The Pursuit of Happyness Based on the true life events of Chris Gardner, now an American entrepreneur, investor, stock broker, author, and renowned speaker, The Pursuit of Happyness explores Chris Gardner’s ups and downs with homelessness in the early 1980’s. Gardner faces multiple struggles in his conquest to take care of his child as a single father, while also attempting to maintain a job and provide the basic necessities for primarily his son and himself when possible. Even as things begin to appear like they may be getting better for Gardner, they suddenly and continuously get much worse. However, through these crests and troughs in Gardner’s life, one can see Chris reflecting on and learning from his past, moving from a more individualized identity to a collective one, and displaying the spirit of generosity with what little he had. One of the most prevalent aspects of the movie from the beginning is Gardner learning from his past, more specifically his parents past, a theme also prevalent in Bordas’ text “Salsa, Soul, and Spirit”. In the text, Bordas uses the word Sankofa to mean reaching back and collecting experiences, values, and culture and to learn from them in order to avoid the drawbacks and stalemates of history. She says, “Sankofa rests on the foundation of the past, its feet are facing forward. This ancient symbol counsels us that the past is a pathway to understanding the present and creating a strong future.” (Bordas 28). Within the first few minutes of the film, Gardner recalls how his father had up and left his family before Gardner was even old enough to know him. He briefly recollects the terrible impact it had had on his mother and the rest of his family, especially the intolerable effect it had had on him. By allowing himself to go back to the painful past and reflect on the neglegation of his family by his father, Gardner was, in effect, also allowing himself to keep his past alive and accessible in order for it to feed his present. He tells himself that he is always going to make known to his little boy exactly who he is. Through this vow to himself, Gardner creates a strong future, not only for himself, but also for his son. He better understands why exactly he is where he’s at right now; he had no male role model to look up to, and can build a stronger relationship with his son in the future based off of his past knowledge. This dedication is ultimately what keeps Gardner fighting for his son throughout the film. According to Bordas, recalling these events and traditions is crucial to recovering power and wholeness, but for many it’s not about the time gone by, it’s about recent family history. Gardner, in recalling his terrible experiences with his father, is the perfect example of recovering power and wholeness through revisiting recent family history. In addition to this learning from the past, another relevant theme in both the Bordas text and The Pursuit of Happyness is people and societies moving from a more individualistic form of identity to one of collective identity. Bordas defines a collectivist society as one in which “people behave politely, act in a socially desirable manner, and respect others. The family, community, or tribe takes precedence over the individual, whose identity flows from the collective. People work for group success before personal credit or gain.” (Bordas 47). Although not extremely evident in the beginning of the film, a shift to collective identity becomes extremely prominent towards the middle of the movie when all of the struggles for Gardner begin to appear. In the beginning, Gardner, although he may appear to be working for his family, is primarily into it for himself. He is so determined to sell his bone density scanners, that he is willing to spend a months’ worth of groceries that could feed his entire family, to make one scanner. When his wife calls him out on this, he simply comes back at her claiming that it’s all for them; his son and his wife. Another squabble that Gardner and his wife get into involves him looking for another job. When he comes home to tell her that he found and unpaid internship at the stock brokers, his only legitimate reasoning for taking the internship is that it’s a good opportunity for himself. He implies that later on if he gets the money, then the internship will eventually be of benefit for his family. However, once again, his son and his wife come after himself. He gets the immediate benefit of the job as it is a good opportunity for him, but his family will only benefit from the unpaid internship if it later gets him a steady job. However, once his wife leaves both Gardner and their son, Chris begins to form a more collective identity. Now instead of it being simply himself that he must focus on, it is himself along with his son. This realization shifts Gardner’s focus drastically. Although exemplified in many scenes throughout the movie, the one that stood out the most is the scene in which Chris is taking his exam for his internship that ultimately determines whether he gets an official job with the stock brokers. Knowing that he must make it to the homeless shelter by 5:00 to ensure that him and his son and get a room for the night, Gardner rushes through his exam, ultimately putting his future career at risk. However, as Bordas emphasizes, Gardner is working more for the group success, or the success of him and his son, than he is for his own personal gain, which in this case would be getting the job he has always dreamed of. Therefore, he wants him and his son as the collective team to have a place to stay for the night, rather than focusing on him as the individual getting his dream job. Going hand in hand with this is, yet, another theme in “Salsa, Soul, and Spirit”: the display of generosity. In Bordas’ terms, generosity from a leadership stand point is to “nurture a social, political, and economic environment in which people can get their basic needs met, including decent housing, work, education, and health care.” (Bordas 60). Consistently throughout the film, Gardner is giving up his own needs for the basic necessities of his child that Bordas talks about here. Aside from rushing out of work each day to ensure that his son has a place to sleep each night, as mentioned before, Gardner is also willing to pass up meals for his son. With what little change Chris has in his pocket, he decides to take his son to a local café for a meal one day. Because he did not have enough money for two meals, he simply allowed the kid to get his own meal and sat back while he ate it. Not once did he stop the kid to ask for a bite or make him share. He put the necessities of someone other than himself, the collective community, before his own needs to better their condition. On another note, Gardner also gives up much of his limited time and limited money to those around him. When his boss jumps out of a taxi and is short by 5 dollars, Gardner mindlessly takes out a five dollar bill, the last of the money in his wallet, and gives it to his boss to pay the taxi driver. Soon after, Gardner’s boss asks for yet another favor. While running out the door on his way to an extremely important meeting, Gardner’s boss asks him to move his car. Although running late, Gardner accepts the request and, after several struggles with the car, successfully moves his boss car as directed. Gardner’s willingness to give up his own necessities and commitments for the sake of others not only represents his focus on a collective identity, or on a “we” society, but also accurately represents his display of generosity. Although approached and applied in an extremely differential way, Bordas text and The Pursuit of Happyness both relate in their extremely similar themes. Learning from the past, moving from individual to collective identity, and displaying the spirit of generosity are all the primary focal points for both of these publications, and both seemingly and accurately support one another through these similar themes.

Works Cited
Bordas, Juana. "A New Social Covenant." Salsa, Soul, and Spirit Leadership for a Multicultural Age. 1st ed. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2007. 23-75. Print.
The Pursuit of Happyness. Columbia Pictures Industries :, 2007. Film.