Essay, Research Paper: American Dream

Melissa Szkutak English 11
February 11,2001 "American Dream"

"The American Dream"

Since the discovery of America, a belief known
as the American Dream has motivated people to risk
personal danger to travel to America as well as motivate
them once they arrived. The phrase "American Dream"
means, to me, freedom. It means to be able to do
anything you want to do with out someone telling you,
you cant. The "American Dream" in one word could be
described as "choices".
The American Dream motivated people to leave
their homelands because they saw economic opportunity,
prosperity, political freedom, religious tolerance, and
some people came to America to reunite with their families.
The Irish immigrated to America for several reasons,
on of which was the potato famine that killed over a
million people. Along with this, they resented the
British rule of their country, and the British landlords. This includes British taxes, and the British Protestantism. With this there was the onset of prolonged depression and social hardship. Ireland was so ravaged by economic collapse, that in rural areas, the average age of death was 19. By the 1830's Irish immigration was growing quickly, and in 1945 with the potato famine, the number of immigrants skyrocketed.
Italian's also immigrate in large numbers to
America for the American Dream. By the year 1871,
40,000 Italians had emigrated, but his number increased. In the 1870's 20,000 emigrated per year. People attracted to the promises of a successful life in America came to form a mass emigration with 205,000 emigrants a year by 1888. Italian's immigrated for many different reasons. The standard of living became worse Italy between 1870-1900, especially on the countryside. Diseases and starvation were the causes of migration. Food had become the biggest cost for an Italian family. Many families spent 75% of their income on food. In northern Italy, the population suffered from pellagra, a disease that often resulted in insanity and death, whereas in the south fatal malaria plagued the nation's residents. As deforestation, erosion, and flooding occurred it enabled the malaria to spread. As many as two million Italians died each year. This is why so many Italians moved to America, to get away from all of this and lead a healthy, prosperous life.
The American Dream Motivated people once they
arrived here by wanting a nice car, a home, a job, &
money. Most of the Irish that moved from Ireland to
America were tenant farmers and had little taste farm
work and little money to buy land in America anyway. This made the Irish want to work in major cities, which is where most Irish moved into once they arrived in America. Many Irish men were factory workers. When immigrants arrived in America and looked around at the city, they knew what they wanted. They wanted the American Dream, to be living a busy, healthy, wealthy life. Because of all these immigrants coming to America the price of American labor was lowered, but immigrants with a lower standard of living replaced the American laborers and thus robbed the other Americans of their jobs. Diseases were returned to the U.S. with the Irish immigrants of the 1840's.
The British were also very motivated once they arrived in America. The British came to America looking for better opportunities of work. They did not have as big of a crisis as other immigrants from other countries. Most of the British that came to America were professionals, independent farmers, and skilled workers. In America they were motivated to seek higher positions in their jobs because higher positions were available to them. Most of the immigrants were fairly young, but not as young as some Irish, which was good in a way because they had more life experience, which you need in order to compete for a job. However immigrants alarmed many native-born immigrants for they feared competition for jobs and dislike religion and politics of new comers. This statement is true about the British immigrants who did take many native-born immigrants jobs.
The American Dream has many different meanings; it all depends on where you are coming from. The Irish had many economic problems facing them in their home country and therefore forced in a way to immigrate to America. The Italians had fatal diseases in which they flew to America to escape and start a new life. The British just came to America for a better opportunity for jobs and such. There is a much greater chance of getting harassed, arrested, or deported in other countries than opposed to the United States which would be other reasons for immigration still today.