My American Dream
Defining what the "American Dream" means to me in the chaos of 2025
The American Dream.
As a high school English teacher who has spent several years of my career teaching American Literature, I’ve become well-versed in the concept of the American Dream.
Or maybe more accurately, the failure of the American Dream.
John Proctor loses his life because he refuses to profess a lie. Jim suffers many indignities at the hands of a fanciful teenager, only to discover he was a free man the whole time. Jay Gatsby discovers wealth won’t help him win over the love of a woman who will choose position over passion. George and Lennie don’t get their farm. Rose of Sharon loses her baby and breastfeeds an old man while the floodwaters rise. Scout sees Boo Radley’s humanity, but Tom Robinson is still dead and his family is still left without a husband and father.
And these classic examples don’t even begin to scratch the surface.
When James Truslow Adams published his book The American Epic in 1931, he coined the term “the American Dream” as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”
One doesn’t have to look too far to see that the United States of America of 2025 is failing in that promise.
Yes, in the grand scope of human history, Americans today are doing significantly better than Americans 100 years ago. But if the promise of the Declaration of Independence is that all humans have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and if the broad concensus is the American Dream promises that “life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone,” then it is clear that today, we are severely missing the mark.
The cost of health care and the increasing distrust of the medical establishment (including the appointment of an anti-vaxer as the Secretary of Health and Human Services) are serverely limiting long life in the United States. In fact, our life expectancy is 4.1 years shorter than comparable countries. And with access to affordable health care limited for our poorer citizens, the average difference gets significantly worse for those living near or below the poverty line.
Liberty is also at risk, as due process has become more of suggestion than a constitutional right, as legal status keeps changing without warning, and as free speech becomes increasingly limited to only those who agree with the current administration.
The pursuit of happiness is becoming increasingly impossible for all but the wealthy in the United States, as that pursuit becomes cost prohibitive. With expenses for everything from education to housing increasing while wages for the middle and lower classes do not keep up, people can pursue as much as they want, but that happiness will always be out of reach. And while there is no magic number or formula, it is logical that the less one has to worry about meeting their basic needs, the happier they will be about their life, in general.
Unfortunately, it has become easier to achieve the dream of a better, richer, and fuller life outside of the United States than inside the country that coined the term.
But as the hopeless optimist I am, I don’t believe it has to stay that way. As a mom and a teacher, I cannot stop hoping that we will finally learn how to do better by ourselves and future generations. I agree with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s belief that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
This year, as part of my commemoration of our nation’s birth, I want to present my own vision of the American Dream.
I want less: less pollution, less traffic, less stuff, less violence.
I want to be able to breathe clean air, swim in clean water, and be guaranteed a drinking supply free of microplastics and forever chemicals. I want to see less trash on the side of the road and a decreased need for landfills, and I want to see all of that without shipping our problems to poorer countries without the ability to say no to our stuff.
I want to be able to safely walk and bike to meet most of our basic needs. I don’t want to depend so much on cars and I want my neighbors to have options. I want roads that are repaired quickly, are wide enough to share with pedestrians and bikers, and are designed to minimize traffic accidents.
I don’t want to want so much stuff. I want it to be acceptable to do more with less and an economy that isn’t so dependent on people buying goods they don’t need or want in order to keep the entire system from collapsing. I want freedom from consumerism and normalization of contentment with fewer things that hold little to no value and desire (and ability to pay) for goods that last.
I want to be able to go to work and my kids to go to school and to go to concerts and shopping and public events without worrying about gun violence. I want my right to go someplace without being shot to be more important than someone else’s right to own a weapon that could rob me of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
But I also want more: more community, more knowledge, more culture, more peace.
I want to see thriving local businesses, increased access to third spaces for young and old alike, and parks and buildings providing more connections with our natural world. I want to be able to put down technology and be face-to-face with members of my community. I want to know that my neighbors and I don’t have to agree on everything, but that we are looking out and caring for each other, regardless of our personal beliefs and policy positions.
I want curiousity and inquiry to be the default in education and with our political leaders. I want knowledge to be seen as worthy of pursuit and those with knowledge to be rewarded for their work and encouraged to do more. I don’t want to stop progress (like AI), but I want us to thoughtfully weigh the ethical and social implications of new innovations, choosing progress that allows us to better lean into our humanity instead of taking it away. I want healthy debate based in what we know and asking questions to find solutions for the problems that plague us.
I want that resurgeance in knowledge to embrace diversity of ideas and culture. I want art and literature and music to be seen as extensions of the human experience, worthy of pursuit and valuable enough to support with our time and money.
I want peace of mind, body, and spirit, where the promise of a better tomorrow is never guaranteed but always possible.
More specifically, I want enough money to be able to fix up my house, go on at least one good vacation a year without breaking the bank, and to have a healthy retirement account so I can enjoy my sunset years with my family. I want my children to be able to get college educations without taking out a loan that is the equivalent of a morgage, and for them to be able to pursue their own dreams once they graduate without living at home and putting off adulthood. I want access to the resources I need to pursue physical, mental, and spiritual health, even when I can’t control life circumstances. I want to be free to worship, love, and contemplate without political and personal persecution.
And I want all of the above for all of my fellow citizens.
Our duty as citizens in a pluralistic, liberal society is not to live as though our existence is not dependent on anyone or anything else. Our duty is to live as if our hopes and desires for the future are working alongside and along with those with whom we share time and space. We cannot achieve our dreams alone. In fact, more often than not, the achievement of our dreams are dependent on those who provide our food, housing, education, health, and other necessary services. Our American Dream is inextricably linked with the dreams of our neighbors. All of our neighbors.
My ultimate American Dream is to live in a society where all of us have what we need to flourish where we are planted, to live satisfying lives with those who are most dear to us, and to have a true voice in the political decisions that affect our daily lives and our futures.
What is yours?
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