Why Do Immigrants Seek The American Dream

Over the Border
In life, there are different opportunities and different ways to live. Different countries suffer in their own unique way, depending on how society has put them to be. People who don’t have the same opportunities as people beyond middle-class, seek for an alternative to their lifestyles, what their looking for is the famous American Dream. This dream may take many different forms for many different people, yet is the same concept. The American Dream is the concept that gives out an idea of a better life; it gives out faith, and a way to escape an unwanted life.
The main reasons why immigrants seek the American Dream are because the lack of job opportunities in their home countries. Some other people try to escape from governments
who aren 't ruling in the interest of their people. Violence influenced by war or other type of conflicts threatening their life, could also be the reason why people try to leave their countries. There is also the lack of freedom and expression on almost everything, including religion; and some other people look for American soil after natural disasters. All this people immigrate to this country to chase their dream by giving up everything, including their families, just to get here and have the opportunity to succeed.
There is a few immigrant people who are very lucky and find the American Dream easier by crossing the border with a visa and passport.
Other people struggle crossing the border by walking in the middle of a dessert for several weeks or even months. Some other people try to enter the U.S. by hiding inside a truck load or travel really long distances by boat. They survive hunger and thirst to get to the American soil, leaving everything they know behind. Many of those immigrants sacrificed their jobs, their relationships, their education, their culture, and languages at their home countries to start their new life in America and succeed in reaching their
dreams. When a person migrates to a new place, many times they are criticized and are maintained as the "lower-class person" because they look different. Some people don 't realize that when this immigrants move to this new world, they need to re-learn everything to adapt in order to survive. They need to dress and act in order to be accepted in society. Eat food that is totally different, even if it’s a dish from their home countries. Letting their kids have the English equivalent of their names, as Manuel Muñoz states in his essay "Leave Your Name at the Border" that, "Birth names altered for convenience" (114), saying that people let their kids have "American" names for acceptance in society to their convenience. Some people even let the other language dominate their own, they speak another language that other people can 't understand, Splittered off into a dual existence of English at school, Spanish at home. But instead of recognizing the need for fluency in both languages, we turned it into a peculiar kind of battle. English was for public display. Spanish was for privacy--and privacy quickly turned to shame.
As Muñoz states, their language is "Always the language of vilified illegal immigrant" (114) and in order to fit in, they need to speak English so they can be seen as Americans. Some people do not realize what those people had left behind in order to achieve the "American Dream". There are a very few people that know what it takes to get to this country, but some have no clue of what those people have been through to get here. Racism is sometimes created because of stereotyping people which many times is harsh and very cruel. Some people would go as far as trying to create fear in the country 's minority. Bharati Mukherjee makes a point in her essay "American Dreamer" stating that, "cultural crisis in which resentment against immigrants [...] would become politicized enough to cause the Immigration and Naturalization service to open an enforcement office" (50). The Department of immigration had to put more attention to the people that started to immigrate to the U.S.; they needed to have some sort of "enforcement" to take control of this people. This Immigration "enforcement" created the fear of deportation. Deportation is the main cause of fear that every single illegal person has. They have to face every single day the fear of not knowing when they are going to be deported. The fear of going back to their home countries, without accomplishing their "American Dream". The fear of leaving their families again. This immigrants had to go through different challenges to accomplish their "American Dream".
Some people are "Permanently stranded in North America because of destiny" (51) like Mukherjee writes in her essay. I agree with Mukherjee because some immigrants live a hard life, and those people live with no money or a home permanently; but still, they want to stay in the U.S because they still have the hope to achieve the "American Dream". The American Dream that opened a new door which led them into hope. Immigrants have the opportunity to give their children a better life. They have a dream that next generations will be better. A dream to a new world that now they might call
home.
Works Cited
Muñoz, Manuel. "Leave Your Name at the Border." The New World Reader. Third Edition. Gilbert H. Muller. New York: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011. 114-115. Print.
Mukherjee, Bharati. "American Dreamer." The New World Reader. Third Edition. Gilbert H. Muller. New York: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011. 50-51. Print.
Muller, Gilbert H. The New World Reader Third Edition. New York: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.