1. Give an outline of how the American Dream is interpreted in texts 2, 3 and 4
Arnold Schwarzenegger recalls lessons from 25 years as a U.S. citizen – learn English, Participate in Politics and Give Back.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s text focuses on immigrants that came to America, to achieve ”The American Dream”. The American Dream from Arnold’s view is not about what you can acquire from America, as an immigrant, but what you can do to give something back.
His suggestions for giving something back is to first learn the English language, then contribute to the political course and at last help the community by donating, volunteering, mentoring a child, participating in a program, helping the less fortunate, doing community service, etc.
He rounds up by saying: “There is no second-tier citizenship. You are an American, period. With hard work, learning English and getting involved, there is no limit on what you can achieve”
Whose American Dream is it, anyway?
Anya Kamenetz’s article primarily emphasizes the economic side of the American Dream. The main problem she proposes is that the Americans are a lot more unenthusiastic about their lives now, then at any time in the past 50 years, probably because of the deteriorating economy and the high expenses for supply of essential resources.
One question that was raised in the article is if there’s a link between wealth and happiness. Anya refers to researcher Daniel Gilbert who discovered that once an average person earns more than 50.000 $ a year, that persons’ happiness won’t be greatly affected by getting a larger amount of money.
Another raised question is “What is our new American Dream?”. The world can’t bear the way we are treating it, and especially the way the Americans are treating it. If the total population of the earth used the same amount of resources as the Americans, we would need the same amount of