What the American Dream Had Neglected
The American Dream was full of opportunity with vital material prosperity allowed to bloom if one work hard to own their property. It swelled the hearts of people moving within or coming into the country; however, people did not see what lies beyond these. Dreams that does not face the reality and hardships tend to fail. The American "Dream" is not the exception. Americans created this sentiment called "The American Exceptionalism", where one would think their history of development and the way of life they established hold superiority over other cultures, which can be seen as a support to the act of division and ranking. Indeed, there were people from within the very nation that were discriminated and alienated from the mainstream— so-called the Anglo white males. Those who did not dream of the same "Dream" the mainstream had and had another dream, were neglected, marginalized, and silenced from the beginning.
1. The Dream of the Stolen
People were living in the American continent when Christopher Columbus arrived; those known as the Native Americans, lost their place of living, life and their culture. This shows that from the very beginning the Native Americans were excluded from the narrative of the American Dream. They are still fighting against what we call "Americans" right now for their liberty and the return of the ownership. As we are focusing on the East Asian culture and the notion of American Dream related, Native Americans are not regarded our research topic; however, those who are interested in this might find this video helpful.
2. The Dream of the Marginalized
Just as the beginning of the Americanization was unfair towards the Native Americans, people from Africa suffered a long time under the history of enslavement and racial discrimination. If Crevecoeur was like Turner, then he would have not written the Letter IX, which contains the dark side of the American Dream:
... While all is joy, festivity, and happiness in Charles-Town, ... They neither see, hear, nor feel for the woes of their poor slaves, from whose painful labours all their wealth proceeds. (Letters from an American Farmer)
From this, we can see that the so-called Anglo-white Americans were exploiting over African-Americans' labour to fulfill their wealth. Although they were liberated by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, they still had to face an enormous discrimination that remained in the American society which might be still in the process in modern days as well.
Not only African-Americans, but women or gender minorities were not part of the American Dream as well. They were regarded as not highly competent in intellectual domains such as politics, where they were excluded from suffrage. Also, even though the wartime period proved women to be able in fields that were once thought as domains of men, the domestic role that were imposed on women made it hard for them to enter public affairs. Also, along with the hostility toward the Communist ideology, the so-called 'Lavender Scare' influenced the American society during the postwar era, excluding gender minorities from the opportunity of achieving affluence.
Speaking of affluence, the capitalism practiced by the Americans divided the social structure into capitalists and workers, where the latter were frustrated by the contradiction of the system. Even though they once dreamed the American Dream, it did not welcome the poor and powerless laborers. This problem is not a very alien subject to us right now; the gap between the rich and the poor, the materialization of humans are still a problem to be solved.