Stiglitz and other apocalyptic prophets over poverty and income inequality, I find the causes he cites and the medicine he prescribes far less compelling. Our educational system is in fact abominable; better nutrition is always a good thing; and “too big to fail” corporate welfare is inexcusable. But there is a far more serious underlying cause to income inequality that almost no one, including Dr. Stiglitz, wants to talk about. This elephant in the parlor is apparently too big to be acknowledged let alone ushered back to the zoo.
The Wall Street Journal recently cited testimony that Ron Haskins of the left-leaning Brookings Institution gave before the Senate Finance Committee. Haskins emphasizes “the importance of individual initiative in reducing poverty and promoting economic success.” He cites “three elementary rules” that based on census data can “virtually assure” that young people and their families will not only “escape poverty,” but have a “72% chance of joining the middle class (defined as above $55,000 a year in 2010).”
Rule 1: Complete at least a high school education.
Rule 2: Work full time.
Rule 3: Be married but wait until at least age 21 before getting married and having children.
Haskins goes on to say that the prospects for people who violate all three rules are almost exactly the reverse: their chances of being poor soars to 77% and their chance of making the middle class craters to just 4%.
“Individual effort and good decisions about the big events in life are more important than government programs. Call it blaming the victim if you like, but decisions made by individuals are paramount in the fight to reduce poverty and increase economic opportunity in America.”
Haskins willingness to step out onto such thin, politically incorrect ice is incredibly refreshing, but there are two additional points I would add. First a fourth rule: Don’t abuse alcohol and drugs. Second, the most critical of Haskins’ rules is get married, stay married, and give your children the incredible leg up that only a home that includes a father can provide.
As if in answer to Haskins’ prayers, one week later the Journal ran an article, Asians Top Immigration Class, based on a Pew Research Center study: The Rise of Asian Americans. According to the study’s editor, “Asians exceed Americans on educational credentials and socioeconomic markers of success despite being predominately first generation immigrants.” Half of Asians get a college degree compared with 30% of Americans and their median household income is $66,000 versus $49,000 for Americans.
Apparently Asian immigrants have yet to get the memo from Stiglitz that the American Dream is dead, but what is most striking are the reasons that Pew cites for their remarkable success. “As a group, Asians place more value than Americans overall on marriage, parenting, and careers.”

Asians, according to Pew, are “more likely than the overall U.S population to be married, or live in a multigenerational household, and their children are more likely to be raised in a two-parent home.” As for blaming the victim, “Irrespective of their country of origin, Asians overall believe that American parents are too soft on their children.”
The editor concludes, “They [Asians] are the highly skilled workforce of the 21^st century, but they also bring traditional values (my italics).
Asian immigrants are living breathing evidence that the American Dream is not only alive and well, but is not living in Brazil as Dr. Stiglitz would have us believe. However like oil from Saudi Arabia, according to Pew we are now importing the much maligned “family values” that make the American Dream possible from China, India, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
Dr. Stiglitz’s wrong-headed diagnosis is doubly dangerous because it fuels class envy while reinforcing the cult of victimhood that has proven so damaging to African-Americans in particular. What is moribund is not the American Dream, but the traditional values that Asian-Americans embrace. The same values that made the American Dream possible in the first place for my own immigrant grandparents and millions like them.

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 I’ve argued repeatedly that great leaders face facts no matter how distasteful those facts may be. Communism for example is at heart neither an economic nor a political model. Instead it is a theory of human nature that tried -unsuccessfully and at the point of a bayonet- to prove that people are essentially cooperative and that competition and private property were unnatural aberrations foisted on people by a corrupt social system.
But what is far worse than being wrong is that Communism’s apparatchiks kept at it for 70 years despite overwhelming evidence that there was something fundamentally wrong with their underlying assumption about people. Advocates were so emotionally invested that they clung to the notion that Marxist theory was right and merely the implementation wrong.
All the Communist cadres needed was “more time” and a few more gulags to bring their worker’s paradise to fruition. To this day there are otherwise rational people who argue that “authentic” Communism was “never tried,” and that Marx will yet be proven right about the nature of the human animal.
America is in an analogous situation. Despite compelling evidence like the achievements of Asian immigrants, we refuse to accept the basic truth about family and parenting that our ancestors spent countless generations working out through trial and error. The so-called “social experiments” and “alternative lifestyles” that we’ve indulged in over the last sixty years under the banner of “diversity” and “tolerance” simply do not work for the overwhelming majority of Americans. For all too many, alternative lifestyles are just a one way ticket to underachievement and a cycle of poverty.
The inconvenient truth is that America’s most urgent problems are not economic, political, or even educational: They are social and cultural. The fundamental causes of income inequality are illegitimacy, divorce, single parent households, promiscuity, and a cultural miasma that treats fathers as ancillary and largely superfluous sperm donors.
Getting the proverbial cat back into the bag is a daunting task, but we will never begin unless we first recognize the real source of income inequality and poverty in America. Instead, like Communist apparatchiks, we will remain in denial and follow Dr. Stiglitz and his legions of acolytes down the politically safe and correct path of treating symptoms with remedies that only make the patient worse.
Instead of burying his head in the sands of Brazil it is high time Dr. Stiglitz looked to the rising sun of Asia’s immigrants for answers.
Follow me on Twitter @augustturak, Facebook http://facebook.com/aturak, or check out my website http://www.augustturak.com/ for more tips and strategies for becoming a great leader – and to discover how service and selflessness is the secret to success in business and in life.

The American Dream

By: Michelle Graham, Dina Gonzalez, Jake, Irma Sanchez, and Oscar

10-11-12

The American Dream

The American Dream is a goal wanted by all yet only comes to fruition for some. America is generally seen as the land of opportunity for most human beings in the world. Ideas are somehow perpetuated that it is quite like an Omni powerful Utopia, opportunity for freedom, security, social, and financial advancement (King 572). Most individuals from foreign nations come to America with these expectations without the knowledge that it is an imperfect society, just like many other societies. One of the most famous quotes from the Declaration of Independence explicitly promises, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (TDOI). Having a government declare claims to give all people a fair shot makes the American dream seem even more reassuring. Yes, the American dream is possible but, however, one must acknowledge the flaws in the system. The declaration of independence is supposed to be the foundation of The United Sates of America, yet people are never informed that there are unspoken sociological clauses that include only a select amount of Americans. Being in a capitalistic society, it is easy for one to not be treated fairly or even attain reciprocity for their hard work, whether they are citizens or non-citizens. One must explore the pros and cons about any society to fully understand what he or she is committing to before bestowing perpetual loyalty for any country. We hope to find more answers basing our research on various articles that were first published in the New York Times, but were later on published in an Anthology in the book “They Say I Say”. We will critically examine the issues of equality, ability for advancement, how immigrants view American society before they come, and how immigrants view America after their societal immersion.    

 Works Cited

Jefferson, Thomas, Benjamin Franklin, and Et Al. "The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America." The Declaration of Independence. Independence Hall Association, Thomas Kindig, 4 July 1995. Web. 10 Oct. 2012. <http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/>.

King, Brandon. "The American Dream: Dead, Alive, or on Hold?" They Say I Say. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2012. 572-73. Print.