Culture and Quality

I really enjoyed Monday's class as we discussed the poetry from over the weekend.   I felt that we were able to focus upon many different ideas of the American dream which nevertheless held several common themes.  We found an element of longing in each of the poems: either to go back to the way things were before coming to America, or to be happy with life here.   The latter became the focus of our conversation and brought to mind an interesting question: is the quest for the American dream "worth it?"   Does the payoff of persuing some form of the American dream change depending upon social and ethnic status?    Our discussions seemed to point to the idea that perhaps the American dream is not always what it is cracked up to be.   I tend to agree with this, to an extent.   In my ORC group, we discussed the poems through this lens of social status, addressing the different areas of life the poems' speakers represented.   We thought that for first generation immigrants, such as in "Learning to Love America," the American dream is often less of a present reality than a dream for the future generation.  Freedom is therefore less personal and more a channel through which to advance the lives of sons and daughters.  Some would also argue that the American Dream does not apply to those who are of a lower class, stuck in a situation that many would consider poor.  However, the speaker in ,"A Wife Explains Why she Likes Country," shows that just because one doesn't exhibit the typical American Dream, it does not mean that there aren't ideas to hope for and a worthwhile life in America.    These class discussions highlighted Cullen's introductory concept that in order to understand the American Dream, one must look at it through a cultural and social perspective.