Rarely Realized

The Promise of an American Dream, Rarely Realized: A young adult’s pursuit of self-defined success in Modern America

R, a current undergraduate student, is pursuing a degree in Public Relations and women’s and gender studies. Her father seemingly achieved the American Dream, coming from a working class family and earning a scholarship to an esteemed university before getting a law degree from Ivy League.

This would appear to automatically afford her, her own American Dream, but despite some of her various privileges, being white, and growing up in a “relatively privileged area” R is still aware of the elusively of the American Dream. She notes, “Our generation now, it is so much harder to make the American Dream happen, We are the first generation that’s going to earn less than our parents did, which is terrifying.” Through this R has a working definition for her own path, “My personal American Dream is kinda like an anti-American Dream.”

While she still holds some conventional notions, “I want a nice life, I just don’t want it in the same way that prizes it above other things” she learned that the American Dream isn’t what she was initially taught, “I have ADHD and learning disabilities.” She continues to say, “I saw my friends doing the same assignments and they only needed to study a quarter of the time.” For many people R’s personal experiences echoes this generation’s views about what “working hard” to be successful actually boils down to. And how that image doesn’t coincide with the traditional American Dream, or the young people trying to achieve success today. R also offers her sentiments on how it could be better, “One of the big things that needs to change is how we do healthcare,

especially in regards to mental health.” R goes on to talk about the discrepancies in accessibility depending on socioeconomic status. “Insurance covers some of it, but not everybody has insurance that covers mental health facilities.” She states how it’s another barrier for people, “If you’re rich then you can get the mental help that you need, but if you’re not rich than you can just have depression, you can have anxiety…it’s treating it like it’s not a real problem, when it is a real problem.” R’s closing thoughts review the American Dream as a whole, “the system is broken” and her ideas about what it could resemble to be improved, “I want everyone to be able to afford food, clothing, shelter, and I don’t think they should be working more than one minimum wage job to do that.”

R is…

• 20 Years-Old
• Female, Cisgender
• White
• Jewish
• Middle Class
• Bisexual