For decades, the American dream has been sold as a universal ideal: work hard, and you’ll succeed. But for many immigrants, people of color and working-class families, this promise rings hollow.
The rags-to-riches stories that Hollywood loves to push have always been selective about who gets to live them. While the American dream suggests that success is merely a matter of effort, it ignores race, class and immigration status. Just look at what’s happening in the U.S. right now; even immigrants who have legally come to the U.S. and gotten citizenship status still get mistakenly deported because of race, foreign accents and appearance.
Generations of Black Americans have been systematically shut out of wealth-building opportunities through redlining, job discrimination and underfunded public education. And before you start saying, “That’s wrong, there are plenty of rich African Americans,” and start naming people like Barack Obama or Will Smith, these are the exceptions; this isn’t the reality for millions of African Americans and other marginalized communities.
It’s not that people in these communities don’t work hard. In fact, they often work the hardest in jobs that require a lot of physical strength and mobility, working multiple jobs, night shifts and essential roles that keep this country running. If hard work guaranteed success, America wouldn’t have a growing population of working poor or college students sleeping in cars, families choosing between groceries or medication or full-time workers below the poverty line.
The American dream is a lie. It has always been more of a marketing strategy than a promise. Yet, it still persists because it’s powerful and gives people hope to hold onto it. While society tells you you can make it, and you don’t, you internalize the failure when most of the blame is on the system.
We don’t need to abandon the American dream altogether; we just need to reimagine it not as a fantasy but as a breathing commitment to equity, equality and justice.
