Why do we chase after the “American Dream?”
My housemates and I spent a weekend in Tucson last month learning about immigration and border issues [with the Borderlinks program]. At a house for immigrants on the Mexican border, I had dinner with a man who had lived in the States for several years before being deported. He was a young, single man with no children. Friendly and well-spoken, he was open to answering any questions we had. He spoke of returning to live in the US, and I saw dollar signs dancing through his dreams; he talked about his desire to have a nice house, two cars, and money to spare.
This is a common dream–and not just among Mexican and Central American immigrants. American citizens have the same dream. A spacious house with a white picket fence, a couple nice cars in a large garage, a big-screen TV in the family room, the newest technology–that’s America.But why?
We hear all sorts of stories about how money makes people miserable, how lottery winners’ lives fall apart after they collect, how the rich old man dies alone. Some of the happiest people I’ve seen are those whose lives aren’t cluttered by material possessions. I’ve heard friends talk about how much happier kids that they met at a Haitian orphanage are–laughing, content to play outside and use their imaginations rather than argue over the latest video game. You hear stories from Africa about people sharing their limited food or possessions with whoever they can and finding joy in the process. Please don’t mistake me to be lauding poverty or starvation; I mean simply to draw attention to the fact that the greatest joys often seem to be found in the lives of those who do not “have it all.”
When we’re chasing after The Dream, what we have never seems to be enough.There’s always another promotion, a newer phone/car/computer, a bigger house. It creates a culture of greed and dissatisfaction.
So why do we chase it? Why do immigrants risk their lives to achieve it? Is my understanding of the allure limited because I don’t know what it’s like to truly be in want? Can we really biblically justify the co-existence of the American Dream and the Christian lifestyle?
