It is my opinion that the American Dream can be slightly different for each person but that there are many commonalities between people’s dreams within the American culture. I feel that though our schooling and upbringings, we are influenced as to what the ideal of life is within this culture should be. I feel that television, magazines, and the many other forms of media condition us to believe in a similar structure of how life should be lived.
The first thing that comes to my mind is that each family should live in a cookie cutter track home surrounded by neighbor’s houses that are nearly identical to their own. Ideally, there would be a white picket fence surrounding the house and a dog in the back yard. There are two to three children, at least one boy and one girl, who go to school every day
Another aspect of the American Dream is that an individual family should be nuclear, that is, living separate from other relatives like the grandparents or aunts and uncles. Growing up, I was friends with many Hispanic children. When I went over to their houses, I was surprised to learn that they shared their house with cousins and nieces and nephews and grandparents. When I was a teenager, I asked one of my friends why they lived with so many relatives because I already knew that it wasn’t out of necessity, they had enough money to live separately. He said that it is the way that many Hispanic people choose to live; it is traditionally how it has been done. This is one example of a differing culture from that of our American culture. I feel that this is important to mention because I have been so conditioned to the American way of
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