In Focus: How the American Dream is Perceived By Different Groups

Posted on: Monday, April 29, 2013

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What is the American Dream

"When I first think about the American Dream I always think about the white picket fence and the husband and wife, kid, dog. That whole stereotype there," Antonia Mason, a college student, said.

Mason grew up hearing and learning about the ideology of the American Dream. The images that surround the American Dream are well defined and often engrained in the minds of American citizens. Over time it begins to mean more.

"The American Dream to me personally is my dream and making my dream a reality," Mason said.

Mason is in her third year at Ohio University studying exercise physiology. Her version of the American Dream is to help train collegiate and professional athletes.

Lisa Roberts is the founder and operator to Friends and Neighbors Food Pantry in Coolville, Ohio. She said freedom is central for the American Dream to work.

"The biggest thing about the American Dream is the freedom to choose. To choose what church I want to go to, whether or not I want to carry a gun or a weapon, what schools I want to go to, where I literally want to live," Roberts said.

Roberts, though, realizes that so often people are unable to make these choices because other factors get in the way. In her work she personally sees the poverty in southeast Ohio. 

"I never was much on dreaming to be rich. For me, it's more like dreaming to have enough to get by," Roberts said.

Changes in the American Dream

Ohio University professor, Julie White, teaches political science. She teaches her class to think critically about the American Dream they grew up hearing about. According to White,  individualism, capitalist markets, hard work and upward mobility are central to the ideology of the American Dream.

"[The American Dream is] this idea that we all believe that in the end individual merit should be the explanation for how far one makes it in competitive society," White said.

At the center of the American Dream is an individual's determination and hard work to achieve and become, particularly financially, successful. Antonia Mason believes this is true in her own life.

"Whatever you want to do is achievable. It sounds so cliché, but I wholeheartedly believe that. And I feel like it doesn't matter where you come from, you can make it happen," Mason said. "So based on what you want to do and the effort you're putting in to what you want to do will determine your success.

But over time in America more people have begun to question if pursuing the American Dream is that simple.

Lisa Roberts of Friends and Neighbors Food Pantry sees up close the struggles of so many in Appalachian Ohio. She disagrees with the idea that an individual's hard work is the only determinant for whether someone achieves the American Dream.

"I absolutely do not agree with that. I think that the circumstances you grow up in, that you are living in everyday, those things form the kind of person you are," Roberts said.

"There's significant evidence that in the last ten years, a lot of Americans have come to believe that it is the socio-economic circumstance into which you were born that is most likely to determine how far you're going to make it in society," White said. "So I think we're living in interesting times, with respect to the American Dream."

According to White, certain segments of the American population, particularly historically marginalized groups, have always been more suspicious of the American Dream. These groups include racial and ethnic minorities and the poor. In recent years more and more Americans are becoming suspicious of how attainable the ideal American Dream is.

"Essentially what we see, and many people have attributed this to the 2008 financial crisis, is a greater degree of skepticism about the reality of the American Dream among middle class white educated Americans," White said. "And they had historically been a group that expressed a high level of confidence in the attainability of the American Dream."

 

African Americans and the American Dream

White says that people of color, unlike the white Americans, have always been more suspicious of the reality of the American Dream. Mason said that seems to be true of her African American neighborhood back at home in  Columbus, Ohio.

"The American Dream? I don't think it's a reality for them, I don't," Mason said.

Robin Muhammad, an Ohio University African American Studies professor, has been studying racial disparity and upward mobility for years.

"I do think that African Americans feel and substantiate that a lot of the American Dream remains out of reach," Muhammad said.

According to the Pew Research Center's report, Pursing the American Dream, there is significant differences that make it difficult for African Americans to experience the ideal American Dream. They report that in just starting off there is a big disparity. 65 percent of black Americans are born at the bottom of the income ladder compared to only 11 percent of white Americans.

African Americans also have a more difficult time exceeding the wealth of their parents. 66 percent of African Americans become more wealthy than their parents compared to 89 percent of white Americans who surpass their parent's income. The Pew Research study also shows, "Blacks are more likely to be stuck at the bottom and more likely to fall from the middle of the family income and wealth ladders than are whites."

Muhammad said to overcome these problems will require community action and that change must come from within because it rarely comes from outside the community.

"It's about asking individuals in the African American community what are you willing to do, what are you willing to sacrifice, what are you willing to invest." Muhammad said.

 

Housing and the American Dream