The American Dream in East Asian Culture

  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      ...

  Now we know that the American Dream was not really equal and democratic to every people; what if there are other problems that were produced as a consequence of practicing it? Unfortunately, there are many other problems that our modern day society face whose root can be found in the American Dream.   Materialized Society   Capitalism is functioning as a global economic structure for most countries today. It is no surprise that capital is the very source for economic action— the way of living. Thus, people are starting to think everything around them in a capital value; we calculate the price of products and get paid of our labor in capital. What's more, in order to capitalize all tangible and intangible resources, people start to productize them. We even commercialize ourselves— humans. Consumption-based hobbies are becoming prevalent in our way of life as well.    Destruction of the Environment   The effective use of land was regarded a...