The American Dream Of Levittown

(page 45-46)” In the first act alone, the audience is shown the great disparities between the American dream for a white man and the American dream for people of color. However, now with this insurance money from Big Walter’s death, there is a chance of someone their dream, the problem that the Younger’s face is which someone should get to use the money. Beneatha needs it for college to become a doctor, Walter needs it to invest in a liquor store so he can finally “be somebody.” But Mama wants to use that money to buy a house. She wants to leave their current rented apartment and she wants a nice house in the suburbs where she could have a garden and “with a yard where Travis could play in the summer. (page 44)” Mama believes that a change of scenery is what the family needs and that it will bring them back together. These three characters have the most conflicting wants for the

Chapters 11 and 12 in “Not in My Neighborhood” deal with Edmonson Village, a quaint, Catholic and mainly white section of Baltimore. Nothing was out of place in Edmonson Village, with TV’s running schedules and businesses thriving. But the families in the houses would stay put, being the only owners most of the time. This would mean the entire generation borne from the times of segregation did not take kindly to African Americans trying to settle in. See, black people were being vastly mistreated. Living in slums and segregated from sanitary and adequate living. But after the Civil Rights Act is passed and separation of blacks and whites is outlawed, African Americans begin earning enough to live in better quality homes, and looking to more upscale parts of

The American Dream is a concept that has been instilled in the minds of citizens for much of America’s history. The Dream is the idea that everyone is equal and that anyone can start with nothing and become successful through hard work and perseverance. Unfortunately, due to prejudices and discrimination, the American Dream has not been attainable for all races and ethnicities that have immigrated to this country in search of a better life. Instead, it has been quite the opposite: no matter how much hard work and perseverance one puts forth, he/she is always beaten down by those in a higher social class. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird explores the concept of the failing American Dream by examining discrimination, prejudice, and social hierarchy in 1930’s Maycomb, Alabama.

The third listing for the definition of sprawl in the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary is as follows: “to spread or develop irregularly”. Unfortunately, this is the pattern, or lack thereof, with which America’s development is following. Every single day the world population rises, and these new babies have to live somewhere. Due to the fact that the birth rate is larger than that of the death rate in America (http://www.bartleby.com/151/a24.html), new homes and communities must be developed to accommodate all of the incoming people. This fundamental concept is coupled by another very powerful driving force prompting people to live in the suburbs of America, and that is greed. The economy makes

All Souls, written by Michael Patrick MacDonald, is the story of a low-income family from Boston that ends up moving from the projects in Columbia Point to the projects South Boston, also known as Southie. From then, the book focuses on the MacDonald family and their lives in 1960’s South Boston and in particular the crime, violence and corruption that existed within South Boston but most importantly, how it was that the MacDonald family viewed Southie and how those views changed overtime. On the first page of the book, Michael Patrick MacDonald starts of by recalls his mother at one point calling Southie, “The Best Place in the World” (MacDonald 1). The comparison from Ma calling Southie the best place in the world compared to a couple of pages ahead where she says that she’d “Never come back to this hell hole of a fucking neighborhood ever again” (MacDonald 15). This change of mentality of not only Ma, but the rest of the family, especially Michael Patrick MacDonald, is categorized within C. Wright Mills’ The Sociological Imagination. In The Sociological Imagination, Mills speaks on two ways of thinking that are very prevalent in MacDonald’s All Souls. According to Mills’ there is an “ordinary” way of thinking and a then there is having a “sociological imagination”. In All Souls, both of these different mindsets are portrayed thru the MacDonald family as well as within their community of Old Colony. All Souls tells the story of a community suffering from the “ordinary” way of thinking and what kind of negative outcomes their fixed mindset.

The brothers who are mostly black can point to racial discrimination as a cause of their family’s poverty. Also another reason the hallway hangers reject the achievement ideology is because most of them have lived in low icome housing for as long as three decades as a result, this contributes to their feeling of hopelessness and stagnation they are pessimistic about their future. The brothers however, have resided at the Clarendon Heights neighbourhood for shorter periods of time. Some of the families of the brothers have moved from worse projects in the area, so they view this change as a step up in their social status and a sense of optimism for a fresh start. After the post modern shift from from manufacting jobs to service industry based employment many members of poorer black neighborhoods will feel the effects harder and longer then that of gentrified or white neighborhoods. Most service industry or “blue collered” jobs require some skills or education to be sucessful, as a result of neither group possesses these qualities, they are cast out as abaondoned by soceity. “The American Dream” may be but a mirage. Still, it

Community leaders in the city of Atlanta knew it was time for drastic changes, and by the 1920’s Tech-woods Flats were run over by unsafe and unsanitary structures, overcrowded residency, and poor ventilation. In response to this devastation among residency of Tech-wood Flats, in 1936 Atlanta built the first ever Tech-wood Home that provide temporary housing for white families, although Tech-wood populations was 94 percent black. African American families were forced to move out of their homes and look to stay somewhere else, while white families were able to move in. Things began to change in the 1960’s, when laws were passed prohibiting officials from continuing the practice on barring single mothers and welfare recipients from there complexes.

Problem Identification: As African American moved to Prince George’s County to be part of a phenomenon that has been rare in American history: a community that grew more upscale as it became more black. “The county became a national symbol of the American Dream with a black twist” (Michael, 2015). However, their dreams were shattered.

The American way of life through homeownership has its roots in the 1950s, the war had just ended and houses were being mass produced. “Domestic Engineering (Oct. 1981) estimates that ‘Three out of five families became homeowners and suburban living became a national phenomenon.’” (Brohl 1). Owning a home quickly became the American way of life. Where did this leave African American families like Lena’s, they were excluded from towns and from being able to take out home loans that were exclusively for veterans and the rest of

Levittown is a book that shows the perspective of two families during the 1950s, the Myers family and the Wechsler family. The Wechsler family and a few organizations helped the Myers accomplish their American Dream; owning a home in a good neighborhood where their kids would be safe. The Myers wanted to live in a place where their kids could go to unsegregated schools and experience equality as a normal US citizen should. Unfortunately, their fight for the dream was full of dangerous obstacles, such as mobs and death threats from their fellow Levittowners. In the book it states, “The Myers family has not only survived but thrived while seeking a part of the American Dream: to have a comfortable home. No one should ever be punished for that”

The Levitts have a simple version of the American Dream during the 1950s. Each son had a specific American Dream they were trying to achieve. For Alfred, the American Dream was to be married and to make other people happy. He does this by making the communities have a perfect design with green grass. William Levitt's viewpoint on the American Dream is different from Alfred. William wanted to make money and live a life of which he is “on top of the world.” A quote which shows this states “In his teens, bill gravitated to the high life, with the taste of money, attractive women, and sports cars”( Kushner 4.)An example of this is when William Levitt divorced his wife for a nineteen year old French model. When thinking about William Levitt,

Levittown is based in the 1950’s which is a time of segregation and prejudice towards race or political view, which both the Myers’ and the Wechsler’s have lived with. The Levitts have also lived with this in the past due to their Jewish background however now they are living their dream where anything is made possible through their

During this time, the epicenter of race was changing and black men and women were slowly beginning to create an existence outside of the confinements of white society. The Black identity was reborn. In the context of the novel, Harlem represents this rebirth; it’s where Angela’s sister thrives and once Angela aspires to be there herself, she begins to change for the better. This is because Harlem is “synonymous with the New Negro” and the New Negro thrives once they have reclaimed their own identity (Tomlinson). On the other hand, Union Square, where Angela fascinates herself with for part of the novel, is a representation of everything that the New Negro is not. According to Susan Tomlinson, author of “Visionary to Visionary: The New Negro Woman as Cultural Worker in Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Plum Bun,” it is only when Angela “sees herself in Union Square’s indigents” that she “gradually recognizes her own lonely, directionless statis mirrored in the expressions of people whose despair she previously objectified.” Union Square, while rich in the monetary sense, is not rich in meaning. Its inhabitants walk around trying to find something of substance for themselves, but they are stranded in the workings of what eventually will be the Great Depression. If Harlem represents the epicenter of the black race, and Union Square represents the life that Angela thought she wanted, then it seems that, with Fauset’s depiction of Union Square, she is implying that maybe the white race isn’t actually better after all; at least not for a black person. Black people are finally making a name for themselves, and white supremacy is slowly losing its power. Soon, just like Union Square, the white identity will no longer be the ne plus

Lorraine Hansberry develops the theme that racial discrimination makes it hard to obtain the American Dream through the use of setting. The play takes place in Southside Chicago 1950. During this time the south was segregated by racist Jim Crow Laws. Jim Crow Laws were laws requiring the separation of whites from persons of color. Many African Americans faced unofficial racial barriers in the North. Black and white communities were even segregated from each other. Black and white communities were very different. Buying a house in a black community was different from buying a house in a white community. Black communities were more expensive and were less well-kept, in contrast to white communities being cheaper, very clean, and well-kept. Linder states, “I want you to believe me when I tell you that race prejudice simply doesn’t enter into it. It is a matter of the people of Clybourne Park believing, rightly or wrongly, as I say, that for the happiness of all concerned that our Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities.” Linder is trying to say that they are not trying to be racist but clearly are because they are telling the Younger’s that they can not live there because it is an all white community and blacks have their own communities. Linder offers money for the Younger’s to leave just so that they don’t have any blacks in their all white community. Galens states, “Mama Younger has the money to pay for a house she wants, but people attempt to

David Kushner’s Levittown is a depiction of the struggles faced by an African-American family named the Myers when they moved into the suburb of Levittown, Pennsylvania. Additionally, the book highlights the ideas of what the American Dream truly is according to some of the families mentioned in the book. The three main families represented in this book are the Myers, the Wechslers, and the Levitts. For the Wechsler family, the American Dream can be simply stated as furthering equality for all people. The author explains this view on the American Dream by stating, “Their vision of the American Dream was built on the conviction that they could change the world…” (Kushner 24). This change that the author is referring to is the change of America from a generally segregated and discriminatory society to an integrated and equal society. Furthermore, the quote shows that the Wechslers are willing to fight in the name of attaining their American Dream of equality for everyone. In addition, this connects to the Communist beliefs of Bea and Lew Wechsler because in their eyes, Communism promotes equality of all people.