My American Creed

When foreign people think of the U.S. they think of the American Dream. They think about their hopes and goals they wish they could achieve, but then realize their country doesn’t offer the same opportunity as the United States. So, they decide to immigrate into America aspiring to achieve these goals. But they quickly learn about how unequal the United States really is. They learn that not everybody is given the same fair equal opportunity. While this may not stop some people it still hinders most. People in the United States should be given a fair and equal opportunity to achieve their goals and dreams.

Hopes and dreams come in various sizes. Some people might be striving for little goals which could help reach something bigger, but some might be going for the most important aspiration they could possibly imagine. But, no matter how big or small a dream is there should always be another hope or dream which you could achieve. During English class this year one of my fellow students had their father come into class and talk about his story. He talked about how he came to America as an immigrant because he wanted to achieve his dreams and create a better life for himself and his family. He said that he has always hoped that one day this dream which he was chasing would become a reality. He said that his first dream was to gain a green card, which he achieved. But what he did is something that most wouldn’t. He had another goal which he had started to strive towards. He said, “If you don’t have multiple dreams to achieve, you’ll become bored and eventually you’ll become bored with your life.”. When he said this quote I immediately understood why people would come to America. It’s because when you come to America you have multiple dreams which you are able to strive for and achieve. This is something which isn’t offered in every country, yet America somehow finds a way to make it unequal. One of the best perks of coming to the U.S. is that you are promised an equal opportunity yet it seems as if only certain people are able to achieve their dreams.

Even though many people come to the U.S. to achieve their dreams it seems as if the U.S. can’t provide a fair and equal opportunity. This strikes the question, how should the American people be given a fair and equal opportunity? When asked, “90 percent of Americans believe that the government should do everything it can to ensure equality of opportunity.”(New York Times). The American people understand that the government should be supply this opportunity, but has the government been doing its job when it comes to supply its people. Well, it seems as if the “Rags to Riches” story which people are promised is only seen in Hollywood and not in reality. This has been proven because “Only 6 percent of children born to parents with family income at the very bottom move to the very top”(Isaacs) proving that if you are born into a low-income family or a family which doesn’t have an income you don’t have a good chance of making it out of poverty. I would say that you wouldn’t be able to achieve your dreams, but everyone has different aspirations, so I can’t say that making it out of the impoverished situation is one of the hopes someone has. But if it is, then the government isn't doing its job, which most Americans think they should be doing. People in poverty have a very low chance of making it out, and this is because of that fact that they aren't given the same opportunities which others are given. Getting out of your income class is a hard thing to achieve, whether it's falling down from upper class to middle class or even ascending to the upper class. But, when it comes to someone who is trying to get out of this lower class then it becomes even harder. A study shows that “if you’re born poor, there’s only a 30% chance that you’ll ascend to the middle class (and this number drops significantly depending on your ethnicity).”(Olsen). The chances are so slim when it comes to getting out of the lower class, and most people don’t understand why. If the people in the lower class were given the same opportunities as everyone else then they would be able to achieve their hopes and dreams.

When my class started working on this “American Creed” project I had no idea what I was going to write about. I started doing some research and realized that not only should my American creed be that everyone should have the right to a fair and equal opportunity to achieve their dreams, but that people aren’t being given this right even though they’re American citizens. People in this country aren’t being treated properly, and this is because of the lack of help coming from the government. If the government were to help people gain this opportunity which was promised to them then there wouldn’t be such a difference between the lower middle and upper class. People could come from nothing and become something because the government gave them the opportunity. But for now, we have to wait for the day that the government realizes that it needs to give the opportunity to its citizens.

Works Cited

Isaacs, Julia B. "Economic Mobility of Families Across Generations." Brookings, 13 Nov. 2007, www.brookings.edu/research/economic-mobility-of-families-across-generations/. Accessed 7 June 2019.

Olsen, Hanna Brooks. "Why Escaping Poverty Isn't Nearly as Easy as People Think." Everyday Feminism, 29 Jan. 2017, everydayfeminism.com/2017/01/escaping-poverty-is-not-easy/. Accessed 7 June 2019.

Stiglitz, Joseph E. "Equal Opportunity, Our National Myth." New York Times., 16 Feb. 2013, opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/16/equal-opportunity-our-national-myth/. Accessed 7 June 2019.