When the American Dream is Displaced out of America

What makes America 'America'? Is it the melting pot? Is it the skyscrapers and pretty lights? Is it democracy? From the very beginning, when American began to carve out its own identity amid the vestiges of Native American civilization and across the world stage, American identify has been personified in the American Dream. This idea – a vague promise, an unbacked standard, a looming possibility – this alone makes America the country that it is. So what happens when that chief signifier no longer applies? We become as Old World as the nation that birthed us.

If you're American, you have a stance on illegal immigrants in our country. Maybe it's tighten our borders to not let as many in. Maybe it's deport all those we find. Maybe it's actually sympathetic because hey – they're doing jobs that other Americans wouldn't do and contributed $11 billion in taxes last year while tending not to pursuing tax paid benefits out of fear of being discovered. It doesn't really matter so much what your view is. What matters is that many illegal immigrants are returning to Mexico because they can better find the American Dream there – sueño mexicano, if my high school Spanish is still good.

America's unemployment rate is 9.4%. Mexico's is less than half that. It's easier to purchase a home on credit, get a job, and attain higher education in Mexico than in the States. Mexico has a growing middle class, strong and stable banking system, and a rising standard of living. But this article isn't about Mexico. It's about America. Is Mexico becoming the New America? Give me your tired, your weak and your poor... hardly.

While I give kudos to Mexico for doing it's thing, the fact that we are failing at reinforcing our identity not just as the birthplace but the definitive bastion of the American Dream is a tremendous blow to America. When you lose your identity, you lose everything. With the economic crisis and everything else, this is really the icing on the cake. This is really the one thing that should scream "HEY, AMERICA, GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!" But it's overlooked – under-appreciated. There are numerous other more pressing things to worry about right now, but this one is, I think, the most symptomatic of the collective all. The Comedian in the movie Watchman said it tersely when asked what happened to the American Dream. "It came true,' he retorted. Indeed. Maybe that's why it's about time we wake up to the America we've created.