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Traditionally, we think of the American dream as owning a home and having a happy family accompanied by financial success. Immigrants included dream in their visions about America as a promised land. Willa Cather's approach to the American Dream goes beyond this goal of happiness and success and shows the ephemeral character of the American Dream and how life is influenced by these destructive western dreams. The paper argues for western men and women's freedom to choose their lifestyles in the wild prairie but also deals with the elusive fulfillment of the American Dream when characters do not make the right choices in life and all that remains are regrets and lost choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American Dream is among the United States' most recognizable and revered symbols of our national heritage. Celebrated in popular culture, this statement of national purpose has been analyzed by commentators across the broad range of humanistic and scholarly disciplines, including American sociology. While sociology has developed a lengthy history of studies dedicated to 'the American way of life' and - to a lesser degree - the role of the American Dream in society, the work of sociologists from earlier eras arguably over-shadows many of the efforts undertaken since the millennium. The present paper argues that sociology is especially well suited to investigations and analyses of the role and impact of the American Dream and urges a re-dedication of sociological efforts to chart its meaning and influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores in what way forced migration experienced by the two male characters in Khalid Hosseini's The Kite Runner (2003), Amir and his father, Baba, shape their respective view of the American dream which is perceived to be closely related to personal freedom. This personal freedom materialises in peaceful living and prosperity, especially individual rights to accumulate wealth. However, along the course of their life in the new land, both Amir and Baba, have their own individual dream to achieve, emerging from different individual point of views. The different dreams, originating from the ideology each of the characters holds, are formed by how each of them value their homeland, root culture and the sentimental memories they evoke. All the bitterness, contentment, obscurities, regrets, glories and happiness they experienced in their homeland are intermingled in the process of each character's construction of ideology. To analyse the point at issue, Marxist criticism and postcolonial theory will serve as the basis of analysis. Marxist criticism is employed since it views the American dream as a construct of capitalism. Postcolonial theory specifically related to forced migration in the form of refugees is employed as the two male characters are forced to leave Afghanistan due to the civil war. The two contrasting, ideologically based views of each character, diverged in some ways yet converging in others, amalgamate somehow in their father-and-son relationship, both in their roles as refugees pursuing their better lives and as ordinary human beings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the representation of children as a "second lost generation" in John Dos Passos' novel The Big Money. It explains that the documentary and narrative sections that Dos Passos integrates into the novel explore how children's position in the 1930s is caught between parents' care and indifference. Dos Passos clarifies the impact of the American Dream and materialism upon the structuring of this conflicted position. In the novel's Newsreels, Dos Passos presents a composite of popular songs and news headlines that present children seeking jobs and also departing from their family houses. Alongside the presentation of this phenomenon which resonates with children's social situation in 1930s, in the narrative sections Dos Passos portrays Juvenile characters as living in families whose main concern is the making of money. To investigate this representation, the article considers the views of historians about the first "lost generation" (the post-World War I generation). It utilizes the "second lost generation" term to describe the juveniles who struggled during the 1930s age of Depression. The article historicizes the position of children in 1930s America. It refers to literary critics' views about Dos Passos' modernist and political inclination. The article concludes that Dos Passos' The Big Money manifests in a modernist form fragmented historical realities about 1930s America's materialistic thinking, within which children are seen as a second "lost generation". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

America's Safest City is an essential addition to the classics of criminological control theory, namely Travis Hirschi's Causes of Delinquency and Robert Sampson's Great American City. It provides new ideas about empathy and trust, and how social control is layered across institutions of family, schools, and community. America's Safest City is also about the American Dream of home ownership in advantageous suburban communities. But the American Dream is no longer as accessible to under-employed college graduates; their student debt is at all-time highs, with the return on educational investments increasingly in doubt. Instead of suburbia being a roadway to a good adult life, this paper suggests that it may increasingly look like a suburban 'cul de sac.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existentialism in literature is a movement or tendency that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. The prime aim of existentialism is to focus on the problems of human existence with a view to providing solutions. The existential concerns are existence before essence, alienation, estrangement, encounter with nothingness, freedom, choice and responsibility, fear, anxiety, finitude and temporality, emotional life of man, authentic existence, failure of communication, death and the like. Existentialism is a revolt against the impersonal nature of the modern industrial and technological age which has subordinated humans to machines. This paper examines the existentialist ethics that permeates the fabric of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949). The voice of excessive commercialism and money-mindedness that comes to co-exist with the increasing play of advanced technology and electronic gadgetry in the American economy tends to damage human responses. The protagonist, Willy loses the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy, and this behaviour alienates him from others, thereby diminishing his ability to survive in the present. Willy undergoes an existential crisis because he lacks a vision of his future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "American Dream" and "Working Class Promise" ideologies are ubiquitously dispersed in American society. These ideologies posit values of equality and opportunity. In this paper, I deconstruct these two ideologies in order to examine the effects these ideologies have on income inequality, social inequality, and social immobility. I argue these ideologies create a paradox in society whereby the more these ideologies are believed, the more the ideologies exacerbate income inequality, social inequality, and social immobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a few short years, the American Dream has dried up like a raisin in the sun. Massive foreclosures of the mid-to-late 2000s have left the status of the American Dream of homeownership in serious question. In this paper, I argue that in order to formulate new federal housing and homeownership policy goals, the underlying vision of property rights that informs such policy needs to be examined and re-oriented to one that recognizes the nature of property (specifically with regards to residences) as an interconnected and contextualized regime. In the decades following World War II, the federal government supported homeownership and egalitarian access to such ownership through legal regimes and rhetoric. The form this promotion took--the push for detached single-family houses--maps a model of property rights that values ownership, separation, autonomy, and a particular legitimate version of the "home." Despite this promotion, just before and during the Foreclosure Crisis of the mid-2000s, the federal government surprisingly abandoned this rhetoric and paradigm by moving towards a different model of property rights that treated the house as a commodity, evaluated like an investment and bound by the four corners of its mortgage contract. From this model, it could comfortably limit people's rights to their homes, especially for the 'irresponsible borrowers' amongst them. The use of both of these models has shifted the operation of property as a regime in the United States, and, as I argue, not for the better. After setting out this narrative, I argue for widening the context in which property rights, and therefore housing policy, are analyzed. I do not craft an entire alternate model of a property regime, but rather offer two perspectives that should, in part, constitute such a model (or models). In formulating these perspectives, I draw examples from the City of Baltimore to argue that property and housing policy should recognize (1) the interconnectedness of property as an institution and (2) the importance of the context in which the investment and contract surrounding a house were made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the implications of Hollywood's tendency to recycle formulas. It proposes a pattern of a recycled narrative structure which reinforces dominant ideologies and determines the mode of male representation in mainstream cinema, focusing on two specific cinematic eras – the classical period and 1990s Hollywood cinema. The comparison of these two periods reveals the mutual inter-reliance of notions that are still vital and evocative in cultural research – ideology and gender representation – and uncovers the tendencies and practices used by Hollywood to secure its dominant position in contemporary productions. It also discloses practices which, in Foucaultian terminology, help dominant ideologies engrave American mythology and reinforce "the pursuit of conformity" (Foucault 32-50). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The St. Louis house of famed fur trader-turned-entrepreneur Robert Campbell and his wife Virginia was preserved as a museum, with many of its 1850s furnishings and architectural features and thousands of the family's possessions and papers intact. Preservationists' mythologies of the Robert Campbell House as a remnant of the once-glorious Lucas Place neighborhood and a symbol of the American dream informed 1940s museum practice and continue to shape contemporary perceptions of the house. The house's unusual history and ambiguous status in today's downtown landscape enriched a multidisciplinary model for teaching undergraduate students about objects' complex and at times contradictory lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ideology plays an essential role in the cultural formation of American identity. The ideology of the American Dream, which is the foundation of the American identity, is a historically and culturally explained paradigm which, due to the lack of concrete physical reference and to the extreme subjectivity that it entails, has favored the emergence of theories regarding the illusionary aspect of the cultural image of the country. The paper approaches some such theories, including Baudrillard's famous "loss of the real" theory regarding the American cultural space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scholars have writtena lot about the world leader - USA- especially in the last 70 years. Between A. de Tocqueville's amazement and Paul Starobin recent analysis of Americanism many studies (articles, studies, monographs, ample books) have been written, each of them representing contributions to an idea thesaurus that put an imprint on the last century's generations. All of them are worth being taken into consideration. The studies enable free descriptions where the American dream is focused on negative phenomena, yet nonetheless important. They are important for both decoding some secrets connected with the mystery of USA and for grasping the increase and decrease of USA as a market leader. The present paper intends to explore the American democracy as it was understood by its founding fathers and the way it is nowadays [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the two films of the Taviani brothers through which the Tuscan directors have narrated the early 20th century Italian diaspora in the United States: the first episode of Kaos, the 1984 film based partly on Pirandello’s Novelle per un anno, and the 1987 film Good morning, Babylon. Besides analyzing various sequences of the films, especially those related to the departure, arrival and pursuit of the American dream, in this paper I explain how both films aimed not only to recall the relevance of a social-historical phenomenon such as the great migration, but also by reflecting on the present and the future, the films force us to focus on the drama of those who today are forced to leave their homeland in search of a better future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how to achieve financial independence by using the Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRIP) in conjunction with dollar cost averaging to purchase stocks of quality companies, paying increasing dividends. The formula derived in this paper uses historical data over the 15 year period from 1993 - 2007 to compute returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to bring to the reader's attention three perspectives on the American dream, as seen through the eyes of the main characters in three novels: In America by Susan Sontag, Amerika. The Missing Person by Franz Kafka and the more recent Immigrant, Montana by Amitava Kumar. The perspectives are different - from Maryna's story of failure and success as an actress in America in 1876, to Karl Rossmann's escape from Europe and incomplete adventure in America, to AK's sexual experiences that mark the steps of his adaptation to the new country -, but they share similar acculturation and transnational strategies. Common themes such as the ethnic identity, the idea of a "portable homeland" will be investigated, in an attempt to outline the fluid contours of the elusive American dream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In American Idol, fame is as readily won through harsh rejection as it is through approbation. As millions tune in each season to watch the dismissal of a tragic-comic parade of anti-stars, it becomes clear that something beyond mere reality-show ridicule is at work here. In failing, those rejected from American Idol succeed in authenticating certain understandings of the American Dream—obligatory ambition, individuality, and the necessity of failure in the process of achievement. This paper examines the negotiation of failure in American Idol, and addresses the question of why, in the end, losers sell just as well as winners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significance of race for socioeconomic attainment in the United States is a classic issue in stratification research that continues to be debated. The ascension of Barack Obama to the highest office in the United States, however, has intensified that debate, as Americans mull over the question of whether or not U.S. society has finally reached racial parity. On the heels of the election of Barack Obama as the first African American president of the United States, this paper examines the socioeconomic standing of Black America today. Analyses of the paper reveal significant variations by race and ethnicity, with Asians, Multiracials and Whites indicating substantially higher measures of socioeconomic status than Blacks and Native Americans and Hispanics indicating lower measures. Multivariate analysis of variations in hourly earnings show similar results, with one exception: Net of other controls, the difference in hourly earnings between Native Americans and Blacks is not statistically significant. These findings are discussed in the context of the enduring debate on the significance of race for socioeconomic attainment in contemporary America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Rosemary Radford Ruether on the theological and religious roots of the imperialist and violent ideology of the American Dream, one by Anna King on the issue of violence in relation to Islam, and one by Mary Condren on the journey into theology and philosophy which showed how the roots of violence are planted.

The increasing crime rate in a rapidly developing country like Malaysia has caused its citizens to feel unsafe. The Malaysian Government has to increase the police force and review its training programmes. This paper argues that even with the best trained police force, the crime rate will remain high. This is due to the highly capitalistic and materialistic culture of the Malaysian society that has led to the occurrence of elements of Robert Merton's (1938) theory of Anomie—excessive emphasis on monetary goals regardless of the moral status of the means used to achieve them. Steven Messner and Richard Rosenfeld's (2001) Institutional-Anomie theory states that anomic pressure arises when there is an overemphasis on the market ethic that undermines the regulatory power of social norms. This results in individuals feeling an overriding pressure to achieve and at the same time being confronted with weak normative restraints on legitimate means to achieve. The two theories suggest that certain cultural conditions, in combination with certain structural conditions, generate anomie and a high crime rate. At present, Malaysia's capitalistic and materialistic culture has generated cultural and structural conditions that are highly conducive to a high crime rate. Increasing the police force and improving policing will not be enough to reduce the high crime rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines interactions between a largely middle class-operated social service agency in Chicago's Chinatown, the Chinese American Cultural Center (CACC), and its new Chinese immigrant clientele. Using ethnographic data obtained from the agency's Chef Training Program, the research explores middle class Chinese-Americans' role as cultural brokers in initiating new immigrants into the dominant U.S. race and class system. I argue that CACC's management of recent Chinese immigrants' racial learning is grounded in a middle class racial ideology of strategic colorblindness, which ends up perpetuating new immigrants' racialized position at the bottom of the American labor hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is inspired by recent trends in narrative research that orient to the meaning-making actions of those involved in describing the life course. Applying concepts of narrative, discourse, and contrast, the complex meaning of growing up is presented by way of Lakeesha’s story, one of the 20 women interviewed for a project on African American gender socialization. Rather than viewing the participant in question as having been subject to the ostensible forces and parameters of socialization, she was offered the opportunity to represent her growing-up experiences in her own terms. She talked herself into being, situating herself as a particular type of women throughout her growing-up story — strategically employing and manipulating particular cultural discourses to do so. Lakeesha’s story is presented in this paper to illustrate a strategic model of narrative activity. In particular, I trace her use of the American Dream to analyze the ways that she situates herself with particular identities linked to local conceptions of successful womanhood. Methodological implications of this approach are considered in the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On February 2, 2023, Ilhan Omar took to the floor of the House of Representatives to address what being an American meant to her. Responding to Republican efforts to remove her from the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the representative for Minnesota's fifth congressional district asked, "Who gets to be an American? What opinions do you have to have to be counted as American?" In attacking Omar for her past comments on Israel and track record of criticizing U.S. foreign policy, House Republicans were conflating progressive politics with foreignness, arguing that this combination is subversive and represents a real threat to the American government and the stability of the nation. Indeed, the vote to remove Omar came just a few years after President Donald J. Trump had implored Omar and her progressive allies in "The Squad"—House Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib—to "go back" to the "crime infested places from which they came." Acknowledging how her race and identity were once again being used by Republicans to question her Americanness and delegitimize her politics, Omar offered the following rebuttal: Representation matters. Continuing to expand our ideas of who is American and who can partake in the American experiment is a good thing. I am an American ... Someone who knows what it means to have a shot at a better life here in the United States. And someone who believes in the American dream, in the American possibility and the promise, and the ability to voice that in a democratic process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This piece is a reflection on returning to the city where my dissertation research takes place after having to leave in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is about layered history, what we do not know, and the haunting of nonknowledge. It is also about the ways in which some refuse to see. My dissertation research is concerned with future imaginaries of urban dwelling and the environment in the American Southwest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald created a narrative frame intertwined with the historical discourse of the Dutch sailors and the American Dream. However, Fitzgerald's handling of the passing of time calls for another interpretation. Gatsby's past is to be intended both as a loss and as a source of strength. But the moment he "has" Daisy, Gatsby has come to the end of possibility. With this in mind, the narrative is not about Gatsby's love for the beautiful Daisy, wife of Tom Buchanan, ex-football star. Instead, it is the successful attempt to recapture the past, the paradoxical beauty of beating against the current. And in this purpose, there is no defeat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences / Afyon Kocatepe Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi is the property of Afyon Kocatepe University (AKU) Sosyal Bilimler Enstitusu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Flint, Michigan, was a booming city after the birth of General Motors. Citizens worked for the Company, and in turn, the Company provided a stable economy and a promising future. Education in the City taught children how to become workers, who eventually would join the workforce and continue the cycle. Homes were located just across the street from the plants, schools were nestled into the neighborhoods, wages were good, and unions were strong. Flint was a place where some version of the American Dream could be achieved. That was before General Motors decided to close most of the plants in the city. Today, Flint is a place filled with ghosts and forgotten people. In this paper, I will explore the history of this Lost City, specifically its history of racial containment, its relationship with General Motors, the creation of the Flint Water Crisis, and the ability over time for residents to truly achieve the American Dream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To overcome the global crisis, Portugal sought to internationalize its economy. Latin America, a region that grew steadily for a decade, has become a region of interest for the Iberian country. This article analyses the changes to the diplomatic and commercial schemes between both regions and explains how, when, by whom and through which strategies these relations have been modified. While Brazil continues to be the privileged partner, Portugal is strengthening its relationship with new strategic countries, primarily the components of the Pacific Alliance. As a result, the historical negative balance of trade became positive in 2012. The data show greater dynamism in commercial exchanges and political relations in recent years and the incorporation of new political actors designed to stimulate and deepen bilateral relations. Although several authors point to Portugal as a state that promotes economic diplomacy, this article suggests that what has prevailed in strengthening relations with Latin America is a commercial and business diplomacy, leaning heavily on key political actors and 'anchor' companies installed in the new markets. The ideological affinity of governments appears to be a determining factor in extending political and commercial ties. As other works have shown, this case study proves a positive correlation between trade/investment state agencies and diplomatic activities and the increase in bilateral trade flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African-American Dream is counter narrative to American Dream. To attract more people in American system of melting pot, America circulated a myth called American Dream. The idea was that any person irrespective of caste, creed, color and gender could rise above social ladder and become successful thereby rich, provided one works hard with sincerity. This paper argues that this popular version of American Dream was a nightmare for blacks in America. They could not realize or concretize it despite being hard workers, diligent and honest. Both the plays Mulatto and A Raisin in the Sun materialize this aspect. In the former Robert, a Mulatto boy is barred from attending the college by his white father. He cannot use his father's surname because his father is ashamed of accepting his intelligent son as his own. He cannot enter in his own father's hall through the front gate. Similarly, in the latter, a black family struggles hard to realize its dream of a better house in healthy neighbourhood. They want to buy a clean house in white neighbourhood so that they could live a healthy life but, unfortunately they are threatened to do the otherwise. Their money is stolen, and they are deprived of minimum basic chance of rising high up in their social position. Hence American Dream was only possible for whites not for blacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, it was taken as a given that an increased homeownership rate was a desirable goal. But after the financial crises and Great Recession, in which roughly eight million homes were foreclosed on and about $7 trillion in home equity was erased, economists and policymakers are re-evaluating the role of homeownership in the American Dream. Many question whether the American Dream should really include homeownership or instead focus more on other aspects of upward mobility, and most acknowledge that homeownership is not for everyone. We take a detailed look at US homeownership from three different perspectives: 1) an international perspective, comparing US homeownership rates with those of other nations; 2) a demographic perspective, examining the correlation between changes in the US homeownership rate between 1985 and 2015 and factors like age, race/ethnicity, education, family status, and income; 3) and, a financial benefits perspective, using national data since 2002 to calculate the internal rate of return to homeownership compared to alternative investments. Our overall conclusion: homeownership is a valuable institution. While two decades of policies in the 1990s and early 2000s may have put too much faith in the benefits of homeownership, the pendulum seems to have swung too far the other way, and many now may have too little faith in homeownership as part of the American Dream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article brings the sociological theory of governmentality to bear on a longitudinal analysis of American presidential speeches to theorize the formation of the citizen-consumer subject. This 40-year historical analysis—which extends through four economic recessions and the presidential terms of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama—illustrates the ways in which the national mythology of the American Dream has been linked to the political ideology of the state to create the citizen-consumer subject in the United States. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data demonstrates 1) the consistent emphasis on responsibility as a key moral value, albeit meshed with ideals of liberalism and libertarianism at different presidential periods; 2) that the presidents iteratively link the neoliberal political ideology and the national mythology of the American Dream through a sophisticated morality play myth, wherein they cast the citizen-consumer as a responsible moral hero on a journey to achieve the American Dream; and 3) that the presidents use three main dispositives—disciplinary, legal, and security—to craft the citizen-consumer subject in their response to economic recessions. These findings extend prior consumer research on consumer subjectivity, consumer moralism, marketplace mythology, and politics of consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the role of public policy in the formation of strong families that are necessary in reviving the American Dream. It discusses empirical evidence confirming the assumption of history's greatest thinkers that a strong family helps drive economic growth, personal well-being and social cohesion. It argues that current federal law discourages the formation of strong families in important ways, which affects attainment of the American Dream.

After experiencing a floor-heated 'Korean room' in Tokyo in the 1910s (possibly in 1920), Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) applied its operating principle to his Usonian houses, starting with the Jacobs House I (1936–7). Successively, Wright's heating method, along with other Usonian features, was applied to many postwar mass-produced houses, particularly those by Levitt & Sons in New York and Eichler Homes in California, two representative housing development companies in mid-century America. In their tract housing projects undertaken for about two decades from the late 1940s, floor heating (what is generally called 'radiant heating') was attractive not only owing to its thermal comfort but also because its slab system without a basement made construction inexpensive and expeditious. Although research on Levitt and Eichler homes has often mentioned the new heating method in relation to Wright's influence, they could hardly identify the inspiration that Wright drew from Korea. Bridging the gap, this study argues that the Korean floor-heating idea disseminated to postwar mass-produced houses in America through Wright. Considering that their affordable houses were targeted at ordinary families seeking the American dream in a renewed social context, it can be said that Korean heat warmed the American dream, albeit indirectly. Ultimately, this radiated Korean heat would illustrate how one culture influences another, resulting in cultural cross-fertilisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter argues that modern societies are changing in ways that disrupt the complementarity between social structure and character structure. One source of this divergence occurs because, on the one hand, there exists a "neoliberal" character structure that is oriented toward the accumulation of human capital and holds that such accumulation and hard work will allow one to achieve the "American Dream." On the other hand, the deep embeddedness of this character structure may in fact deepen the possibility of structural crisis, as developments in automation and ongoing transformations of labor continuously shift the economic structure and many feel they are employed in meaningless "soul crushing" jobs. This diagnosis prompts the question: is the accumulation of human capital futile? In other words, can there exist an abundance of jobs that simultaneously pay enough to provide a middle-class lifestyle and be both socially respected by most members of society while also providing subjective meaning for the individual – without accruing high social costs? Through reflections upon my own biography growing up in East Tennessee, this chapter utilizes the framework of Planetary Sociology to encourage sociologists to rethink the category of "human capital" and recognize the divergence of social structure and character structure to be a serious problem with planetary implications. Only by critical examination of the sociohistoric context from a planetary perspective can these challenges be constructively evaluated and reckoned with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay seeks to situate discussions of seminal Filipino intellectual Carlos Bulosan's (1946)America Is in the Heart, an early twentieth century autobiographical novel, within the literary trope of the "American dream," and trace the themes present in his work within contemporary recorded experiences, or in this case, contemporary twenty-first century interviews: in-depth qualitative interviews and personal testimonies of Filipino American citizens. I will highlight the historical and ongoing ethos that Asian American immigrants face with respect to their citizenship, their relationship to the host-nation, or specifically the United States, and the sacrifices that have accompanied attempts of attaining the American dream. The US formally colonized the Philippines during the early twentieth century, a historical relationship that complicates this inquiry. Given the postcolonial dynamic, or that the Philippines is the only Asian country that the United States colonized on a clearly public policy level, how might this historical relation of power shape postcolonial citizenship? Moreover, how might Bulosan's understandings of citizenship connect with Filipino Americans' notions of the American dream in the early twenty-first century? By reflecting through an interdisciplinary approach, I directly place into conversation a seminal Filipino American thinker from the twentieth century vis-à-vis Filipino Americans in the twenty-first century to interrogate notions of belonging and identity within the framework of the American dream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925) is one of the most famous novels of the 20th century. The novel critiques the American Dream, which is portrayed through Gatsby's love for Daisy and moral decay of American society during the Jazz Age. With its content and form, The Great Gatsby shows very much the effort of Fitzgerald's development of various narrative techniques. Therefore, this study sheds light on several theories about narrative techniques suggested by theorists like Gérard Genette, Phelan, and others. These techniques will be applied to the novel, focusing on Genett's three textual factors; Time, Focalization, and narration which are used to explore themes such as wealth, power, love, and morality, as well as the corrupting influence of materialism and the conflict between classes. The novel is written in the first-person omniscient point of view, where the perspective is limited to how Nick, the narrator, perceives the events; he uses the word "I" to describe events as he experiences and witnesses them. Nick's perspective is essential to understanding the motivations and actions of the characters, and it is through his observations that the reader gains insight into the story's themes and ideas. This raises the question of the reliability of the narrator and to what extent the reader is affected by this point of view. Furthermore, considering the narrative techniques suggested in this novel, this study will explore the extent to which the narrator is considered reliable or not. The narrator's reliability will be investigated depending on the flow of events and the narrative techniques employed in the novel and how they contribute to the reader's perception of the events and characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Articulation of commencement speeches in US colleges through legitimating strategies. • Legitimation at the crossroads of Critical Discourse Analysis and Metaphor Analysis. • Multifunctional nature of metaphors in US colleges' commencement speeches. • Meritocracy and common good as core values in the narrative of the American Dream. Following an interdisciplinary approach anchored in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA), this article focuses on a genre which has flourished particularly at US colleges and universities: commencement speeches. The aim is to analyze this type of public communication from the perspective of legitimation, as part of CDA, to uncover the ideology behind this social practice, which functions as a rite of passage into adulthood. This paper proposes the study of four strategies, which flesh out all commencement speeches, as key points in a genre which emphasizes the core values in American society such as meritocracy and common good as constituting elements of the American Dream: (a) authorization; (b) self-commitment; (c) altruism; and (d) mythopoesis, where conceptual metaphors, within the framework of CMA, will be highlighted. The use of each strategy is illustrated with examples taken from 15 commencement speeches (2015–2019). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contributing to efforts to "de-whiten" the communication discipline, this study centers the lived experiences of Filipinos and Filipino/a/x Americans as they navigate whiteness, assimilation, and colonialism in the United States. To contextualize how they discursively negotiate with the structures of power that (dis)advantage them, this study theoretically links postcolonialism, whiteness, and differential adaptation. Qualitative methods were utilized by interviewing 25 participants and conducting critical thematic analysis. Findings indicate that participants (de)legitimize whiteness, (dis)obey assimilation, and (mis)recognize colonialism. Discussion suggests how participants engaged in performative assimilation, paradoxical postcolonialism, and panoptic whiteness. Finally, different trajectories for Filipinos and Filipino/a/x Americans are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Sociology: Bulletin of the Yerevan State University / Banber Erevani Hamalsarani. Sots'iologia is the property of Publishing House of Yerevan State University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Americans have long believed in upward mobility and the narrative of the American Dream. Even in the face of rising income inequality and substantial empirical evidence that economic mobility has declined in recent decades, many Americans remain convinced of the prospects for upward mobility. What explains this disconnect? I argue that their media diets play an important role in explaining this puzzle. Specifically, contemporary Americans are watching a record number of entertainment TV programs that emphasize "rags‐to‐riches" narratives. I demonstrate that such shows have become a ubiquitous part of the media landscape over the last two decades. Online and lab‐in‐the‐field experiments as well as national surveys show that exposure to these programs increases viewers' beliefs in the American Dream and promotes internal attributions of wealth. Media exemplars present in what Americans leisurely consume every day can powerfully distort economic perceptions and have important implications for public preferences for economic redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contextualizes the popular sitcom Schitt's Creek within an era of unprecedented economic inequality and growing distain for the ultrawealthy. Via its over-the-top and self-effacing humor, the program invites audiences to discipline the Rose family for their former life of leisure and ultimately celebrate as each character is transformed into an ideal neoliberal subject via economic precarity and entrepreneurism. Through an analysis of the show's 6 seasons, this essay articulates how the myth of the American Dream has adapted to neoliberal ideology that prizes precarity as a state of possibility and rejects leisure as laziness. Schitt's Creek is emblematic of the way televisual rhetorics leverage myth and morality to maintain support for capitalism in times of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]