The Paradox of the American Dream

After 15 years of living in the United States of America, I have realized that the American Dream inherently is a paradox. The idea behind the American Dream originated from the U.S. Declaration of Independence clause stating: "All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech also derived from this very premise. The American Dream implies that anyone in the U.S. can succeed financially and educationally through hard work.  However, the founding fathers did not realize that the actual attempt to fulfill this dream will come at a much greater cost, and thereby overlooked the barriers to fulfilling the dream. 

I give you a background on this issue because only then would you understand why so many immigrant homes have lost their cultural sensitivity. We leave our native towns and migrate to the U.S. because of better opportunities. Little did we know that doing so in this capitalistic and materialistic society meant trading our marriages, losing our children to the system, engaging in unnecessary competitions and working to the bone, just to have enough to pay the bills. The joy of spending quality time with your spouse, friends and children have been devalued and traded for overtime at work.

You work so hard to put food on the table, but forget to ensure that your family actually sits together to share that very meal. Children do not remember the provisions you made for them, they rather remember how they felt as they spent time with you. 

While parents get so busy in their own separate worlds trying to make it here, they also try to maintain their image back home by building houses they might never even sleep in. As they pursue their dream and attempt to parent at a distance, their children also become so emotionally disconnected from them that they do potentially negative things to fill the void. As I think back to the African children I met in foster care, some abused under parental stress, some left to watch their younger siblings. Then there are those children who are so bright in school, do their best, yet no parent shows up in the audience to watch them recite their poem, or watch them dance. 

Africans in the diaspora continue to increase, the family will also continue to disintegrate, this is our future. 

We were sold a dream, given an opportunity, but never educated on the consequences of fulfilling that dream. So what now?