Saturday Post: The American Dream

The United States has been called "The Land of Opportunity." Here, anyone can come and make something for themselves. You can get a good job, or start a business of your own. You can own your own home. You can worship as you wish, speak your mind freely, and elect your government. Here, you can truly be free. This American Dream has been the bright light behind the eyes of millions of immigrants over the last two hundred years. We've had uncountable millions of young men and women give their lives to ensure this dream.

Yet, to quote Langston Hughes, this is a dream deferred.

In my home town, you've got a few options when you get out of high school. You can get a job at McDonalds, or one of the handful of other fast-food joints in the surrounding area. You can get a job with the local grocery store, or go down the road a ways to get a job at the new Wal-Mart. You can get a job at the last factory in town (standing for a 12 hour shift at minimum wage, while your temp agency gets the lions' share of your paycheck). A lot of kids end up joining the armed services, where they get sent to the other end of the world to catch a hot one for Exxon-Mobile.

A few kids go off to college, but a number of them don't make the cut. Why? Because our high school barely taught us how to get into college, much less how to succeed at college. Our tiny, underfunded school has failed every student who attend. Some of us go on to university and succeed, but very little of that is thanks to our "education." Perhaps the wisest among us decided to go to community college, get a trade certificate, and then go on to be auto mechanics or nurses.

But do you know what the true tragedy is? Even these options are becoming less and less available to people. Getting a job at Wal Mart or McDonalds or Arvato isn't as much of a no-brainer as it used to be, with lay-offs and hiring freezes. Student loan money (along with money for the middle school and high school) is drying up, as tax payment slows to a trickle while private loan companies shut their doors. Mechanics and Nurses are in a market glut; for the most part, all their jobs have been filled. The crummy jobs we had are scarce; the money for education is drying up; and the hope that our specialized labor will carry us through is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

Working class kids, be they white, black, or Latino, be they rural, urban, or suburban, be they native-born or immigrant, deserve more options then a fast-food job or the Marine corps. They deserve the true opportunity to become the best that they can be.