American Dream Inequalities

What is the American Dream? Is it home ownership, gaining fame or wealth, having a great family or is it gaining a peace of mind? Many people have different versions of what the American Dream is, some people believe the dream is lost, and some people are right in the middle and still believe the American Dream is still alive. “The American Dream” by Brandon King debates about what the true state is left in the American Dream now. Throughout the essay, King asks if the American Dream is dead, alive, on hold or just changing due to economic hardship. King believes that the American Dream is still alive even though there are people who believe it's not, and is defined today as the ability to work hard, plan for the forthcoming and have a

In her 1961 essay “What Has Happened to the American Dream?”, Eleanor Roosevelt stated that “no single individual and no single group has an exclusive claim to the American dream...but we have all a vision of what it is, not merely as a hope and an aspiration, but as a way of life, which we can come ever closer to attaining its ideal form if we keep our belief in its essential value”. The belief of pursuing the American dream is one that has been instilled since the formation of the country itself, and with those beliefs come those who pursue it. Unfortunately, achieving this dream is not without difficulty, and those who realize the true obstacles in front of them turn to other ways to sustain themselves in this nation. Not everyone has an equal opportunity to pursue the American dream because of social exclusion, the government prioritizing the wrong issues, and economic gaps, which has thus led to organized crime, however some say that all citizens do have the equal opportunity.

The American Dream can be lived by anyone who tries to make due with what they can afford at the time they are in and the situation that’s upon them.

In society, many people will say that everyone has equal opportunities. However, it is not the case for minorities. Due to the history of slavery, people will never see blacks and whites as equal. Mantsios asserts that Americans in the United States do not identify each other based on our class, instead of by our race, ethnic group, or geographic location. As a result, the indigenous have fewer opportunities and advantages. Mantsios states, “Racial and gender domination are other forces that hold people down” (Pg 10) ,revealing how our race and gender limits us from being successful because of the tradition of discriminating people by race and gender. An example of this issue would be that if a black and a white male were both working the same job and position, most often, the white male would get promoted and have higher paying paycheck because of the discrimination placed in our society. This disadvantage targets minorities, and is a reason why middle-class individuals will never attain the “American

the numbers you can not help but be outraged at how disadvantaged the hard working minorities

getting equal pay for the same jobs and not getting hired for other reasons. The women in

There are nearly as many women as there are men working, yet, as it was discovered in 2011, on average, a woman will only earn seventy-seven cents for every dollar that a man earns. Women owned businesses make up for over a

Another main contributor to the deterioration of the American dream are the societal generalizations that limit opportunities for the ones who fall in the “Inferior” categories. Gender and race are two of the main categories that society creates stereotypes around, limiting the opportunities for all who are considered “Weaker”. One example of these generalizations can be within the higher educational system. Many colleges have higher acceptance rates for males than females, as well as a higher acceptance rate for white people rather than people of color. A 2009 Princeton study found that “Asian-Americans had to score 140 points higher on their SATs than whites, 270 points higher than Hispanics and 450 points higher than blacks to have the same chance of admission to leading universities.”(NY Times). With the obvious additional racial barrier it

Females are not the only group that do not have access to the American Dream, minorities also have a difficult time getting the American Dream.

Overview: Men make more money the women doing the same job, even though, women hold 70% of jobs (Flander, p. 20-22). For every dollar a white man makes women make 77 cents, black women make 64 cents, and Latinas make 56 cents, that’s just for independant women, women with families make even less than that.

Demographics in America have been reshaped in the past century. With an expansive immigration rate, the United States has grown to be a diverse country. The United States is quickly moving from being a nation that has a White Majority and minority groups of different races and ethnicities to one in which no single racial or ethnic group will be in the majority (Wilson, Gutierrez, Chao 2013). Although many minority groups are continuing to migrate on to U.S territory, some have surpassed others making them the more dominant minority in America. Latinos have surpassed African America as the largest minority, and the portion of the country that is white has fallen from roughly ninety percent to sixty percent (Hajnal, Rivera 2014).

The American Dream has many variables in individuals from different backgrounds, depending on what they feel should be achieved. Many of us consider the American Dream evolves around us by what we’re advised to believe. However, the belief of beginning with nothing and ending with the hope of becoming someone has persuaded many people from around the world regardless of their background to migrate to America. Not to mention the obstacles that come along with their journey has assured us to be more conscious of the path we prefer to walk upon. Whether it’s short or long, is optional, since there are limited opportunities, with the growing population. The knowledge and understanding of the diversity around us should be noticed, and always taken

Promotion and pay gap are the main concerns in gender discrimination. Many studies in the past and present have shown that women do not get promoted as fast as

From the beginning of time the male and female have been expected to perform certain roles in society. Males have been expected to work and provide for their family while the female raises the children, cooks, cleans and keeps the house in order. Today many women have broken that tradition and are starting their careers and becoming more independent. Even though females today are braking away from that stereotype, they are being discriminated in the work place because there are still individuals out there that believe that women should play a certain role and that they are not strong enough to work in a cooperation or

Gender equality in salary is always unfair. Men employees always receive higher wages than women employees had received. Companies would like to hire men employees compared to women employees because they believed women employees are weak and cannot competent in the workplace although they have abilities and skills. As a conclusion, our research has proven that this theory was true.