The American Dream

(From my point of view)

    If you ask Americans what “The American dream” is. They would probably associate it with freedom, independence, democracy. I guess they would be right.

The definition of the American dream is rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence.

 (which proclaims that "all men created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

  “Happiness”

In many European countries, America and things American, are  associated with freedom. 

 We hear American politicians saying that America is for everyone, we see the movies where Americans rescuing the world, we watch TV shows where average family in the United States earns enough money to live in a house and have two and more cars parked in a garage, every child has their own room, women have so much clothes in a closet that they can fit out the half of the village in Africa.

   There are many opportunities in America. 

You can become an actor – Hollywood releases thousands of movies each year and hundreds of TV channels makes another thousand TV shows.

So American cinematography is a huge industry which gives you the opportunity to find the place in the movie production market.   You can be in music industry – there are hundreds of thousand radio stations in the USA, there are seemingly endless music recording studios and there are so many successful people looking for new talents.

     You can be a dancer, an artist, a writer or the next “American Idol”. All of this paints a great picture of a successful and happy American life.

“Great American picture”

     There are so many people all over the world who seek to have a better life than they have in their countries, better jobs, better stability or they just want to have an American lifestyle, because it seems so much fun and again, so much more stable.

  

     Since I was a little girl I dreamed of a life in America.

 It wasn’t a dream to come here and have a career and be successful.  It was just something so excited and bright, something new, something so different from what I saw in my country.  Those first American commercials in 1990’s, those Walt Disney cartoon and movies, those chocolate bars and sodas, that music and clothes. All this was new!

I was born in 1990 a year before USSR collapsed, so I really didn’t know that soviet life which my mom and older people knew.

 But looking back I can see how big and important it was when an American lifestyle first touched Russia. For example you can find the picture in the Internet which was taken from the first McDonald opened in Moscow in January, 1990.

    USA is very young compare to many European countries, but for such a short period of existing America made big progress in technologies, science, economy, education, cinematography and music. Became one of the most developed countries in the world.

     All this creates a great American picture in our minds.  And so many people want to be a part of it. Human always want something better, something more and we can’t blame anybody for it. I think it just natural.

So a lot of people find this “something better” by coming to United States.          But is it really “better”?

“Better or easier?”

     As you probably know so many great people came to America in a beginning of it existing. They were all immigrants from Great Britain, Spain, Ireland and other European countries. The greatest minds had come here: scientists, artists, writers, businessmen.  By bringing different cultures, history, making new discoveries, they made America and American history.

       This country was a “Silicon Valley” for the scientists, a “Trading Port” for a businessman and later “Land of freedom” for everybody else.

       But it was then; right now there is more than enough freedom in European countries, maybe even more then in US, but people still have that “American picture” in their heads. You can be successful in your own country. You can make a difference by staying in your homeland. It’s not easier in America right now than anywhere else because there so many immigrants come here every year. And everybody wants to be happy and successful, and have a career, and the house and your own business and a big family, etc. To have all that, you have to work very hard and it doesn’t matter what country you in – either its USA or England, or Russia. I saw people in America who work even harder than people in my country to have what they have. But unfortunately you don’t know that until you come here and see it… and live it!