The American Dream

Does being American mean that you’re an American citizen, or does it mean that you have the same rights and decisions as someone who is a successful American citizen? These decisions include choices you make in order to better yourself in life, whether it has to do with your choice in career, or what you want to do in life. Making decisions, and having choices comes with freedom, as a person, and that reflects on being an American everywhere in the world, even though you’ve never been in America. To be an American means that you have the freedom, and rights to do what you want, be who you are, and be/ become who you want. This right of having the freedom to do what you want, can be elaborated by someone’s life chances.

The United States is built up of different ethnic groups such as Latinos, Asians, African- Americans, Native Americans, etc. People from these groups speak different languages. In the U.S. majority of the people speak English; one might think that English is the official language, but the U.S. does not have an official language. Some might have a problem with this idea. In “Why the U.S. Needs an Official Language” by Mauro E. Mujica, he argues that America needs to adopt English as its language. He states many factors on why the U.S. needs an official language are because it costs too much if people do learn it and he believes the U.S. is losing its sense of unity. I disagree with Mujica, I do not believe the U.S. needs an official language

When people can’t speak the new language they can’t communicate, this means they can’t get a job, which means they can’t get money, which means they can’t reach the American dream.

The "American Dream" is an idea that has always been different throughouttime. It changes in diverse forms and in the end involves success. The "American Dream" was a phrase used by the American people and peoplewanting to become American. It was always the idea that you can become a success. This is true in a partial way, but the true "American Dream" is that with somework and determination anyone can build themselves up in the economic classsystem.

"The American Dream is that any man or woman, despite of his or her background, can change their circumstances and rise as high as they are willing to work” (Fabrizio Moreira). For many years, men and women struggled to achieve the idealistic life of living on independent terms. Many characters in Of Mice and Men work in order to pursue and achieve the American Dream that consisted of having their own house and income. Characters in the book may use that dream to help the overcome their life struggles and personal problems. Of Mice and Men tells the story of two friends, George and Lennie, who find themselves on a ranch in pursuit of their dreams. Unfortunately for them, circumstances beyond their control cost Lennie and George their dream and much more. In Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Steinbeck portrays how dreams create a false sense of hope in order to cover up the realities of life through George, Curley’s wife, and Candy.

Language is considered a vital tool in the construction of someone’s identity and an expression of culture. English is the most widely spoken language in the world. The number of people who speak it as a second language is increasing dramatically. In the last couple of decades immigrants have chosen to make the United States their home, but some proceeded with caution by slowly adapting to the English language and culture. Others don’t want to learn and adapt to the English culture simply because they believe it will separate them from their own cultures and traditions. Therefore, the question struggling to be answered is, should English be the official language in the United States?

Shahid Khan comments his own experience in an interview with Serena Solomon: “I can't conduct a conversation in three minutes. Maybe I take ten minutes. I don't think in English. This is how an immigrant brain works. I talk in my head in Urdu, but then I have to speak in English.”(Serena Solomon). Do not speak the same language is one of the worst situations that an immigrant has to face with. This is exactly what happened to me when I came to United States. I was looking for a job and I needed to speak with the manager of a store. In Spain people learn English, however, most of them don’t use it and when the time runs they forget important concepts. I couldn’t have a normal conversation with the manager, because all what I wanted to said my brain processed it in Spanish. I didn’t get the job because I did not know how to speak in English. Unfortunately, this is something that every immigrant with a different language have to face

If you were to ask anyone about what they thought was “the American dream” most of them would say something along the lines of a movie themed in the 50’s. A nuclear family, living in a house with red shutters and a blue door, the house is an astounding off white, there is a white picket fence around the house and the grass is cut to perfection. The family stands outside on their lawn playing tag with the family golden retriever, drinking lemonade or an ice-cold tea and the father is grilling something while laughter fills the air. If the American dream was this cookie cutter life everything would be much simpler. Instead the American dream is a social construction. Everyone has learned to believe this American dream and instead of refuting it, we play along. In recent years, we have seen that this version of the dream has changed from the cookie cutter life to just a life of equality. In an idealistic world, we would get to have both but we live in imperfection. While the dream of the house has carried over some, it is just not realistic in this time and that is why it is slowly dying out with the millennial age and morphing into a new being. Millennials would like to own a home, but with the economic standpoint of limited jobs to those without education and education being extremely overpriced, it is an impossible dream. The workplace has started to make It that only people with masters or bachelor’s degrees can get good paying jobs, otherwise you’re getting $12.00 an hour.

The American Dream is something that should be for anyone who wants to achieve success, and prosperity through the hard work and determination. According to Webster Dictionary, immigration is the act of moving to another country which is not their native to live there permanently. Many people from all over the world are suffering from hunger, having a polluted country and suffering poverty before you want to be selfish think about all those people who wish to have one fourth of what we all have in America and to be part of the El Dorado where people do not suffer a lot as other countries. Several people from all over the world specially form third world countries that are in war try so hard to complete the Odyssey to the United States for a better life where their dreams can come true. Immigrants who make it to the United States face many discriminations which makes their life harder and difficult. Now those immigrants, how many call them are teachers, doctors, dentists, engineers, and many more occupations and their contributions have a great impact in United Sates. Not only does Mexicans try to come to America to complete their dream come for example also Canadians, Syrians, Cubans and Indians as many other more. Every year more and more immigrants are coming in to United States. The immigrants who crosses the boarder with the hope for a better life have come to be successful at achieving their American Dream and the United States is rapidly increasing their population due

America has influenced and has been influenced from different points of view. Immigrants may find American culture confusing and different from theirs. Adapting to a new culture is difficult but necessary in order to feel more comfortable in the environment they live in. Even though Americans are known for wanting materialistic objects, focusing on the future is more important to achieving success. Immigrants should focus on being economically stable before focusing on what they want to buy. Assimilation takes time to get used to because having to adjust to different diversities takes patience. Immigrants usually come to America to become more successful so in order to do that they need to prioritize what is more important. It is their new homeland and it will take time to adapt to it. Learning the English language is essential to becoming successful. Being bilingual will provide the immigrants with more opportunities in their daily lives. It will make their transformation much easier. According to Munoz, “It was simultaneously the language of the white population and a path toward the richer, expansive identity of American” (Munoz 308). Munoz is saying that knowing the English language will give immigrants more paths to go down. It will provide them with tools to becoming a more successful and richer

They moved here in hope of a better future. Due to learning the popular language here statistics have shown that education rises. Those who do not speak English don't get much farther than high school, 40% of those who do not speak it at all, 67% not at all and 12% who speak only English earn less than a high school diploma. Around 71% of those who speak English very well or exclusively earn a college degree (“English Proficiency of Immigrants”). Those who speak English understand the work and the education they are receiving. While those who do not, do not know what they are trying to be taught causing them to fail and never reaching their full potential.

There are about 43 million immigrants in the US today, many of which do not speak English. Many people in the Midwest and South, are hispanics, and in some cases this may cause language barriers(Bootie Cosgrove-Mather 2002). Many people legally and illegally have come from Mexico and Central America. Some of these people who don’t know English, are causing language barriers, but if we have a national language, this gets rid of the diversity we have in our communities. These immigrants in many cases will pass down their language to their children, but this isn’t a real problem, because many schools have speech counselors, or the child can go to a school with other kids that speak Spanish or any other languages. Immigrants can also face issues

Learning to speak another language other than English is a highly debated subject in regards to education. Language in itself is an essential tool to everyday living,from whimsical conversations to important business meetings. Words have the power to inspire and change the world, but not everybody can understand the same words. There are hundreds of languages spoken around the globe how do we know which to speak? We can’t be certain. Therefore, it is not advantageous for English speakers to learn another language, there are too many languages for one to be exceptionally useful, and other countries are quickly learning English.

In the article, "Donald Trump's fear of Spanish reveals the power in our language and Identity.", I relatively agree with both ideas which come from one democracy's perspective and a republic's point of view. Starting with Donald Trump's quote," Immigrants should learn English and assimilate, English will help you become successful and do great.", I strongly support the idea in a positive way of thinking. Ever since I was young up until now, my parents always say, "Learning many languages as you can, it will always give you more benefits in your life." To be honest, I have never given a piece of my mind in this matter when I was little. However, when I start living here, I realize that studying English helps me achieve a lot in academic education

Back in my high school in Malaysia, I was not really a good speaker. I rarely practiced speaking in English because I used my national language, Malay, most of the times in most of the situations. After getting a pretty decent result for my final examination in high school, I was offered by my government to further my study in United States. During the preparation before flying to the United States, I thought that I was very lucky to be offered a scholarship to the country that uses English as its native language because I have taken English classes so language is no longer a problem. I thought that if I could excel in writing, so I could speak fluently. After completing my preparation, I flew to the United States in August 2013.