America is seen by many as the Land of Opportunities, a place where one can achieve anything and be anything, no matter what their past may be. Some however, say that the American Dream is not real, that it is simply a dream that cannot be realized due to social or political obstacles. The truth is that many of these obstacles can be overcome through hard work and perseverance. The American Dream is achievable through hard work and the determination to keep going, no matter how slim the odds seem to be.
One important aspect of the American Dream is that one’s past has no bearing on the achievability of the American Dream. One can come from nothing and become the richest person in the world if they put their minds to it. Andrew Sullivan, in his essay, My America, touched on this when he wrote that what matters in America is not where you come from, but “where you are going” (Sullivan, Para 5). This shows that in America, people don’t care about one’s past as they do about one’s future. Here, the past is not a hinderance, it is simply something that is there, motivating one to do better, to achieve their American Dream. …show more content…
More often than not, the American Dream takes time to achieve. In I, Too, by Langston Hughes, the speaker is symbol for African Americans as a whole, and his American dream is to be treated as equals with white Americans. The poem says that “tomorrow I’ll be at the table when company comes,” meaning that in the future, blacks and whites will be equals (I, Too, Lines 8-10). By using “tomorrow” instead of a set time or date, Hughes shows that one must wait patiently for their dreams, and not rush them. To do so would be to risk pushing the dream farther off, or even to kill it