Rethinking the American Dream, by Fay Sukparangsee
Fay Sukparangsee, born and raised in Thailand, is a senior studying psychology and linguistics. She’s in the Thai Club, Matriculate, and Residence Life. In her free time, she enjoys hanging out with friends, being outdoors, and taking car naps.
Introduction
Why did you choose to come to the U.S.? A question many would ask me upon finding out I am, in fact, not from any of the 50 states of America. Why not? I thought. “Well, I went to an American international school, where over half the students were American, so they naturally returned to the States for college. And given that nearly all the teachers and college counselors were American, it felt like a rite of passage,” I’d typically answer.
But was that really why, though? What about Canada? Europe? The Netherlands? That was a popular option for Europe. Or the Scandinavian, Mediterranean countries, or even Australia? Way closer to home. But despite the abundant options, I had little hesitation. It came down to one deciding criterion: What is the most competitive and prestigious school I would have a decent chance of getting into with my current standing? To put it even more bluntly, which top-ranking school am I most worthy of getting into?
It feels pretentious, to say the least. But that was the brutally honest truth. Unlike any other country, clawing my way into a top, elite, and competitive university in the U.S. was my ticket to success, financial freedom, stability, and happiness, surely. I wanted to feel chosen. To feel special enough. Worthy enough to belong with the brightest and best students from all over the world. I worked hard enough to be here; success would be promised in some form. Right?
Except, was the path of success one I really wanted, or was it simply the American Dream disguised by the intellectual pursuit of education? The pursuit of prestige, I believed, would shield me from uncertainty and assure me the promise of success. But regardless of the meaning or value attached to the American Dream, there was one glaring shortcoming. We are humans living in a society, always unpredictable and ever-changing. Constrained by societal structures, social stratification, and systems that perpetuate power in the hands of the few elites, the American Dream is not a means to an end but a means with no ends.
The American Dream can be viewed as a cultural ethos by some people, or as nationalist propaganda by others. Many people have different interpretations of what this dream may be. For some, it is moving to America to establish a good living, but for others, it is to leave and never return again.
The American “Dream”
Lewis, the author of Liar’s Poker, who seems to be living the “American Dream,” describes his experience at Wall Street. He depicts the hypocrisy of many banking institutions, alluring prospective candidates into the line of work due to the financial incentives. However, you would be denounced the moment you admitted to the financial motivation, as these institutions insist the work they do possesses greater meaning beyond money. But it is quite apparent that, apart from workers selling their souls to these corporations, these institutions are selling the American Dream. Wall Street convinces people their work is deserving of outrageous amounts of money in hopes of retaining their loyalty, even when the work becomes dreadfully exploitative and meaningless. He quickly learns that working on Wall Street is like a game of Liars’ Poker, a game of bluffing – who can lie and deceive best. So he eventually left the work, realizing that it was not the game he wanted to play.
Lewis’s background is very integral and fascinating to this story because he came from an upper-middle-class family, so really, he could choose to pursue any career without concern for financial stability. I mean, his “distant cousin” married a German baron, so he was “invited to dine at St. James’s Palace”, which is an enough indicator of his socioeconomic privilege. In fact, the author majored in Art History at Princeton University, initially having no plans to go into investment banking, but became swept up in the common mentality of financial stability. Eventually, he decided to pursue a career on Wall Street. I mean, who could blame him, though, because leading up to graduation, “some of my [his] classmates were visibly sympathetic toward me [him], as if I were [he was] a cripple or had unwittingly taken a vow of poverty” (Lewis, 30). This quote hilariously and accurately captures the universal experience of many college students who are not on a pre-professional track or with a major deemed lucrative. His decision to still choose to pursue the path of prestige speaks volumes about how powerful the American Dream is– even for those who seem to be already living in it.
Lewis’s father’s generation believed that “the amount of money one earns is a rough guide to one’s contribution to the welfare and prosperity of our society.” Even today, pursuing less “prestigious” jobs comes with the backlash of being “selfish.” There is guilt around not earning enough to pay off our family’s investment in our college education or to fund a good life post-graduation. Existing in elite institutions, we have been made to believe that a salary below 80K is like living below the poverty line. It’s ridiculous as that doesn’t even factor in the living costs of different places. However, many of us have no experience in financing our lives independently. As a result, we chase prestigious careers as our values and beliefs become tied to this promise of financial stability, often at the stake of our mental and emotional stability from our diminishing autonomy, similar to Lewis’s story.
The American Nightmare
On the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum, Smarsh describes her upbringing as a working-class white woman. She explains America’s meritocracy myth that shames poor people for making poor decisions that keep them in poverty, while entirely neglecting the social inequality the system perpetuates. She recounts growing up believing it was a personal failure to be poor, rather than the perpetuation of wealth inequality and the genetic lottery of being born into generational poverty.
“Poor whiteness is a peculiar offense in that society imbues whiteness with power– not just by making it the racial norm next to which the rest are ‘others’ but by using it as shorthand for economic stability. So while white people of all classes hate or fear people of color for their otherness, better-off whites hate poor whites because they are physically the same– a homeless white person uncomfortably close to a look in the mirror”).
This passage really stood out to me because she talks about how even though she is white, her socioeconomic status bars her from accessing the same privileges other middle and upper-class whites have. In fact, she is feared by her own people. Despite systemic privilege that typically equates whiteness with power and money, she possesses neither, rendering her helpless in the capitalist system.
The system perpetuates shame amongst working-class individuals utilizing welfare benefits. Such benefits were framed as “something so detestable” that they “refused to apply when they qualified.” This echoes the meritocracy sentiment deeply ingrained by the American Dream: the notion that your fate is decided entirely by your individual effort and decisions. It assumes that free will exists in a society where exploitative privatized entities from insurance companies, big pharma, banking institutions, and many more own more shares in the market than any family can over multiple lifetimes. The hypocrisy of individualism is astounding because, though capitalism teaches us to be individualistic and independent, it relies on us specializing in narrow fields so we are solely dependent on the system to survive. That is the positive feedback loop that keeps the system alive.
The American Reality
Both Lewis and Smarsh, coming from different ends of the socioeconomic spectrum, explicitly express through their writing how they never felt like they’d ever achieved the American Dream. So it begs the question. Who is this Dream even for? Both authors, through their personal anecdotes, reconcile with the reality of the American Dream as a myth that promotes nationalistic ideals to justify social immobility that perpetuates wealth disparity in American society.
This country was never built upon any just grounds. We stand on the stolen lands of the Indigenous Americans, whom white colonizers attempted to erase. Then, the colonists claimed the land as their own, as well as the labor of enslaved people and immigrants who have built this country into what it is known for today– research, innovation, education, and countless contributions from the very people this presidency is so determined to deport. But despite all the scathing criticism I’ve expressed, there remains an allure to this country (at least for now) that brings people from around the world here.
Culture. America’s biggest and most influential export. Made up of different communities of people from all around the globe, cultural diversity, I believe, is this country’s most valuable asset and allure. One seldom seen anywhere else. Diversity of thought breeds revelations and innovations. And though the American Dream is an intangible and unattainable myth, I believe diversity is the tangible answer in creating more equitable opportunities for all.
Conclusion
Personally, I now no longer have desires to pursue prestigious paths in business like consulting, whether because I realized Calculus 1 was beyond my academic bandwidth, or that I found no interest or meaning in the classes whatsoever. After diving deeper into the meaning of prestige in careers, I realize that at the expense of high-paying, prestigious jobs comes with the lack of autonomy. For some, myself included, it’s at the cost of happiness and well-being. Spending 60-hour work weeks, dreading every minute to be over just to get to the two-day weekend, and to do everything all over again, to me, is the definition of hell on earth. There might never be a perfect job that is equally financially, socially, and personally meaningful. Thus, we must make those sacrifices when choosing careers. But what I hope is that the sacrifices we make are not what others push us into, but are the ones we make on our own– through our real, lived experiences. I would rather regret taking a path doing something I truly loved, than to have taken the “safer” path, unfulfilled, and never having tried at all.
Ultimately, I don’t know where my career will lead me, but I certainly hope I never lose sight of my ethics or values in the pursuit of it. Though work can have different meanings for different people, I want to spend a third of my life– working– doing something with a purpose I know in my heart. So that the next time someone asks me why I choose to do what I do, I can tell them, “Why not?”
Bibliography
Lewis, Michael. Liar’s Poker. Hodder, 2006.
Smarsh, Sarah. Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth. Scribner, 2018.
