Personal Essay: The American Dream

I remember it like it was yesterday. As I walk into a friend’s house for the first time after a football game at Reitz High School, I see things that I 've never seen before. Suddenly I am in a whole new world that I never knew existed. Growing up not having much at all, I assumed that my life was normal. However, after moving into a different part of the city, I went to house after house like my friends that was nothing like mine. These people had everything you could ever want and more. I remember telling myself that I wanted to live like that one day. I know I am not the only one who has ever grown up in a background like mine to experience a culture shock like I did. To me, this was the American dream. If I work hard enough, I don’t have …show more content…
It wasn’t however because of work ethic or equal opportunity, but more because of connections I developed, really by chance. This is how success is achieved in this country. Not by equal opportunity, but by connections and meeting the right person at the right moment with the right skills. We see it in the text, Rereading America. Jay Z didn’t succeed because of equal opportunity but because he had a God given talent and met the right people (Packer 359). A lot of people aren’t that lucky. As a result, there are a lot of people who never get to a level they want to be at because they don’t have the same opportunity’s as the top dogs in this country. The top one tenth of a percent in the United states have 22% of the US wealth (Columbo, et al. 346). The fact that this figure stands shows that they are able to pass down the right opportunities in order to keep the status quo. In Don’t send your kids to the Ivy League, we see the process of elite schools and how important it is to know the right people to get in (Deresiewicz 201). It is a cycle in most cases, and I believe the American Dream isn’t what its cracked up to be. It is true for some, complicated for others, and myth to