The American Dream wasn’t something 17-year-old K thought of until he went abroad to study in West Europe. While he was there in 1998 a professor gave him a copy of Henry Grunwald’s loving America from the bicentennial in 1976.
“That was the first time I started thinking about what it means to love America.”
K is a 40-year-old heterosexual white male. He lives in the United States and is in the lower middle socioeconomic class. He is ethnically Jewish and an atheist.
West Europe would not be the first time K would go overseas for the means of education. K taught abroad in East Asia as an adult and doing so really showed him how the American Dream was different. He saw the United States and American people from an outside perspective.
“It’s my own pet peeve, I try not to call it America because that’s the most US thing to do, to refer to our country as the continent.”
K’s American Dream as he describes it is “I guess my American dream is the same as the American Dream, but you know not as cold.”
He understands what the American dream is trying to say but says it is too simplified.
“The dream is still something because it’s a dream. The dream part is what endures and it’s such a great and beautiful idea, even if it’s not true. I am not saying that it isn’t, I’m saying that its oversimplified. “
The idea of the American Dream for K would be to make it as a writer and or publisher and likes the general concept of living above a shop.
He went and taught with his wife in East Asia for two years and it marked a career shift for him. It gave K perspective as an outsider—to be “othered.”
His neighborhood has a Guinness Book of World Records’ title for most diverse urban area on the planet, and most languages spoken.
“Whatever I do I want to be surrounded by different cultures. I love that.”
While he sees the American Dream as oversimplified, he sees aspects of it that factor into his life. He believes that to love America is to love freedom and diversity. It is the freedom and opportunity to succeed and the ability to do so among diverse people.
K is…
- 40 Years-Old
- Male, Cisgender
- Jewish
- White
- Atheist/Agnostic
- Lower Middle Class
- Heterosexual
