Hello and welcome to my podcast My Life and Other Funny Stories. My name is Dagmar Tomášková, I am an English tutor and coach and I created this podcast for English students who want to improve their oral comprehension. As always you can find the transcription of this episode and vocabulary list in the notes of the podcast. 

Today, I am bringing you a shorter episode about American culture. Specifically, we’re talking about one of the most famous ideas in the world — The American Dream.

It sounds nice, right? Like a shiny Hollywood movie where everyone gets a big house, a fancy car, and a fridge full of snacks. But what is the American Dream, really? Where did it come from? And — more importantly — does it still work today? So let’s get into it.

Where Did the American Dream Come From? 

The idea of the American Dream goes way back — and I mean waaay back.

It all started with the people who first came to America, hoping for a better life. They wanted freedom (being able to make your own choices), opportunity (the chance to improve your life), and equality (everyone being treated the same).

But the phrase „American Dream“ actually became popular in the 1930s — during the Great Depression (a time when the economy was really bad, and lots of people lost their jobs). The idea was simple: If you work hard, you can succeed — no matter who you are or where you come from. This was a very powerful message – America was always seen like this cool country where everything is possible. So people from all parts of the world usually escaped their countries in pursuit  in finding a better life and eventually their American dreams in the United States. 

The whole message of – work hard and you succeed – can be described by one English idiom that goes like this: „Pull yourself up by your bootstraps“ — This is an old idiom that means to succeed by working really hard, without anyone helping you. Basically, imagine trying to lift yourself into the air by pulling on your shoes. It sounds impossible, but that’s the point — hard work makes the impossible possible. We can use it in a sentence for example like this: He left school at 15 and pulled himself up by his bootstraps to ultimately become a boss of a huge company. 

What Does the American Dream Look Like? 

So, what even is the concept of the American Dream? And what do you have to have to achieve it? For a long time, people thought the American Dream looked like this:

• A good job (a career that pays well and feels stable — safe and reliable)
• A house with a white picket fence (a small, decorative fence around your yard — it became a symbol of having a perfect, happy family)
• A car in the driveway (because in America, you often need a car to get anywhere)
• 2 or max 3 kids where the woman is a housewife and the man is the breadwinner (a breadwinner is the person in the family who brings the most money and basically takes care of the whole family)

   

But the truth is, the American Dream isn’t really about the stuff. It’s about the idea — the belief that anyone can succeed if they try hard enough. I remember coming across this idea in Winnie the Pooh for the first time (Winnie the Pooh is Medvídek Pů in Czech). Do you remember Pooh’s human best friend Christopher Robin? In one episode, he doesn’t want to spend time with Pooh and his friends because he needs to focus on more adult-like responsibilities. Pooh and friends don’t take it lightly and decide to build him a house so that he can live his adult life. They build the floors and then – around the whole house- they put a white picket fence. The whole scene seems like they are trying to build a house and garden that is typical of being an adult in the United States – what the perfect person should have. But at the end of the episode, the whole house and the fence collapse. So now, everytime I think about the image of a beautiful house and white picket fence, I just think about the fact, that it is all just unrealistic and it will collapse. 

Is the American Dream Still Possible? 

Now, here’s where it gets tricky.

A lot of people argue that the American Dream isn’t what it used to be. Things have changed:

• Higher costs — Houses, college, and healthcare are all way more expensive than they were in the past. A majority of young people can’t afford a house in today’s economy.
• Wage gaps — This means some people earn a lot more money than others, even if they work just as hard. This wage gap can be seen as created by race, especially in the past but also by gender.
• Debt — A fancy word for money you owe — and many people have a lot of it.

I think that the American dream was always just that – a dream. And more specifically – an unrealistic dream. It was an idea of pushing workers to work harder – the idea that if you don’t have everything you want, you are not working hard enough. It was a way to attract people and cheap labor to come to the US and work jobs that no one wanted to do. Because the idea of coming to the US, starting with nothing, slowly getting yourself higher and higher in the hierarchy of society and ultimately making millions was very tempting for millions of people. The reality was more often than not that of struggle since the American society was always racially charged so it was almost impossible for some people, who weren’t white men with some money from the start, to succeed. 

Have you ever heard about the American Dream or is it the first time for you? Let me know, write me a message on Instagram!

That’s all for today! Thanks for listening to My Life and Other Funny Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe and share it with a friend. I’ll see you next time for another fun episode. Bye bye!