Challenges of the American Dream

After reading the excerpt about Vine Deloria and her journey to America, i realized that it was very difficult for her culture because since she was of the Native American descent she was discriminated by others. They had to make changes to their lifestyle as they were forced to convert to religions like Christianity in order to be able to stay in their designated areas. The entire family of Deloria had to convert to this religion because if they did not change they could be in jeopardy if getting kicked out of their region and could risk losing their land. Vine's parents at first thought they would be able to incorporate Christianity into their lives, but over time they realize it was just not part of their culture and that they were better off having no religion at all. This Native American family just wanted to live the life of the American dream, but as they had to make several changes to their lifestyle they realized it was not as good as it was all hyped up to be. Vine described that the whites were clearly in power as they were able to take over the land of the Native Americans and demand many things. For example, in the excerpt she displayed the power of the white community as they demanded,  “you have ten thousand Indians living in an area with animals around.  You get two or three settlers there, and the animals and Indians leave”(37). This shows that the whites were completely superior to the minority's and were able to control the area that they lived in and how much land they got. One of the things that this can connect to from class is the Treat of Fort Laramie. This Treaty was when the United States government overtook the land of Native Americans along the Arkansas and Missouri Rivers. This shows that even though the Native Americans could have been living the dream for a moment it was shortly ruined when whites overpowered them and took their land. This can connect to many things in today's society in terms of things being overtaken by higher powers. For example, once I was waiting in a restaurant to get a table with my family and we were waiting for a long time. Even though we were first a celebrity walked in 40 minutes after us and was able to get a table right away. This shows that power in today's society is still used by others and that it does not really matter about the time of the arrival because the superior can always overpower others.

When reading the section about Andy Johnson it showed my that these immigrants had to go through a lot of difficulties in order to reach their dreams of making it to the United States. When he and his family had to emigrated to America from England they had to pass through Ellis Island which was one of the events that we discussed in class. They were forced to go through many procedure including literacy tests, paperwork, and were forced to wait several hours in order to pass through. For people like Johnson it was very hard to maintain any success in the states as he had come from a poor family. They had to make many changes to their lifestyles and Johnson explained it as he said "Coming to America was like being transferred from one century to another"(40). This shows that his family had to make several adjustments to this lifestyle. It shows that difficulties that they went through as his dad changed his job several times which forced his family to move a lot also.  His father was a miner, carpenter, farmer, and common laborer and he tried to do anything possible in order to supply for his family by getting higher paying jobs. Andy had to take part in this work at a young age as he was picked up by others to go and work with their companies. Many companies wanted young soles investing time in their work because they had better endurance in some areas compared to these older men. This can relate to today's society also because many companies are starting to hire more young citizens to work for their company because they feel that they are more durable compared to older men. This piece really helped me understand that many families had to go through several difficulties in order to make it to America and live a successful life.